Educational Organizations

A State-Level Organization

The purpose of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English is to disseminate resources and information that allow English teachers in our state to improve their craft. This is very relevant to me as a future English teacher. The MCTE's website is rather simple, but it offers many readily-available critical resources for Michigan educators. 

The only social media site that the MCTE offers is a Facebook page, on which teachers share encouragement and advice with one another, as well as information about upcoming books and informational events and conferences. 

MCTE membership costs is $40 per year. It is not immediately clear from the website what the benefits are of being a member, because there is a publication and there is also an eMet newsletter, but they can be accessed for free on the MCTE website without membership. The MCTE provides information for viewing the secondary focused Language Arts Journal of Michigan. 

There are a couple of events advertised on the MCTE site, including the MCTE fall conference (which I am coincidentally planning to attend in East Lansing on October 30). This event is hosted annually. 

As I was exploring this website, I was surprised to find the name of one of my GVSU professors on the site. He is a co-editor for the Language Arts Journal of Michigan. It reminded me that I am connected to a great community of educators just by being a part of the university that I call home. 

The website for the MCTE can be found at: http://mcte.info/calendar/

A National Organization

The National Council of Teachers of English, or NCTE, offers great resources specifically for English teachers. According to the website, their mission statement is to "promot[e] the development of literacy, the use of language to construct personal and public worlds and to achieve full participation in society, through the learning and teaching of English and the related arts and sciences of language."  Because English is my major content area, I find this site to be specialized for my educational interests. 
The social media sites on the NCTE's website include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram. These accounts offer creative ideas for teachers to share, as well as encouraging words and announcements from ELA-related educational journals.

The standard membership fee for joining the NCTE is $50 per year, but there is also a discounted rate for students of $25 annually. One of the member resources offered is "community discussion," which essentially refers to sharing book proposals, lesson ideas, views on educational issues and forum discussion threads between ELA teachers. 

The NCTE offers an e-newsletter, as well as a publication for members. There are also several different scholarly journals offered through the NCTE which are divided by age relevancy. There are two journals devoted to high school English education, called English Journal and English Leadership Quarterly. 

There is an annual convention hosted by the NCTE, but the organization also offersinformation on other events that educators may want to attend. For example, the website offers a link for information on the CCCC Convention or the National African American Read-In. 

I was intrigued to find that the NCTE's website also has an online store, where teachers can purchase literature related to their age level or specific content area, such as grammar, writing, or poetry. I think that the communicative resources available on the NCTE's website are a great resource. 

Their website can be found at: http://www.ncte.org/