Here are just a few news items from BLTNers over the course of the 2022-23 academic year. Please feel free to update us on awards, presentations, new roles, or programs via comments below or an email to bltn@middlebury.edu .

Fallon Abel (MA ’19) received a Fulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Research to “develop project-based, student-directed Social Emotional Learning (SEL) curricula for teens at TSA and other VT schools that will help address the rising behavioral and mental health issues we’ve been seeing.” Fallon spent the spring semester in Helsinki. She has designed a collaborative BLTN project with a Finnish colleague, supported by Change Action Grant, for the upcoming school year.

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Gladys Gitau-Damaskos told of her experience with the 2018 Columbia Gas crisis in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on the PBS show “Stories from the Stage” on October 31. A writer, artist, and teacher from Lawrence, Gitau-Damaskos comments in the piece, “I think justice for me means telling the story, making sure there is a record of something happening. A lot of times when things happen to marginalized communities, a lot of folks with power will erase that story….[W]hen we seek justice…we have to tell the story so it exists in the public record.”

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BLTN’s Monica Rowley and Dr. Bethany Wiggin from the University of Pennsylvania’s Program in Environmental Humanities’ presented to the BLTN NextGen Youth Advisory Board on November 16. They introduced  My Climate Story, a Penn Program in Environmental Humanities’ public research project, where Monica is a “Climate Champion Teacher.” Rowley and Wiggin invited youth to contribute climate stories to the project.

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On December 3, BLTN teachers Heather Jones, Evelyn Begody (MA ’02), and Monica Rowley joined an interdisciplinary and international cohort of experts and educators to discuss educational approaches to the global specter of nuclear arms. The BLTN teachers were invited by event organizer Masako Toki, Senior Project Manager and Research Associate at the James Martin Center, and director of its Critical Issues Forum. The Kathryn Wasserman Davis Collaborative in Conflict Transformation provided support for the gathering. Rowley’s students continued with the program and presented their project ideas at the Critical Issues Forum conference in April.

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BLTN NextGen Youth from the Aiken and Louisville sites were keynote speakers on the second day of “Building Bridges and Raising Voices,” the annual conference of the South Carolina Council of Teachers of English to be held in Myrtle Beach, SC, January 13 and 14, 2023. Young people from the two NextGen sites relayed their insights into inclusive teaching practices, drawing from personal stories. They then facilitated discussion based on writing prompts engaging teachers in reflection on how they “build bridges” with students.

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On February 6th, 2023, the Atlanta Board of Education recognized the contributions of “These Halls Can Talk” (THCT) to Atlanta Public Schools. THCT is the non-profit organization run by Shaleisa Brewer (MA ’22) and students to record oral histories of students, staff, and alumni of Atlanta’s historic Booker T. Washington High School. THCT also serves as BLTN NextGen’s Atlanta site. In March, Brewer and youth from THCT traveled to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. to explore how they can fit Washington High School in the larger narrative of African American History. 

In March, Mary Baillie gave a presentation and workshop with high-school students at The Presidential School in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. The session covered applying to universities in the United States, including the nature of interviews and components of applications.

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¡Felicidades! to Alfredo Celedón Luján (MA ’18) on his retirement after FIFTY YEARS of teaching. Alfredo taught for twenty-four years at the Pojoaque Valley Schools, for four at the Native American Prep School, and then for twenty-two more at Monte del Sol Charter School. Along the way, he coached basketball and volleyball at Santa Fe Prep School for eighteen years. Throughout his writing-rich and accolade-filled career, Alfredo has been a dear friend to Bread Loaf and to BL(R)TN. As a network advisor to BLRTN, he helped root the network in New Mexico, where he has been revered as the Director’s Assistant to the New Mexico campus, the Town Crier of Anderson Commons, El Jefe de Dawn Patrol, and a friend to all. During Alfredo’s tenure on the Presidential Team of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE President, 2021), Alfredo helped to forge and strengthen alliances between NCTE and BLTN, including arranging for NextGen youth to perform monologues in the 2020 ¡Confluencia! opening session with Joy Harjo.

“How can I say Bread Loaf changed my life without being cliché or sounding sappy?  But it’s true; everything after Bread Loaf 1982–Paul Cubeta, Ken Macrorie (voice authenticity), Dixie Goswami, Jim Maddox (thank you for the best summer job ever!), Emily Bartels, and many mentors, including Cheryl Glenn–has led to self-identity, professional development, two Masters Degrees (proud to be the first Chicano to graduate from The Mountain), publications, life-long friendships, beautiful campuses, the greatest balcony vista in Santa Fe, and best of all, a Bread Loaf wife and children.  NCTE leadership would not have happened without Bread Loaf.  Serendipity. Add BL(R)TN to my good fortune.  Networking has worked — thank you, Dixie, Jim, Rocky, and Tom.  I was fortunate to have read “The Aim of the School” in the Bread Loaf “Rural and Small Town Teachers” brochure in 1980.  Without that scholarship, everything after 1982 would have been an alternate reality. Lucky me. Lucky me: I took the road less traveled, ‘And that has made all the difference.’ “

Alfredo’s response to our prompt for advice to young teachers: “If I were to advise young teachers, I would say, ‘Create your own teacher-learner magic (with the help of others): Carpé mañana.'”

-Alfredo Celédon Luján

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Lauren Davenport and Rabiah Khalil will present “Insight on Sight: An Intercultural and Interschool Literacy Project” at the NCTE Annual Convention in Columbus, Ohio November 16–19, 2023. They will be joined by Tom McKenna (MA ’96) and a BLTN NextGen team presenting “Networked Literacy and Youth Social Action: BLTN Next Generation Leadership Network.” Meet BLTN colleagues at a social with appetizers and drinks on Friday, November 17, at Barley’s Brewing Company near the venue in Columbus. Stay tuned via BreadWeb or the newsletter for times. (Please reply in comments if you’re presenting, too, and we’ll add you to the lists!)

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What’s the Story? The Young Filmmakers Social Action Team (WTS) launches year nine next year. What’s the Story?  is a program for secondary students to use filmmaking to research, understand, and take action on a social topic that they decide. Currently, Tim O’Leary (MA ’07) of WTS is gathering interest to build our next cohort. Interest can come from individual secondary students. WTS has the capacity to accept ten “at-large” students into our program for next year. Students can apply online. Additionally, we partner with other pre-existing groups where at least one adult mentor and two students join from that location. This year, that scenario is playing out in Wyoming, South Carolina, New Mexico, and Kentucky. For more information or to connect your group with our program for next year, find out more about WTS at the link above and reach out to Tim at whatsthestoryvt@gmail.com. The program is always free to youth and adults, made possible with generous funding from Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English and the SNAVE Foundation.

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The Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS), one of our BLTN NextGen sites, completed a series of four indigenous-themed youth-led writing workshops during the 2022-23 school year. The workshops were collaboratively supported by SFIS, its 21st Century Grant program, Write to Change, and BLTN. BLTN’s Susan Miera (MA ’94), Alicia Fritz, and Michael Martinez collaborated for this year’s program.

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Welcome, Gillian Zieger, BLTN’s administrative accomplice. She replaces Dianne Baroz, who takes Elaine Lathrop’s role in Vermont campus coordination. Gillian comes to us with a background in teaching,  library science, writing centers, and mothering lovely young humans. “I’m thrilled to begin my second summer with BLSE in Vermont and to meet the BLTN family,” she remarks. “Stop by Inn West Seminar any time!” Gillian can be reached by email at gzieger@middlebury.edu or via direct message on BreadWeb.