NCTE Position Statement on Media in the ELA Classroom

National Council of Teachers of English Position Statement on Media Education

A couple years ago, I was on the committee who wrote the last position statement on media education. As they say, a lot can happen in a couple years, especially when it comes to technology and the proliferation of generative ai large language models across platforms. 

Since the last statement, greater attention has also been paid to limiting the amount of screen time in classroom, recognizing how Chromebooks in classrooms can have detrimental impacts with access to YouTube Shorts and generative ai that students use to write papers. These are issues that are both perennial (student looking for ways to avoid doing work) and paradigm shifting requiring critical media literacy. 

Link here: https://ncte.org/statement/statement-on-media-education/ 

Print Statement here: https://ncte.org/statement/statement-on-media-education/print/ 

Sanctuary Book Review in Costellations Cultural Rhetorics journal

Thank you to Kyle Boggs for his Review of My Book Sanctuary

With the recent publication of Katie Silvester's review in Composition Studies, I remembered that I somehow forgot to mention Kyle Boggs' review in constellations: a cultural rhetorics publishing space in April!

I really appreciate Boggs' insights such as:

"For those seeking to build deeper connection, understanding, and trust, Medina reminds us that dignity and respect begin from the assumption that everyone’s journey is situated and personal."

Read the full review here: https://constell8cr.com/book-reviews/seeking-refuge-through-decolonial-counterstories-a-review-of-cruz-medinas-sanctuary-exclusion-violence-and-indigenous-migrants-in-the-east-bay/  

Katie Silvester's review of Sanctuary in Composition Studies: https://compstudiesjournal.com/current-issue-spring-2025-53-1/ 

 

Sanctuary Book Review: Composition Studies Journal

 

So Grateful for the Intellectual Work of Colleagues

Katie Silvester wrote a wonderful review of my book "Sanctuary" in this recent issue of Composition Studies🙏🙏 

Silvester is a super legit scholar in ethnographic work with folks learning English while resettling, as is evident in her book "Living English, Moving Literacies" (NCTE 2023) based on research spanning ten years in Nepal.  I am grateful for her attention and insights for this review: https://compstudiesjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/silvester-review.pdf 

Current issue:

https://compstudiesjournal.com/current-issue-spring-2025-53-1/ 

Bay Area Book Festival

 My New Favorite Book Festival 

Sanctuary Book Talk: Oakland Public Library

Book talk in Oakland this Weekend

 https://oaklandlibrary.bibliocommons.com/events/67a6726af1f57661560640ce 

Bread Loaf Teacher Network Book Launch

 Virtual Book Launch 

Book Talk at SCU

 Brown Bag Series for the Humanities

Super behind in posting the flyer for the book talk I did here on campus with the supportive folks at SCU.

Center for Arts and Humanities Blog post

 Reflecting on the Personal in Academic Writing

Wrote a blog for the Center on Arts and Humanities here at SCU discussing the choice to include some personal writing in my book Sanctuary and how this choice came later in the writing process. 

Here is the link to the blog post: https://www.scu.edu/cas/initiatives/center-for-the-arts-and-humanities/cah-blog/cruz-medina/blog-posts/writing-without-regret-for-the-road-not-taken.html 

Revision as Protecting What is Important

 My chapter in 2024 Utah State University Press Collection

Several years ago I wrote a manuscript based on student writing📝

✍🏽 Students expressed the feeling of having to accommodate linguistically in spite of their multilingual abilities. 

⏳When I tried to get this article published, I experienced similar feelings of accommodating to the methodologies privileged by “top-tier” journals📖

📚My chapter in this new collection describes the painful process of revision, during which I doubted my writing and the whole manuscript, for what became an article that was included in the 2020 Best of Rhetoric and Composition journals🏅📓

🙏🏽👏🏽🙌🏽 To the editors Laura Micciche Christina M. LaVecchia, PhD Hannah J. Rule, Allison D. Carr, and Jayne EO Stone

https://amzn.to/4ctARqZ 

Link to article:

https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1266&context=engl 

Refreshing Multimodal Literacies

 Recent Learning Glass Video

It's been a minute since I made a Learning Glass video (ahem, a few years actually), so I was glad to get a new video recorded on the topic of Scholarly vs. Popular sources. I'm teaching research at the moment to my first year students in the first-generation college student program here, and this topic seems like a perennial concern that I'm always explaining, which is always a good reason to make a video on the topic.

What I of course found was how rusty I was at not just keeping my mini-lecture concise, but also how much more editing I found necessary because of some changes to the recording equipment since the last time I made some of these. 

For more, visit my YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/user/Cruz858/featured 

Or my Learning Glass site:  https://sites.google.com/view/cruzphd/learning-glass-videos?authuser=1 

2024 Shakespeare in San Quentin Workshop

 SCU First Gen and English Majors Have "Transformative" Experience

Grateful teaching moment: this past Sunday, I had the amazing experience of attending a Shakespeare workshop at San Quentin with SCU LEAD Scholars students, faculty, and staff. 

LEAD Scholars is a program for first-generation students and this workshop has been described by students as transformational because of how it helps to make the issue of mass incarceration personal and the social justice of the university meaningful.

The Shakespeare in prison program is organized by the San Marin Shakespeare company 🎭 and puts on a production of a play each year. The men we spent time with were dedicated and committed to overcoming the obstacles they’ve faced and wrong turns they’ve made. Thanks to Maura Tarnoff for organizing and my students who attended.

