TOPSHAM

Three Mt. Ararat High School English teachers recently attended the National Council of Teachers of English annual conference in Chicago, where longtime teacher Claudette Brassil received the organization’s National High School Teachers of Excellence Award.

According to a press release issued by the NCTE, Brassil is a member of the Maine Council of English Language Arts and one of 15 high school teachers nationwide awarded this year. The award winners were publicly announced at the annual convention Nov. 19.

In addition to Brassil’s award, English teacher Emily Vail attended the convention and presented a workshop titled: “In This Merry Company: Reading, Writing, and Playing Through Canterbury.”

The school’s English department head, Stewart Palmer, also attended the convention in Chicago which spanned from Nov. 17 to Nov. 20. Palmer said the large annual convention is for elementary, middle, secondary and college instructors and estimated there may have been as many as 8,000 attendees this year, which was also the 100th year of the convention. The event features many notable guest speakers, published authors, as well as hundreds of workshops sessions led by teachers over six days.

In an email to The Times Record about the experience, Palmer wrote that Brassil was awarded an NCTE National High School Teacher of Excellence award following her nomination by the Maine affiliate, the Maine Council for English Language Arts.

Brassil “ is in her fifth decade of teaching at Mt. Ararat and has given her heart and soul to this school from day 1,” Palmer wrote. “Few teachers have had the wide ranging, positive impact on students in the SAD 75 district that Mrs. Brassil has. She well deserved this honor at such a prestigious event on a national level.”

Asked for her reaction on her award, Brassil wrote in an email that she has been a member of the NCTE “since early in my 39- year career and regularly attend the Annual Convention.”

“I was acknowledged by the Maine Council for English Language Arts, the Maine state affiliate of NCTE, as the 2011 Maine Teacher of Excellence at the Secondary Section luncheon on Saturday, Nov. 19,” Brassil wrote. “I am proud and appreciative of receiving this honor and recognition for my work as an English teacher in Maine. I teach Academic English III and AP English Language and Composition at Mt. Ararat High School. I am a National Board Certified teacher and I have served as president of the Maine Council for English Language Arts, and currently serve as secretary and co-conference chair.”

Vail co- presented with Maren Wilke of Virginia and Luke Wiserman of Ohio, according to Palmer; and with whom Vail also attended a month- long National Endowment for the Humanities seminar in England two summers ago focussing on Chaucer’s “ Canterbury Tales.” Her NCTE presentation “focused on how she is bringing Chaucer’s tale back to life in her Mt. Ararat sophomore classes,” Palmer wrote.

It was Vail’s first experience at the NCTE Convention, and said the presentation went very well: “ We did a choral reading of the prologue in Chaucer’s Middle English, which shook the chandeliers, and proceeded to discuss various ways of teaching ‘ The Canterbury Tales’ in high school — using blogging, close-reading exercises, and dramatic adaptation ( my focus)… A lively question-and-answer session followed our presentation, and several teachers expressed interest in the Chaucer seminar. We were satisfied.”

Palmer, who attended four NCTE conventions in the last seven years, called the annual event “a tremendous professional development experience to learn about best practice in teaching, confer with colleagues, learn about new texts, technologies, pedagogies, etc. It’s also refreshing to simply be around so many people who are so passionate about education and the teaching of English. … I sat in on some outstanding workshops, such as listening to Tim O’Brien talk about his Vietnam novel ‘The Things They Carried’ or listening to Billy Collins, notable modern American poet, read some of his more memorable creations.”

Palmer credited former Mt. Ararat High School English department head John Brassil for getting him involved in NCTE and current Principal Craig King for “allowing and encouraging his English teachers to avail themselves of such a rewarding professional experience.”

“Claudette Brassil’s award and Emily Vail’s presentation are certainly accomplishments that reflect admirably upon the Mt. Ararat English department and the school itself,” Palmer concluded in his statements.