The 2022 Annual Meeting is fast approaching! Below are some useful tips to help you prepare so you can have the best conference experience possible.

The address of the Arizona Grand Resort & Spa is 8000 S. Arizona Grand Parkway, Phoenix, AZ 85055.

Conveniently located less than 10 minutes from Sky Harbor International Airport, Arizona Grand is easily accessible via I-10 and US-60, offering quick connections to numerous other major freeways.

The Arizona Grand Resort & Spa does not provide a shuttle to and from the airport. An Uber/Lyft fare is estimated to be $20-$30 depending on the time of day. Alternatively, you can contact the resort’s Valet Services to assist with transportation arrangements at 602.438.9000.

Other nearby accommodations to the conference site include (all within one mile): Ramada by Wyndham Tempe/At Arizona Mills Mall, TownePlace Suites by Marriott Tempe at Arizona Mills Mall, SpringHill Suites Tempe at Arizona Mills Mall, Sonesta ES Suites Tempe

Note: These hotels do not provide shuttle transport.

Projected Weather:

Sunday, November 27 – High: 69 Low: 46

Monday, November 28 – High: 69 Low: 45

Tuesday, November 29 – High: 67 Low: 45

Wednesday, November 30 – High: 68 Low: 44

Thursday, December 1 – High: 75 Low: 51

Friday, December 2 – High: 73 Low: 48

Saturday, December 3 – High: 68 Low: 43

In addition the dining options at the property, there are a number of places nearby. Below is just a sampling of places close to the Arizona Grand.

Starbucks – 2415 W Baseline Rd., Tempe, AZ 85283

In-N-Out Burger – 2405 W Baseline Rd., Tempe, AZ 85283

Arizona Mills Shopping Center – 5000 S Arizona Mills Cir, Tempe, AZ 85282

Fry’s Food and Drug – 2700 W Baseline Rd., Tempe, AZ 85283

Chanpen Thai Cuisine – 2700 W Baseline Rd., Tempe, AZ 85283

Boba & Donuts – 2700 W Baseline Rd., Tempe, AZ 85283

The association is thrilled to hear from LRA President David Yaden, Oscar S. Causey Award Recipient Arlette Willis, Distinguished Scholar Award Recipient Guadalupe Valdés, the esteemed Bryan Brayboy, the acclaimed Angela Valenzuela, and an Integrative Research Review Panel which includes panelists Allison Skerrett, Catherine Compton-Lilly, Marcus Croom, and Mary McVee. 

The online program can be viewed on LRA’s All-Academic site. The pdf program will be released in the coming days. Registrants will be notified as soon as it is published.

Voted one of the “Top 10 Fitness Facilities in Arizona” the 20,000 square foot Arizona Grand Athletic Club is open from 5am – 8pm Monday thru Friday and from 6am – 8pm Saturday and Sunday.

Please do not tape, tack or pin paper, signs, or any other materials to walls or structures belonging to the hotel. Doing so damages paint and wall paper by leaving holes, adhesive or peeling.

You can view the latest COVID recommendations here. To register for the LRA conference, please visit the LRA website.

The Literacy Research Association welcomes Arlette Ingram Willis, the Oscar S. Causey award plenary speaker, who received the award in 2021. The Award, named for Dr. Oscar Causey, founder of LRA, ,was first presented in 1967. The award is bestowed annually to recognize an LRA member who has made outstanding contributions to literacy research.

The title of Willis’ Oscar S. Causey address is “ Revolutionizing Literacy: The Life of Omar ibn Said, Written by Himself. In her presentation, Willis analytically examines the role of literacy in Omar ibn Said’s life as informed by African cultures, ethnicities, histories, languages, and literacies in the Senegambia region, and the history of Black literacy access in the US. In his autobiography, Omar ibn Said stealthily applies sophisticated literacy skills to contest living under anti-Black racism and chattel enslavement through his rhetorical and strategic use of Quranic surahs and verses. Early translations and interpretations of his autobiography, written by English-dominant White men, literate in ancient Arabic, filtered through Eurocentrism and White supremacy, failed to discern Omar ibn Said’s proclamation of his humanity and bold condemnation of chattel enslavement. Scholars with expertise in African history and Islam, valorize his resilience as an African Muslim who remained faithful to Islam under anti-Black racism, the horrors of chattel enslavement, and attempts at Christian conversion.

The autobiography dismantles prevailing assumptions about people of African descent as sub-human, without culture, history, intellect, language, or literacy. It also revolutionizes what we know about the history of literacy in the US; provides authenticated knowledge of literacy among people of African descent; exposes the pervasiveness of White supremacy; and unveils the roots of deliberate anti-Black literacy laws, policies, and practices, historically and contemporaneously. To create an equitable approach to literacy, we must begin with authenticated knowledge to transcend the past and present.

