Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English
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    • The Black God's Drums >
      • The Black God's Drums Reviews
      • Black God's Drums Lesson Plans
    • Review of Cicada
    • Child of the Dream
    • A drop of hope
    • Wish you all the best
    • Music of What Happens
    • Riverdale
    • Homegoing
    • Maybe This Time
    • Moon Within
    • The Outwalkers
    • Focused
    • Take the Mic
    • Merci Suárez Changes Gears
    • Guts
    • Bone Hollow
    • The Book of Boy
    • #NotYourPrincess
    • It's a Whole Spiel
    • A Spark of Light
    • Six Goodbyes We Never Said
    • The Forgotten Girl
    • Inhuman
  • Online unit plans

                 Welcome to the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English


​Affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English
​
NCTE Affiliate Website of Excellence Award Winner 

2020 Oklahoma English Journal now LIVE! 

Virtual Recharge Registration

register here

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​Since we will be unable to offer our Fall Conference as normal, we have planned eight different Zoom workshops through the spring of 2021 to continue to provide the high-quality professional development you get with our chapter. 

The first session will be Oct. 24 and we will wrap up on March 23. All sessions will be slated from 10-11 a.m. via Zoom. Please fill out the registration form (linked below) and indicate which of the eight sessions to plan to attend. You will receive an email prior to each session you selected with the link and password to access the Zoom workshop.
  • Oct 24 - Jason Stephenson - A Year of ELA Resources
  • Nov. 7 - Lindsey Cherry - Becoming a More Effective Online Educator
  • Dec. 5 - Dr. Lara Searcy, Brogan Spears and Sydney Belmonte - StampED: A Unit on Racism, Antiracism, and You. 
  • Jan. 23 - Dr. Kimberly Stormer, Dr. Sonia Mae Brown, and Dr. Wonderful Faison - It's Not the Language; It Could Be You: Critical Self-Reflection in ELA
  • Feb. 6 - Danielle O'Rourke - Independent Reading as a Journey, Not the Destination
  • Feb. 20 - Dr. Sarah J. Donovan - Multimodal Quick Writes for Choice, Voice, and Healing
  • March 6 - Jennifer Williams - Literary Theories & YA Literature
  • March 27 - Dr. Shelbie Witte and Jo Flory with other guests - Writing the Past, Changing the Future: A Century of Learning about the 1921 Race Massacre
Please follow our website: http://www.okcte.org/ and social media for updates!

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Young Writers Contest now open!

OKCTE invites the young writers of Oklahoma, grades 6-12, to enter the Young Writers Contest for a chance to have their work published in our annual anthology and celebrated in an awards ceremony.

For more information about the contest, please click HERE to access this year's flyer with video links to tips for each of the six different types of submissions for the contest. 

Submission MUST use the form link HERE.

Deadline for entry will be January 15, 2020 and winners will be notified in March 2021 with a publication of our anthology slated for April 2021

For more information, please reach out to Dr. Sarah Donovan at sarah.j.donovan@okstate.edu ​

Click here for OKCTE's official statement on racism and education.

Click the button on the right for the latest from the Oklahoma State Department of Education on Distance Learning resources.
OSDE Resources
Click on the button to check out unit plans adapted for online learning
Online unit plans

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​She sees in their eyes
 

I see in her closed eyes, a poet, 
a concrete garden statue of a young woman, 
cast with love, beauty in her 
streams, her flows of grayness, 
sweetness in her look, her pose, 
configured as though in meditation, 
in composing a poem of life, 
searching what she sees inside herself 
all that is outside. 
 
She sees rhythms of black and white
within and without
and ponders the colors 
of sympathy, love and understanding. 
 
