and later earned my M.Ed as a reading specialist. As I finished my Master’s Degree, I looked to the Michigan Reading Association as the authority on literacy instruction and pedagogy. When I started a high school reading program in my school, I relied on the Michigan Reading Association as a guide. While many may remember the late nineties as the rise of the boy bands and Y2K scare, I remember my reconnection to MRA. Since then, I have attended as a member every year as a teacher, a local council leader, a conference committee chair, a board member, a co-chair, and now as the President-elect and Conference Chair. Not only has MRA shaped my teaching, it has led me on a pathway I never envisioned. Thirty years haveled me to Chair the Michigan Reading Association’s 61st Annual Conference Passport to Possibilities.

Click on the image above to view the Conference-at-a-Glance for the 61st Annual Conference.

Elizabeth Gates, an English teacher at Greenville High School and a 2009 SI graduate of the Chippewa River Writing Project, is the President-Elect of the Michigan Reading Association and Conference Chair of the 2017 MRA Conference: Passport to Possibilities.