Page 9 - 2019 Reading Summit Event Guide: Chicago

PRESENTERS
Aeriale N. Johnson is a second-grade teacher in San Jose, California. She is National Board Certi ed, specializing in early-middle childhood literacy. Aeriale frequently presents at the ILA Conference and the NCTE Convention. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms fellowship, which took her to India to study the modern-day impact of the vestiges of colonialism on government schools. She also received a Global Teacher Fellowship from the Rural School and Community Trust to study Reggio-inspired schools in Italy. Aeriale is a Heinemann Fellow, Cohort 2. Her current action research is focused on empowering multi-lingual children who experience trauma and poverty. Find her on Twitter @arcticisleteach.
Varian Johnson is the author of nine novels, including The Parker Inheritance, which received four starred reviews and was named a 2018 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild selection, a Spring 2018 Kids’ Indie Next List pick, and winner of the Coretta Scott King Honor award. His middle-grade caper novel, The Great Greene Heist, has been named to over
25 state reading and best-of lists. In addition, Varian has written for the Spirit Animals: Fall of the Beasts middle-grade fantasy series, as well as novels and short stories for YA audiences. Varian was born in Florence, South Carolina,
and attended the University of Oklahoma, where he received a B.S. in Civil Engineering. He later received an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is honored to now be a member of the faculty. Varian lives outside of Austin, Texas, with his family. Find him on Twitter @varianjohnson.
Jennifer LaGarde is a lifelong teacher and learner, with over 20 years in public education. Her educational passions include leveraging technology to help students develop authentic reading lives and meeting the unique needs of students living in poverty. A huge fan of YA Literature, Jennifer currently lives, works, reads, and drinks lots of co ee in Olympia, Washington. She is also the co- author of the recently published book, Fact vs. Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Fake News. Find her at librarygirl.net or on Twitter @jenniferlagarde.
Clare Landrigan is a sta developer who is still a teacher at heart. She began her career twenty- ve years ago teaching in an integrated rst and second-grade classroom at the Eliot Pearson Children’s School in Medford, MA. She then spent four years as an educational consultant for Tufts University in the Center for Applied Development. Her next professional home was Wayland, Massachusetts, as the co-director of curriculum for English Language Arts. She now leads a private sta development business, Teachers for Teachers, and spends her
days partnering with school systems to implement best practices in the eld of literacy. She believes that e ective professional development includes side-by- side teaching; analysis of student work; mutual trust; respect; and a good dose of laughter. She is the co-author of It’s All About the Books published by Heinemann and Assessment in Perspective published by Stenhouse. You can nd her online @Teachers forTeachers where she blogs about books and the art of teaching, and on Twitter.
Photo credit: Kenneth B. Gall