She contemplates the fossilized vertebra
upon which she sits, perhaps a brontosaurus
once reaching its long, graceful neck
and delicate face to the stream beneath, 
soft tongue lapping in and out of mossy shadows 
swirling smooth eddies whispering light and dark

​beckoning fresh images to her canvas 
flowing colors to find a place in the natural world 
for the women and men, so many women and men she sees 
gray no names trudging the path singing like walking statues
music boxes inside just going just going just going 
everyone she sees trudges and sings.


​She sees in their eyes, the marchers, 
some of them, who clutch tightly 
honesty, love of self, of race, of humanity, 
a wanting for recognition as human beings, 
a fierceness, a wanting of change of change of change 
inside themselves, a wanting for love, 
fairness, respect, dignity, a need for wholeness, 
for life without a rot of fear so deep within 
that it is there in sleep, in walking, in art, 
in love, in dreams, in going to the store for a bag of peanuts, 
in eating a hamburger. 
 
In others she sees searching, 
looking into the eyes of their brothers and sisters, 
mothers and fathers, for a relief of feeling lost, 
buffaloes in the middle of the herd, 
running to run, from the wolves, 
survival overpowering everything else, 
not being trampled in the thunder, 
not being sure where they are going, 
wanting to know, wanting to hope, 
feeling the warmth of companions, 
wanting to survive, wanting not 
to go on in the same way, 
wanting a clear, sharp, defined life, 
willing to die for it all. 


​Still others, just there, to be counted, 
maybe reaching to feel it, 
needing to feel it, thinking of something else, 
waiting for it to end. 
 
In each one, passion for all, 
in each one, a need for control.
 
She sees in the eyes of “The Thinker” 
what Rodin intended, then
what Dante intended, then, 
in “The Circles of Hell,”
and what she sees now, 
the folly of intention, 
the truth of human minds 
who see inside the eyes of art, 
mingling with its creative artist, 
releasing their souls into the souls 
of brush, chisel, and word, 
feeling for a taste of truth.  
 
She sees in me herself, and I into her, 
a poet, a painter, in my eyes a searcher 
for truth, so elusive, so undefined, 
so clear when it is absent.

Painting & poem by Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English member Michael Angelotti. Contact: mangelotti@ou.edu


​Congratulations to our 2020 Young Writers Winners



With over 25 winners in
six different categories, it is
undeniable that Oklahoma youth
​have something impressive to say.


​Although we were not able to celebrate you in person, we are honored to share your work with our members.

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Access the online anthology HERE

2020 ​Geraldine Burns Award for Excellence in English Education Recipients

Sunny Bennett – Northeastern State University
Carrie Boyle - University of Central Oklahoma
Baylee Bozarth – USAO
Paula Carleen Heitland – East Central University
Jessica Crespino – Oklahoma Christian University
Lyndsie Denham – Oklahoma State University
Lauren Garner Brown – Southwestern Oklahoma State University
Stormy Howell – University of Oklahoma
Leila Kytta – Northeastern State University
Grace Lueck – Oklahoma Baptist University
​Brooke Purkey – Cameron University
Brad Rowan – Oklahoma State University

​For more OKCTE information - Get in Touch With Us

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  • Home
  • Membership
  • About
  • OK English Journal
  • OKCTE Voices
  • Professional Learning
  • teachOK
  • OK Writing Projects
  • OSCTE
  • Resources
  • Photos and Artwork
  • Executive Board
  • New book reviews
    • The Black God's Drums >
      • The Black God's Drums Reviews
      • Black God's Drums Lesson Plans
    • Review of Cicada
    • Child of the Dream
    • A drop of hope
    • Wish you all the best
    • Music of What Happens
    • Riverdale
    • Homegoing
    • Maybe This Time
    • Moon Within
    • The Outwalkers
    • Focused
    • Take the Mic
    • Merci Suárez Changes Gears
    • Guts
    • Bone Hollow
    • The Book of Boy
    • #NotYourPrincess
    • It's a Whole Spiel
    • A Spark of Light
    • Six Goodbyes We Never Said
    • The Forgotten Girl
    • Inhuman
  • Online unit plans