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.