Meet The Speakers: 

Penny Kittle

After teaching in public schools for 34 years, Penny now teaches writing at Plymouth State University. She has authored and coauthored over a dozen books including Micro Mentor Texts and Write Beside Them. One of the most trusted voices in teaching high school English and writing, Penny has learned two key things from her time in the classroom: all students will build independent reading lives of joy, curiosity, and hunger when given agency; and teachers who write with their students generate community and creative power.

Matthew Johnson

Matthew Johnson is a father, husband, and high school English Language Arts teacher from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

He is the author of Flash Feedback: Responding to Student Writing Better and Faster – Without Burning Out and Good Grammar: Good Grammar: Joyful and Affirming Language Lessons That Work for More Students. He also is a contributing writer for the New York Times Learning Network, EdWeek, and Edutopia and blogs regularly about writing instruction and pedagogy at www.matthewmjohnson.com.

When not teaching, reading, or writing, he can often be found in the kitchen, his garden, or out on a run through the gently rolling hills of Southeast Michigan.   

Matt Miller

Matt Miller is a blogger, author, speaker and educator with more than 10 years of classroom experience. He’s the author of six books, including Ditch That Textbook and AI Literacy in Any Class, and has won multiple awards for his teaching and writing. 

After trying to do the traditional “teach by the textbook” for a few years, he launched into a textbook-less path where learning activities were often custom-produced for his students as well as infused with technology. He likes the results a lot, and his students do, too.

Amanda Cardenas:

Amanda Cardenas is an educational author, consultant, and secondary ELA specialist dedicated to inquiry-driven instruction. With 13 years of experience in the high school classroom and her current role as a school librarian and media specialist, Amanda bridges the gap between deep pedagogy and engaging, student-focused implementation.

As the founder of Mud and Ink Teaching, Amanda has partnered with over 20 schools worldwide to streamline inquiry strategies. She is the co-host of the Brave New Teaching podcast, which has amassed over 700,000 downloads from teachers seeking to transform their ELA instruction.

Outside of the classroom, Amanda can be found rearranging an ADHD doom pile, gardening in Zone 5B, or traveling the world with her husband and their two children. 

Sam Bradford

Sam Bradford has been a high school ELA teacher in independent schools for the past sixteen years. He has been a Department Chair, Dean of Academic Affairs, and designer of a Diploma Distinction Program in the Humanities. He was awarded the designation of Master Teacher by the Georgia Independent School Association in 2018 and served on the National Humanities Center’s Teacher Advisory Council for 2023-2024.

Recent curricular dalliances include podcasting, Cognitively Based Compassion Training, Question Formulation Technique, Grading for Equity, Ungrading, and the resurrection of sentence diagramming. Outside of school, he enjoys camping with his wife and two sons, meditating, playing keys and trumpet in a Dad Band, and completing the next draft of his science fiction novel. 

Missy Davis

A veteran teacher of 19 years in both public and private schools, Missy has a passion for students and the craft of teaching English. 

She aims to give students choice, agency, and real-world connections in every assignment. Her goals for her students when they leave her classroom include being more curious, more willing to wrestle with difficult but meaningful work, and are simply people who enjoy reading more than when they entered. 

She supports teachers through the English Teacher Vault: a vault of customizable resources based on solid pedagogy and what truly works in the classroom. She also loves Jesus, the outdoors, and traveling. 

Katie Hull:

Katie Hull Sypnieski has taught English language learners of all proficiency levels and English proficient students in the Sacramento City Unified School District for 30 years. She has served as a teaching consultant with the Area 3 Writing Project housed at the University of California, Davis for the past 25 years.

She is the co-author, with Larry Ferlazzo, of The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox, Navigating the Common Core with ELLs, and The ELL/ESL Teacher’s Survival Guide. She has published articles and instructional videos for Education Week. In addition, she has co-authored articles for Edutopia, the New York Times Learning Network, and ASCD’s Educational Leadership.

Jeanmarie McLaughlin:

Jeanmarie McLaughlin is a veteran high school English teacher with over 30 years of experience teaching everything from English 9 to AP Literature, AP Language and College Dual Credit.  As a PD book junkie, she is constantly honing and developing her craft which is how she has landed on granting students more choice in the classroom including letting them vote on a full class text, independent reading or literature circles.  This love of curriculum has led Jeanmarie to begin creating material for other teachers and to share her expertise on her website McLaughlinTeachesEnglish.com and her membership PencilsandPrologues.com. Outside the classroom, Jeanmarie is a wife and mom to two busy teens.   In her spare time, she reads, crochets and listens to podcasts.

Betsy Potash:

After teaching English at every high school grade level, Betsy Potash shifted gears to channel her experience and love for education into making the way easier for creative teachers. She loves to share about choice reading, student podcasting, hexagonal thinking, multimodal projects, book clubs, poetry workshops, and more. You can tune in to her top-rated podcast for English teachers, The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, right here, or try out her popular free one-pagers kit already in use in 35,000 creative ELA classrooms like yours. 

Corinne Skott:

Corinne Skott is an Atlanta high school English teacher with over twenty years of teaching experience, honing students’ voices to bring out their best writing. In addition to experience in teaching AP Language & Composition, she has designed curriculum for a variety of grades and levels, including World Literature, American Literature, and Writing Seminar. She is the recipient of several teaching awards, including STAR Teacher, Phi Beta Kappa Teacher, GISA Teacher of the Year Nominee, and GISA Master Teacher.

Nate Seaburg

Nate Seaburg has been teaching high school English for 15 years, and in that time, one thing has never changed—his  love for books, kids, and conversations about literature, life, and what it’s all even for.

He believes great teaching is deeply nerdy, irreverent, and engaging—a mix of insight, curiosity, and just enough chaos to keep things interesting. Literature is more than just stories on a page; it’s a way to understand ourselves and others, to think deeply, and to wrestle with big ideas. 

His goal is to help make literature feel alive, relevant, and worth the effort—because when we read well, we understand more than just a story. We understand people.

The Moth Storytelling Organization and Retro Report will also lead sessions!