JT Torres to Serve as a Keynote Speaker at the Adolescent Literacy Summit Torres will present May 16 at the University of Connecticut Graduate Business Learning Center.

By Brian Laubscher
April 10, 2025

JT Torres, director of the Houston H. Harte Center for Teaching and Learning at Washington and Lee University, will serve as a keynote speaker for the 2025 Adolescent Literacy Summit, held May 16 at the University of Connecticut Graduate Business Learning Center in Hartford, Connecticut.

The summit, hosted by the UConn Neag School of Education, brings together secondary educators and administrators to build awareness and community and to strengthen the capacity to engage with major challenges and opportunities for supporting literary development in middle and high school. Torres is one of four featured speakers who will lead presentations intended to spark small group discussion. Each presentation is designed to build on the next to illustrate the complexity with clarity to collectively connect, advocate, resist and build toward liberatory learning opportunities.

Torres’ lecture, titled “Yes, Students Still Read. We Just Don’t Realize It,” presents the case that while evidence suggests students tend to read fewer books and articles than previous generations, further studies indicate that today’s students may not be reading any less – it just comes in a different form. Thus how we define reading may need to be re-evaluated.

“Many students are inundated with digital texts that require a very different kind of reading,” said Torres. “Imagine a TikTok screen with text scrolling sideways, up and down – and even diagonally – all while a video and music plays. Many students also primarily communicate with one another via text messages as opposed to verbal conversations. While new media and technologies disrupt the accepted norm of reading, they have also greatly expanded literacy access for neurodiverse students, as well as students from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds. In our current society, it is easier to access TikTok than it is to access a new physical book.”

Torres will also cover the challenges faced by college teachers, which are twofold. This includes honoring the diverse spaces where students are reading to ensure they have the literacy skills needed to navigate an increasingly digital world and finding ways to provide meaningful access to physical books.

“I will share strategies for combining situational interest and culturally sustaining pedagogy with reading instruction that can meet all students’ need,” said Torres. “Since the audience will mostly be public educators, the purpose of my talk is to share perceptions from higher education that can inform secondary instruction, answering the question ‘What do high school students need to learn to read and write successfully in college?’”

Torres’ involvement in the Adolescent Literacy Summit came about through his service on the advisory board for Heinemann, a textbook publishing company focused on education. Through this role, he connected with Rachael Gabriel, a professor with the Neag School of Education and organizer of the Adolescent Literacy Summit.

“It is incredibly meaningful to be able to share my research and work with broad communities of educators in these reciprocal ways,” said Torres. “Just as I will present college students’ experiences with reading, I get to learn about the challenges faced by secondary instructors, helping to inform W&L’s preparation for meeting the next generation of students where they are.”

Torres is in his first year at W&L. He previously worked at Quinnipiac University as the director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Torres earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Central Florida, a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Washington State University.

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