Several upcoming events in Missouri feature literacy leaders like Nic Stone, Julius Anthony and Eric Litwin. Please have a look! By Dr. Sam Bommarito
As a lifetime resident of the state of Missouri and a member of that state’s local and national ILA groups, I am proud to announce some great events are coming up in Missouri. Let me tell you about some of them.
First, there is a FREE event featuring Nic Stone. It will be in person and held in St. Louis, Missouri. But you can also access a live broadcast of this event via the internet. Booksource is providing that live broadcast. The event will be held 6-7 pm CST on February 16th. The speakers will talk about the transformational power of diverse and inclusive classroom literature. Here is the in-person registration LINK. If you cannot attend the face-to-face event, here is a link to register for the live broadcast LINK. Further information is below.
Second, our state’s ILA organization is co-sponsoring a face-to-face conference in Columbia, Mo. The name of that conference is Write to Learn. For the first time in its history, that conference is “sold out.” Guess we’ll have to move to a larger venue next year. What a great problem to have!!!
I still want you to know about it. I will be presenting a session at that conference about finding common ground. I will also be honored to introduce David Harrison as he receives the 2023 Celebrate Literacy Award from MLA (Missouri Literacy Association). Julius Anthony will also be receiving that same award, accepting it on behalf of the St. Louis Black Authors. By the way, Julius will become the president of the Missouri Literacy Association next year. He just opened the 10th site for his groundbreaking Believe project at the Woodland School in Jennings, Missouri. In the small world department, Woodland is the school where I spent 18 years as a Title 1 teacher and staff developer in its award-winning Title 1 program. Please read all about the wonderful work the Believe project is doing at Woodland and its other nine sites in the St. Louis region: website LINK, and Facebook LINK. The Believe project is reshaping the literacy world in the St. Louis region. I hope that it will eventually become a model for nationwide literacy programs. Here is more information about the award presentations at Write to Learn.
Another event in Missouri is the CYY’s 50th Anniversary Celebration: Honoring the Past, Celebrating the Present, Embracing the Future. The Young Year’s conference will be held March 9 –11, 2023, at the Tan-Tar-A Conference Center in Osage Beach, Missouri. The Young Year’s conference is pulling out all the stops to make the 50th-anniversary event something extra special. Eric Litwin will be keynoting the conference. I will be presenting on the topic of Singing Our Way into Fluency. Both those things will happen on Friday, March 10th. As I mentioned previously, I will be interviewing Eric next week about his keynote address and other literacy activities. That interview will be posted a week from today. Here is a link to the CYY website LINK. Registration will close soon, so please don’t wait! This face-to-face event will be held at the centrally located Tan Tara Convention Center in Missouri. We get participants from all around the country at this event. Here is a link to Eric’s website where you can find out about his many books and resources) LINK.
Hope to see you all at the CYY 50th anniversary event !!!
So, there is a lot going on in Missouri. I hope you can come to one or more of these literacy events. I will “see” you next week when I interview Eric. I am also doing follow-up blogs about my presentation at the Pioneer Valley Books webinar sometime soon. In the meantime:
HAPPY READING AND WRITING!
Dr. Sam Bommarito, aka the centrist who, uses ideas from all sides to inform his teaching.
Copyright 2023 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely the author’s view and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization.
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