In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4–8, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), America’s most comprehensive literacy organization, in partnership with Penguin Random House (PRH) Education, the apparel and accessories company Out of Print, celebrated for their licensed literary-themed products, and Hot Chalk, a fast-rising online education company, is excited to present its newly created #tomyteacher campaign. In a series of individual video messages posted to NCTE’s website, twelve of today’s leading authors tell their personal stories of appreciation for teachers who had a profound impact on their lives. While their stories are singular, they all share a commonality: a deep sense of gratitude for the educators who were indelible inspirations for beginning their journeys to become successful writers.
The authors’ stories will be posted on tomyteachers.org alphabetically, in daily intervals, throughout the week. The following authors will be featured: Dan Brown; Rob Buyea; Chris Emdin; Jamie Ford; Erin Gruwell; Khaled Hosseini; Brad Meltzer; Naomi Novik; Mary Pope Osborne; Jodi Picoult; Tony Wagner; Jacqueline Woodson.
Visitors to the NCTE site are encouraged to share one or more of the author messages. They also can post their own messages of teacher support to their own social media, with the hashtag #tomyteacher. There is also an option to purchase book-related items through the Out of Print website, with a portion of those proceeds going to directly support NCTE’s work with educators, when using the code TEACHER25.
Along with their #tomyteacher campaign, NCTE and PRH continue their awards program that recognizes innovative work in support of literacy through direct teacher grants: the NCTE and Penguin Random House Teacher Award for Lifelong Readers & Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry. The awards deadline is May 31. Applications can be submitted here.
