There Are Many Reasons to Submit an Article
Beth Hanlon, OFLA Executive Recorder and Editor of The Cardinal
Spanish Teacher, Oberlin High School
Have you ever thought of submitting an article to OFLA’s newsletter, The Cardinal? We definitely think you should regardless of if you have been teaching for thirty years or 2 years! Everyone has something to contribute to the Ohio world language community. Here are the top reasons you should get to work on that article!
1) It gives you a way to reflect on your teaching practices and professional development.
In 2016, I attended an ACTFL OPI training at Ohio State University. It was an amazing experience and I started to make a list of ways I could apply what I learned to my teaching practices and my daily teaching. I soon realized I should turn this list into an article. My article was published that school year in The Cardinal. Why not share your takeaways and practical applications of professional development that you have attended?
2) Sharing is caring.
Why are you keeping all that great stuff you do with your classes confined within the four walls of your classroom? Why not share it with the OFLA community? You might inspire or help another teacher! As teachers, we usually shy away from “self-promotion” but think of this instead as sharing and collaborating with colleagues all over our great state as they read your article! During my previous term as Editor of The Cardinal, I definitely felt as if I was getting PD from reading all the submitted articles!
3) Submit it as evidence of professional development.
When you participate in a professional development that gives you so many credit hours/CEUs, you probably need evidence of your attendance and learning. If you wrote a reflective article for The Cardinal, you could submit it to your licensure committee.
4) Submit it as evidence for your OTES evaluation.
Once your article is published on The Cardinal’s website, why not print it off and submit it as evidence for the “Professionalism” category of your OTES evaluation? It definitely supports Standard 7: Professional Responsibility and Growth!
5) Be involved in your professional organization.
Maybe you are looking for a low key way to get more involved in OFLA or you are already involved by, for example, presenting at the conference, but are looking for a new way to be involved? Here it is! Write an article! Don’t forget there are so many things you can write about such as trips with students, PD you attended, changes in your classroom, etc.!
6) Writing an article for the Fall 2019 edition of The Cardinal enters you in a drawing for a free registration to the 2020 OFLA conference in Cincinnati!
Why not write an article about PD you attended, a classroom project you are working on, a trip you took with students, etc., to be entered into a drawing for OFLA’s top-notch conference? (OFLA board members are not eligible for the drawing.)
If any of these reasons have persuaded you, here’s what to do next!
- Double-check that your OFLA membership is current as we can only accept and publish articles by OFLA members.
- Download this document to correctly format your article. Make sure to read the information in the document to ensure your article is formatted properly.
- Submit your article by the October 1, 2019, deadline to this form: https://forms.gle/6C7EExrBe8wohFKE7
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at oflacardinaleditor@gmail.com. The editing team and I look forward to reading your article! And I have my fingers crossed that you win the free registration to the 2020 OFLA Conference!
The Cardinal 