SCU First-Gen Discussion of "Solito" Memoir

 LEAD First Gen Scholars Discuss Immigration and Reasons for Leaving Home

(LEAD staff Jessica, faculty Prof. Tarnoff, students Natalia and Michelle and myself)

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to meet with SCU LEAD Scholars, staff and faculty to discuss this year’s SCU Reads selection “Solito” by Javier Zamora. 

“Solito” is a memoir about Zamora’s journey to the US from El Salvador as a nine year old traveling without his family (or “solito”) to the US as an unaccompanied, undocumented minor.

 The historical context of the book resonates with my forthcoming book’s research in that “civil wars” in Central America were the reason that many like Zamora have migrated. 

We discussed issues like the American Dream and the desire of migrants for “a better life” and how these definitions can vary depending on the situations and circumstances facing each person in their home countries.

CCCC 2023

 Community Literacy Counterstory and Expectations of White Supremacy

Got to speak at a roundtable, serve as a respondent to a packed room, and present with other folks from the Latinx Caucus. Made a reel that I'm embedding below. 

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Talking with Great Folks at SJSU

 Really enjoyed having the opportunity to speak with the great folks at San José State University, where I talked about the use of story in my scholarship, as well as my teaching practices. Prof. Ryan Skinnel has some great colleagues and students who asked really thoughtful questions and came up with really insightful stories about their own experiences negotiating identity. 

COLEGAS CONFERENCE

 California Community College Organizacion de Latina/o/x, Guidance, Empowerment and Advocacy Conference in Long Beach, Nov 2-4, 2022

Was excited to present my research from my article and book chapter on Ozomatli at the COLEGAS conference, where I had the opportunity after the Welcome and Keynote speakers to preview the presentation I gave the following day. The organization is an amazing group of Latinx leaders in higher education and I felt honored to speak about Ozomatli, who performed at the event. Thanks to Dr. Cynthia Olivo, Michelle Y. Batista, and the rest of the executive committee for hosting an empowering event. 

Information on COLEGAS: https://cccolegas.org/ 

Resources about Ozomatli related to my talk: https://cruzmedina.com/research/presentations/collegas-ozomatli-resources/ 

Composition Studies 50th Anniversary Issue

My Piece "Composing in the Discomfort of Institutional Violence"

Composition Studies journal is celebrating their 50th anniversary with this special issue. From publishing a book review a dozen years ago to currently serving on the advisory board, I’m honored to be included in this special issue with many scholars whose work I admire.

 

Composition Studies journal link: https://compstudiesjournal.com/current-issue-spring-2022-50-1/ 

Co-Authored NCTE Position Statement on Media in English Language Arts

 

I was honored to be a contributor to a position statement for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) on Media Education in English Language Arts. The statement provides support on behalf of the national organization and its members for educators whose institutions do not recognize how technology, media, and multimodal composing parallel traditional English Language Arts curricula while offering culturally and technologically relevant skills and literacies to students who read and write in these digital spaces. 

 The statement can be read on NCTE's website: https://ncte.org/statement/media_education/

A Washington Post columnist took umbrage with a lack of practical suggestions in the statement, but the intended audience for the statement is English educators who know how to suitably incorporate media texts into their class, though may lack the institutional support to do so. 

This statement affirms the innovative practices of educators who seek to address the literacy rates that the authors points to in the introduction as the problem that he feels is not being addressed in this statement that tells administrators and school board officials that they should trust their educators to engage their students in new ways that will positively impact their literacy scores.

Diversity is not Inclusion: special issue

 A Piece on my Rhetoric of Storytelling Course in Composition Studies

Feeling really grateful to the editors of this special collection, Christina Cedillo, Ersula Ore, and Kim Wieser, for including my work with so many great contributions. What's even more humbling is how something I said in conversation ended up in a Sonia Arellano, José Cortez, and Romeo Garcia's piece on shadow work with academia, and a reference to my digital testmonio chapter was included in Christine Garcia, Genevieve de Mueller Garcia, Christina Cedillo and Les Hutchinson Campos' piece on mentorship. 

My piece: https://compositionstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/medina.pdf

Sonia Arellano et al.: https://compositionstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/arellano-cortez-garcia.pdf
 

Christine Garcia et al.: https://compositionstudiesjournal.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/garcia-campos-de-mueller-cedillo.pdf 

Bulletin of Latin American Research book review

 My Never-ending Fandom for Frederick Aldama and Tex{t}-Mex Nericcio

A book review I wrote for the Bulletin of Latin American Research on Frederick Luis Aldama and William Nericcio's new book Talking #BrownTV was just published. The image below is the journal's website and I add a link to the book on Amazon.

Here's a quote:

Talking #brownTV asks us to retrain our eyes to see brown as beyond black and white, thereby teasing out the nuance and complexity that’ is often ignored in polarised responses to Latinx representation. 

Journal link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/blar.13303 

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Yn94Y9

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Northern California Innocence Project Virtual Class Visit

Racial Justice Act #RJA4ALL 

This past week, Lori Stone from the Northern California Innocence Project spoke in my class about the work of freeing wrongfully convicted persons, as well as their policy work. The program has: received 16,000 requests for help with false convictions & helped free 32 wrongfully convicted people that account for 468 years lost in prison to false convictions. 

Stone made us aware that this week, the Racial Justice Act is on the floor for vote this week, allowing for claims of racial discrimination against judges, jurors & lawyers. This bill is an important step towards dismantling a justice system that's designed to imprison people of color. #rja4all