CLA Board of Director Candidate Statements for 2021-2023 Term

All candidates responded to the following prompt:
"The Children's Literature Assembly (CLA) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is a professional community of children’s literature enthusiasts who advocate the centrality of literature in children’s academic and personal lives. We believe every teacher needs a wide and extensive knowledge base of books published for children and young adults. With this in mind, please create a statement for the ballot (200-word maximum) that speaks to how you envision working with and for the Assembly as a Board Member. Please include any relevant qualifications within your statement."
Click the candidates' names below to read their statements
S. Adam Crawley, Assistant Professor of Literacy Education, Oklahoma State University
In 2011, my fifth graders crafted artifacts inspired by Joyce Sidman’s poetry to display at the annual breakfast. That experience began my CLA involvement. I’ve since served on the communications committee and chaired the inaugural student committee, the latter of which launched three initiatives with CLA Board support: NCTE socials to promote CLA membership, webinar to engage with an established CLA member-scholar, and travel grants to aid NCTE conference attendance. I now serve as Master Class co-chair in preparation for the 2021 event. I am a Research Award past recipient and review for the Journal of Children’s Literature. Outside of CLA, I assisted with the Georgia Children’s Book Awards and Conference, presented and taught internationally about children’s literature, am a USBBY member, and collaborate with colleagues to physically and virtually host children’s authors and illustrators as guest speakers at our university. I value the power and potential of children’s literature for people of all ages. I’d be honored to serve on the Board as I begin my next decade with CLA. As a Board member, I’d collaborate with CLA leadership to sustain current offerings, develop new opportunities for members and youth, and challenge ourselves toward continued diversity and equity work.
Mollie Welsh Kruger, Graduate Faculty, Instructor & Advisor, Bank Street College of Education
I have been a NCTE member since 2008; Soon after, I began attending the CLA breakfast at the annual convention. There, I realized that there was a group that unites to share out about children’s literature in the hope of building ideas and information. As a NYC second grade teacher, I utilized well-placed read alouds, and watched my students grow. Currently, I teach at Bank Street College of Education. Since my arrival, I have participated in the Children’s Book Committee which has published a list of the ‘best books of the year,’ which opens opportunities to look even more closely at children’ s books. It is my hope to be a more contributing member of this organization that supports educators in finding great books to meet the needs of their students- and the learning opportunities surrounding them and their students. CLA celebrates children’s books and the authors and illustrators who create them, from journals, book awards, and cultivating a larger learning body. I would like to take on a larger role within this established group with shared intentions: supporting teachers in finding, utilizing, and loving children’s literature, as a means of spreading the joy of engagement with children and families.

