In this interactive workshop for educators and those supporting young people, hear from award-winning author/professor David Bowles and ELA teacher-librarian Julia E. Torres about ways to bolster multilingual learners in today’s educational environments, and come away equipped with culturally and linguistically responsive pedagogical practices to engage students. 

Discuss vocabulary and practices to re-define literacy and the role of language in educational systems and analyze the latest work of scholar-practitioners who have developed resources specifically for multilingual learners.  

The instructors will be offering their tips to support writing instruction that include validating students’ actual literacies and languages, choose linguistically and culturally appropriate texts for the classroom, help students root their authorial voices in place and identity, and much more.

**Download the information sheet for this workshop here.**

JULIA E. TORRES is a veteran language arts teacher-librarian in Denver, Colorado. Julia facilitates teacher development workshops rooted in the areas of anti-racist education, equity and access in literacy and librarianship, and education as a practice of liberation. Julia works with students and teachers locally and around the country with the goal of empowering them to use literacy to fuel resistance and positive social transformation. Julia also serves on several local and national boards and committees promoting educational equity and progressivism. She is the current NCTE Secondary Representative-at-large, a Book Love Foundation board member and Educator Collaborative Book Ambassador.

DAVID BOWLES is an award-winning Latino author of books for children and teens that incorporate Spanish in authentic ways. He is also an associate professor of adolescent literature and Nahuatl at the University of Texas Río Grande Valley, where he serves as coordinator of the English Education program, preparing pre-service teachers to center students through the use of inclusive, authentic, and linguistically diverse texts. David’s articles have been published in venues such as School Library Journal, English Journal, Translation Review, The New York Times, and the Journal of Children’s Literature. In 2017, David was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.