Arlette Ingram Willis received her Ph. D. from The Ohio State University. She is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the division of Language and Literacy. Her scholarship interrogates how race and racism are framed in reading research, examines secondary pre-service English teacher education, and applies critical theories to literacy policy and research. Willis has on-going research collaborations with colleagues in Brazil, Columbia, and New Zealand who examine the influence of Paulo Freire’s theorizing and instruction. Her books include Teaching and Using Multicultural Literature in Grades 9-12: Moving Beyond the Canon (1998), Reading Comprehension Research and Testing in the US: Undercurrents of Race, Class, and Power in the Struggle for Meaning (2008); and forthcoming Anti-Black Racism and anti-Black Literacy in the US. In addition, she has co-edited four books: Multiple and Intersecting Identities in Qualitative Research (with B. Merchant, 2001); Multicultural Issues in Literacy Research and Practice (with G. Garcia, R. Barrera, & V. Harris, 2003); On Critically Conscious Research: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research (with M. Montovan, H. Hall, C. Hunter, L. Burke, & A. Herrera, A., 2008); and Affirming Black Students’ Lives and Literacies: Bearing Witness (with G. Thompson-McMillan & P. Smith).

Willis has published numerous refereed articles, book chapters, book reviews, and monographs. She also has served as co-editor (with D. Bloome) for the National Council of Teachers of English Literacy Book Series, and co-editor (with V. J. Harris) for the American Education Research Journal, Teaching, Learning, and Human Development. Willis has received several national meritorious awards, including the John J. Gumperz Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Scholarship, Reading Hall of Fame, and the Oscar S. Causey Award. She is a Fulbright Scholar (2013-2014), past president of the Literacy Research Association (2014), and past president of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, (2007-2008). In addition, at the University of Illinois she has received several awards for her scholarship: University Scholar Award, 2000; Campus Award for Excellence in Guiding Undergraduate Research, 2001; and University Distinguished Teacher/Scholar, 2002-2003; as well as several College of Education awards including the Distinguished Scholar Award, 1999; Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, 1998, 2000; and Distinguished Teaching Career Award, 2010.

Willis joins an esteemed list of plenary speakers and panelists slated to speak at this year’s conference. Read more about each of the sessions below:

· Bryan Brayboy

· Guadalupe Valdes

· Angela Valenzuela

· Integrative Research Panel Review

You can view the latest COVID recommendations here. To register for the LRA conference, please visit the LRA website.

The Literacy Research Association welcomes Dr. Allison Skerrett as one of its speakers for the 72^nd Annual Conference as part of LRA’s Integrative Research Review Panel. LRA’s IRR Panel Session, titled ‘Review and Scholarly Syntheses as Anti-Racist Action’ will focus specifically on the silencing of and importance of BIPOC authors and scholars, along with the history of their work and global impact. Skerrett’s presentation is titled: Banned Books and Banners for Change: Literacy Education for Troubled Times. Dr. Skerrett studies and examines recent research on how younger people of color employ literacies to connect and engage with their worlds. Drawing upon literacy research and mainstream social and political commentary, Skerrett explores how young people have fared in relation to a global health crisis, the heightened visibility of violence against black and other marginalized people, and social and political unrest and activism, including the political censorship of texts. Skerrett posits that how young people have activated and deployed literacies provides an alternative to discourses about “learning loss” and a “COVID-19 Generation.” While these discourses may intend to address the vulnerabilities of young people, she names the possible layering of additional deficit perspectives upon young people that further obscures their resilience and innovation.

Allison Skerrett is a professor of language and literacy studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin. She also serves as the Director of Teacher Education for the College of Education. Dr. Skerrett’s research primarily centers on youth literacy practices and secondary English education in urban and transnational contexts. She has been a member of the Literacy Research Association since 2007 and has served in several roles, including as a former member of the LRA Board of Directors, and is currently one of the editors of the Journal of Literacy Research. Included among her scholarly works are the following books: Teaching Transnational Youth—Literacy and Education in a Changing World (2015) and Teaching Literacy in Troubled Times: Identity, Inquiry, and Social Action at the Heart of Instruction (2022) co-authored with Peter Smagorinsky.

View the latest COVID-19 recommendations here. To register for LRA’s 2022 Annual Conference, please visit the LRA website.