Lisa Patrick, Marie Clay Endowed Chair in Reading Recovery & Early Literacy Assistant Clinical Professor, The Ohio State University
My love for reading aloud began at an early age: I was two years old when my little sister was born, and she provided me with my first captive audience. My love of reading aloud has continued to blossom: One of my greatest joys in my role as the Marie Clay Endowed Chair at The Ohio State University is reading picturebooks to groups of students and teachers. I research responsive teaching in the context of Interactive Read Aloud, as well as artistic writing in the academy and using found poetry to promote transactional reading relationships. I served on the US Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury for the 2018 award, and I served on NCTE’s Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children committee from 2016-2019. In 2019, I presented at seven international, national, and regional literacy conferences. I am happiest inhabiting spaces with teachers and students at the intersection of children’s literature and early literacy. One of my favorite spaces is found in the third edition of Charlotte Huck’s Children’s Literature: A Brief Guide (2019), written by Kiefer, Tyson, Barger, Sanders and myself. By serving on CLA’s board, I hope to spread my passion for book joy to a wider audience
Kathryn Pole, Associate Professor, Literacy Studies, University of Texas at Arlington
I teach children’s literature courses that focus on diversity, inclusion, and critical perspectives, and work with university pre-service teachers and graduates interested in exploring diverse literature and how there can be increased access to it in schools. I have published in the area of critical literacy in early childhood, including studies that were grounded in diverse children’s literature. As a member of the Children’s Literature Assembly, I review manuscripts for the Journal Children’s Literature. I also serve on selection committees for professional organizations that identify award-winning authors and children’s literature. I have a PhD in Literacy Education, a Master’s degree in Library Science, and more children’s books in my home than I have places to store them. One of the most fun things about reading so much children’s literature is identifying organizations such as a mobile library that serves children who live too far to walk to a public library, and doing my best to keep their shelves stocked with great new books. As a Board Member for the CLA, I will advocate for an inclusive focus on literature that celebrates diversity, and promote access to high quality literature for all children.
Marla Robertson, Assistant Professor, Literacy Education, Utah State University
I love books! My kids will tell you that we had bookcases in almost every room in our house when they were growing up, and they all now have bookshelves of books in their own homes. In my work with preservice teachers, I have noticed a lack of knowledge about current children’s literature in general, particularly about high- interest informational texts. This led me to conduct and publish research on nonfiction books that are primarily used to learn, but also to help kids get excited about reading and learning about their world. I teach the Teaching with Children’s Literature and Informational Texts graduate level course at my university, and I love helping teachers share their passion for literature and learn more about how to use the fabulous array of books available to help their students learn to be engaged, informed readers and writers. I’ve found over the years that if teachers aren’t familiar with current children’s literature, they won’t introduce it to their students. Thus, my goal on the CLA Board would be to assist teachers in finding ways to get more books in the hands of kids, focusing on the plethora of existing and upcoming nonfiction books for children.
Katie Sciurba, Assistant Professor of Literacy Education and Director, San Diego State University Literacy Center
It is truly an honor to have been nominated to serve as a Board Member of the Children’s Literature Assembly (CLA). For the last 20 years, I have been deeply invested in the examination of children’s literature and young people’s literacies – beginning as a picture book author, then as a New York City public school teacher, and now as a scholar and teacher educator. In each of these roles, I have striven to challenge inequities in representation and to broaden understandings of textual relevance, particularly in relationship to the (literacy) experiences of Black boys and young men. In these critical times, where anti-Blackness and White supremacy are permeating children’s lives in unspeakably profound ways, I believe that the production and analysis of children’s literature – and those of us who center it in our lives – have the potential to create powerful counternarratives for the next generation of young readers, educators, and researchers. As a Board Member, I will work with and for CLA to take active steps to transform our collective passion for children’s literature into work that achieves justice within and beyond classroom settings. And I will heed the calls of those urging our field in the direction of new stories.
Sara K. Sterner, Assistant Professor of Education, Humboldt State University
I am an assistant professor of education and program co-lead in my second year at Humboldt State University. My work as a teacher educator concentrates on antiracist pedagogical practices, elementary literacy and social studies education, and the promotion of inclusive children’s and adolescent literature. Guiding preservice elementary teachers to understand how dominant reading experiences shape their literacy practices to more fully embrace inclusive texts that are beneficial to all readers is a central theme of my scholarship and teaching. These commitments were born out of my fourteen years as a K-6 teacher, a closely held reader identity, and a lifelong passion for children’s literature. In my work, I seek to productively disrupt the normalizing discourses of whiteness in literature for young people, promote anti-bias oriented social studies education, and guide preservice teachers to racial consciousness and a social justice orientation toward the texts they use in their classrooms. I envision bringing these experiences, along with my systems thinking approach to organization and task completion, to my service as a member of the CLA Board. Having previously served on the CLA Student Committee and been a recipient of the CLA Research Award, it would be an honor to serve.
Angela Wiseman, Associate Professor of Literacy Education, North Carolina State University
As a former elementary school teacher, children’s literature was integral to all aspects of my interactions with my students - we used it to laugh, understand the world, and consider each other’s perspectives. Now, I am an associate professor of literacy education and I use children’s literature in all aspects of my work, including a trauma-informed family literacy program for fathers who are separated from their children due to substance-use disorders, homelessness and incarceration. I was the co-editor of the Journal of Children’s Literature from 2016-2019 and currently serve on the social media committee. (If you follow us on Twitter or FB, you’ve probably seen my notifications!). I would appreciate the opportunity to continue to serve the Children’s Literature Assembly as a board member. If given the opportunity to serve, I would like to continue the mission of promoting children’s literature in practice and research and also advocate for ways to expand our reach in communities and professional networks. I am particularly interested in the initiatives that support diversity and inclusion
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Please submit your ballot by Friday, October 16, 2020

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