With literacy educators facing book bans, rapid changes in technology and mounting professional pressures, NCTE’s 2026 convention is intended to give teachers time and space to exchange ideas and expertise. The National Council of Teachers of English expects nearly 7,000 attendees in Philadelphia from November 19–22 for its 115th annual convention at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. That scale makes the event more than a sequence of talks: it’s a chance for people doing similar work in different schools to compare what they’re seeing and how they’re responding. Teachers often have limited time for that kind of peer exchange during the school day.
This year’s theme, “Imagine. Innovate. Inspire.,” puts teaching practice and professional support at the center. NCTE executive director Emily Kirkpatrick says the theme asks educators to imagine new approaches to teaching and respond to emerging policies, with innovation and inspiration as ways to move forward. The wording is broad, but the pressure behind it is concrete: teachers are being asked to make decisions about books, technology and classroom practice while conditions around them keep changing. A convention can’t settle those questions for every school. It can give educators a place to examine them together.
More support for first-time attendees
Making the convention accessible is part of NCTE’s effort to encourage teacher-to-teacher mentoring, which members say is increasingly hard to fit into the school day. The organization’s scholarship program has more than doubled, and author and literacy advocate Alane Adams, through her Rise Up Foundation, is paying for 100 K–12 classroom teachers to attend for the first time. The support addresses a practical barrier: professional gatherings take time and money, and teachers may not be able to attend without help. Bringing more first-time participants into the room could also broaden the range of classroom experience represented in those discussions.
Adams is also supporting a reception for first-time attendees. Kirkpatrick describes the welcome as a deliberate signal that teachers deserve the esteem afforded to other professions. That gesture matters because a convention can feel difficult to enter if you don’t already know people or understand how its sessions work. A reception won’t solve the larger pressures teachers face, but it can make the first step into a professional community less isolating.
For Kirkpatrick, the gathering’s focus ultimately comes back to reading. She says educators need to affirm its value and help students find books in print, digital and audio formats. The range of formats matters because students encounter stories in different ways, while access alone doesn’t guarantee that a book will hold their attention. Connecting students with literature that speaks to their interests and concerns takes expertise, she says, and the convention gives teachers a chance to build it. This is more significant than it looks: matching a reader with a book depends on judgment, listening and knowledge of what’s available, not just a reading list.
Sessions span formats and subjects
Audio will have a dedicated place at the event. NCTE and OverDrive are creating an audiobook listening studio opposite the registration area, where authors and narrators will discuss the work behind bringing books to life. The format gives attendees a chance to consider the people and choices involved in producing an audiobook, alongside the reading experience itself. For educators weighing how audio fits into literacy instruction, those conversations may offer useful ideas to take back to the classroom.
The keynote roster includes authors Toni Adeyemi, Margaret Atwood, LeVar Burton, Dave Eggers and Clint Smith, as well as Jill Biden and Misty Copeland. Thursday morning’s program features 20 half-day workshops, which require separate registration and payment. Topics include classroom AI and media literacy; a Build Your Stack workshop on graphic novels will be led by authors Victoria Jamieson and Jason DeHart. The subjects point to the breadth of questions teachers are handling, from how to assess new tools to how to help students make sense of the media they encounter. Here's the thing: a packed program creates choice, but it also asks attendees to decide which sessions best fit the problems they’re trying to solve.
The exhibit hall, with 150 publisher and vendor booths, opens Friday morning. Across the four-day convention, attendees can choose from more than 1,000 concurrent educational sessions and hear from nearly 300 authors. With concurrent sessions, no one person can take in everything; the value lies partly in selecting a path and sharing what you learn with colleagues afterward. And yet, the sheer range can help teachers find conversations that speak to their particular students and classroom needs. For teachers attending for the first time, planning ahead may make the program easier to navigate.
A tribute to Ernest Morrell
Some attendees are expected to wear items bearing the phrase “teaching makes you eternal,” attributed to literacy scholar and former NCTE president Ernest Morrell, who died in February. The phrase links teaching to the lasting influence educators can have through their students and the ideas they pass along. Morrell also helped develop the newly launched NCTE 100 Teachers Study with the Notre Dame Center for Literacy Education and UCLA. The study aims to amplify the knowledge and perspectives of high school English teachers, whose daily work can be difficult to capture in discussions shaped largely by policy or theory.
Kirkpatrick calls the phrase a powerful tribute and says it can help attract people to teaching and encourage them to stay. That’s an ambitious hope, and a slogan by itself can’t ease professional pressure. Its meaning depends on whether the profession gives teachers the support and recognition it calls for. The convention’s mix of practical sessions, author events and peer connection puts that commitment to educators into action, at least for the people able to attend. A meeting, not a remedy.
What the gathering can offer
The convention’s themes and program suggest that NCTE sees professional connection as part of the work of teaching, especially when educators are navigating disputes over books and changes in classroom technology. Those issues don’t have one answer that fits every school. Comparing approaches can help teachers test their assumptions, learn from colleagues and return with a clearer sense of the choices available to them.
If you're working in this space, the practical question is what can travel from a convention session into a real classroom: a better way to discuss a book, a more informed approach to audio or a sharper understanding of media literacy. The program offers many possible starting points, but its usefulness will depend on what attendees can adapt to their students and share with peers. That said, the focus on first-time teachers and mentoring recognizes a basic constraint: expertise grows through exchange, and exchange needs time and access.