The Literacy Research Association welcomes Mary B. McVee as one of its speakers for the 72^nd Annual Conference as part of LRA’s Integrative Research Review Panel. LRA’s IRR Panel Session, titled ‘Review and Scholarly Syntheses as Anti-Racist Action’ will focus specifically on the silencing of and importance of BIPOC authors and scholars, along with the history of their work and global impact.

McVee’s meta synthesis, titled: Racial Positioning and Emotion in Stories of Literacy Teachers: Transgressing Boundaries and Borders, co-authored with Aijuan Cun, University of New Mexico and Kristian Douglas, Clark Atlanta University, will draw inspiration from Bonilla-Silva’s idea of “racialized emotions”, focusing on the relationships between racial positioning and emotion. The review focuses on studies of teachers and teacher educators in educational and professional learning contexts that foreground race, literacy, and racialized positions through narratives, narrative research, or counter-narratives. This review will elaborate and address questions such as: “What racialized emotions are identified by researchers? What emotions are represented by researchers? What is the relationship between positions and racialized emotions?”

Mary McVee is Professor of Literacy Education and the Director of the Center for Literacy and Reading Instruction at the University of Buffalo, SUNY. McVee received her doctoral degree in 1999 from Michigan State University and undergraduate degree in 1988 from the University of Montana. McVee uses her expertise in literacy, culture, and narrative as a tool for conducting research in the field of education. Her research traverses positioning theory; narrative, social and embodied learning; digital literacies and multimodality; multimodal communication and disciplinary literacies in children’s engineering; and diversities of language, literacy, and culture. She is currently lead editor on the Routledge International Handbook of Positioning Theory (McVee, Van Langenhove, Brock and Christensen), which is the first interdisciplinary handbook on positioning theory. Her most recent book, co-authored with Lisa Roof, is The experiences of refugee youth from Burma in an American high school: Countering deficit-based narratives through student voice (Routledge).

View the latest COVID-19 recommendations here. To register for LRA’s 2022 Annual Conference, please visit the LRA website.

The Literacy Research Association welcomes Marcus Croom as one of its speakers for the 72^nd Annual Conference as part of LRA’s Integrative Research Review Panel. LRA’s IRR Panel Session, titled ‘Review and Scholarly Syntheses as Anti-Racist Action’ will focus specifically on the silencing of and importance of BIPOC authors and scholars, along with the history of their work and global impact. Croom’s topic: Characterizing and Traversing Racial Literacies Scholarship focuses on discussing and characterizing racial literacies scholarships, as well as, highlighting examples in order to present possibilities for traversing and advancing this literature toward post-White futures.

Croom is an assistant professor in Literacy, Culture and Language Education and an adjunct assistant professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington (IUB). He started his career in research through the Literacy, Language and Culture program, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He aims to document teachers’ understandings of race and determine how these understandings impact teacher efficacy, student identification, and other teaching practices. As a race critical researcher, he focuses on race and literacies within educator preparation and educator development in American schooling. Specifically, teaching and learning that is practiced with the post-White orientation. He generates knowledge through practice of race theory (PRT), qualitative methods, and case study, more so in race critical practice analysis.

Croom’s mission is to cultivate more human fulfillment and mitigate human suffering. Holistically, his work consists of using research and experience to assist others with developing racial literacies, which in turn can advance the justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts of schools, universities, businesses, organizations, and communities. Noted works that Croom has authored include: Real talk? How to discuss race, racism, and politics in 21st century American schools, “Black Lives Matter panel: A generous invitation to The Archive”, and “A case study from “Barracoon: The story of the last ‘Black Cargo'” with practice of race theory.”

To register for LRA’s 2022 Annual Conference, please visit the LRA website.

LRA takes the health and safety of its personnel and all guests at events very seriously. We remain mindful that COVID-19 variants and considerations for the health of attendees must be a priority.

To ensure everyone’s health and safety, all attendees are strongly encouraged to take a COVID-19 test prior to attending the conference. 

Please do not attend the event if within ten (10) days preceding the event, you have tested positive or been diagnosed with COVID or other communicable disease; or experienced any new or unexplained symptoms commonly associated with COVID or other communicable disease. 

Although proof of vaccination is not required for attendance this year, in accordance with CDC recommendations, we  encourage attendees to get vaccinated and boosted if eligible and able to do so.

The CDC has recently revised its guidelines for mask wearing based on COVID-19 Community Levels. The current Community Level for Phoenix, Arizona is “Low,” so conference attendees may choose to wear a mask based on personal preference, informed by personal level of risk. 

Similar to last year’s conference, color coded stickers will be available for attendees to place on their badges to indicate their social interaction level.

For example:

• Green = hugs and handshakes
• Yellow = elbow and fist bumps
• Red = air high fives