It's almost here! Register for the 2023 CCIRA Conference Now!! 

Read about the sessions offered in the conference program linked below!

Can't register for all three days? No problem!

Register for Friday & Saturday or

pick a day you want to attend.

Sign up for a luncheon with

Lester Laminack on Thursday and Penny Kittle on Friday!

There'll be food, fun, and learning!

When you attend A View From Here, you’ll have the opportunity to:

• explore ways to thoughtfully implement SoR recommendations
• learn from award-winning children’s and YA authors
• think about options for centering culturally responsive literacy instruction in our classrooms and schools
• build strategies for creating engaging, diverse, and inclusive classroom libraries
• strengthen the reading and writing lives of emerging bilingual learners and immigrant families
• experience community with fellow educators working to make the world of school a better place for everyone

CCIRA 2023 Luncheon Speakers

Lester Laminack

Lester Laminack will be at the 2023 CCIRA conference and we are thrilled! He has written several books for both teachers and children and will be at the conference with his new book Three Hens, a Peacock, and the Enormous Egg!! Check out his recent CCIRA blog post here as well as some of his other books: The King of Bees, Three Hens and a Peacock, The Ultimate Read-Aloud Resource 2nd edition, Writers ARE Readers, Reading to Make a Difference.

Here is a description of Lester's Thursday luncheon:

Story Matters - We are story. Story is how we make sense of our past, navigate the present, and imagine the future. Lester will explore the power of story in our classrooms and in our lives.



His afternoon session that is only open to luncheon attendees is:

When Fiction is the Front Porch to Inquiry and Nonfiction - We will explore one topic through the doorway of fiction to spark interest and questions that will launch an exploration moving through a series of nonfiction texts, taking us deeper into the topic, building vocabulary and conceptual understanding.

Penny Kittle

It is with tremendous pleasure that we welcome Penny Kittle to our CCIRA 2023 lineup for “A View From Here”. She will be joining us as our luncheon speaker on Friday, February 10, 2023. 

Penny is the author of numerous professional texts including Micro Mentor Texts: Using Short Passages From Great Books to Teach Writer’s Craft, Book Love, Write Beside Them, and two books co-authored with Kelly Gallagher: 4 Essential Studies and 180 Days. She is the founder and president of the Book Love Foundation, which annually grants classroom libraries to teachers throughout North America.

Her Friday luncheon talk is:

The Literacy Lessons I Learned from Hamilton - The Pulitzer Prize winning play by Lin-Manuel Miranda has lessons to teach us all about passion, creativity, genre, and the process of writing. Each year we can help students construct identities of power and opportunity, to challenge themselves as readers and writers, and to act with agency in our classrooms. We will unpack the classroom conditions and practices that are grounded in key principles for motivation: relevance, engagement, and community.

Her exclusive afternoon session that is only open to luncheon attendees is:

Micro Mentor Texts: using short passages from great books to teach writer’s craft - We all want readers and writers to flourish in our classrooms. We want students who see a book as a treasure chest of craft moves—the moves that skilled writers use. They can and will begin to name those moves and use them through passage study and imitation. They will learn a wide range of writing skills from grammar in context, varied sentence patterns—both the art and feel of cohesion and style—as well as all the ways a writer is an artist of words. Come to study and write together.

Not sure what sessions to register for?

Look below for some great possibilities!

123 - Reflect and Revise: Erasure in the Writer’s Workshop - Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow - Using a read-aloud of her picture book, Abdul’s Story, the author will share her reflections as a writer, secondary English teacher, and community writing program leader on ways writer’s workshop could better serve historically marginalized writers.

jamilahthewriter.com

154 - Singing a Story: Increasing Literacy Through Verse Novels-Aida Salazar- This presentation will show how the form can be used to enchant readers (reluctant or not) by learning to listen for the musicality inherent within words, lines, poems, and stories. Using mentor texts and specific examples of celebrated verse novels, participants will walk away with key strategies of how their students can fall in love with verse and how they can sing a story

aidasalazar.com

171 - Structuring Your Dialogic Curriculum - Matthew Kay - Be ready to develop effective dialogic strategies that will help participants engage students in race issues. Walk through various discussion structures and techniques while developing structures that are the foundation of conversational success.

notlight.com

203 - Exploration of Identity and Self Excavation Using Poetry -

Clare Landrigan and Aeriele Johnson - Poetry’s a powerful vehicle to explore one’s identity. It resists the confines and structures of concrete definition, and creates a more humanizing space for kids to know and celebrate their identities. Let’s explore using poetry in identity development.

clarelandrigan.com

kinderbender.com

274 - The Power of Language - Charles R. Smith Jr - Performing poems from subjects including Black history, sports, Greek mythology, boxing, music and more, author and poet Charles R. Smith Jr. will explore the role that language plays in expressing our identity, and how it reflects and shapes society.

charlesrsmithjr.com

275 - Beyond Form: Studying Structure in Poetry - Amy Ludwig VanDerwater - Come explore how to help children learn structure from poems. Poetry is breath and life, so much more than acrostics and forced rhyme, and when children learn new possibilities for organization, they are empowered to write about one idea in endless ways.

amyludwigvanderwater.com

Amy VanDerwater



Want a great read? Look no further! Click the link below to see books written by the speakers

and presenters at this year's conference!

CCIRA Literacy Conversations

In the most recent episode, listen to 2023 CCIRA Conference chairs, Lori Conrad and Patrick Allen, interview Brooklyn-based equitable literacy leader, Cornelius Minor.  Several other editions are available too including Charles R. Smith, Whitney La Rocca, Krista Griffin, Melanie Conklin, Pernille Ripp, Gordan Korman, and more! Click the button below and listen in!

Remember to check out the CCIRA Blog!

The CCIRA blog features a wide variety of nationally renowned literacy experts, as well as talented practitioners from across Colorado. Check out the posts on https://ccira.blog/  

Our most recent blog post is Re-Imagining RtI / MTSS: Putting Students Back at the Center of Instructional Designs by Julie Wright and Mark Bazata.

We also have blog posts from 2023 conference speakers Nawal Qarooni (Breathing Life Into the Syllabus: How Teaching Preservice Educators Hones My Practice), JamilahThompkins-Bigelow (Growth and Loss: Black Children's Literature Post-George Floyd), and CCIRA Past President Vicki Collet (Mentoring and Coaching to Support Colleagues).

If you might be interested in submitting a guest post to CCIRA.blog, please contact Hollyanna Bates (hollyannabates@gmail.com).

Teacher as Literacy Learner Grant - Apply Now!

Are you interested in promoting literacy by encouraging the teachers in your district to become active readers and/or writers? Apply for CCIRA’s Teacher as Literacy Learner Grant to earn up to $500 to cover materials to make this professional growth opportunity a reality in your school. Proposals should focus on the use of literature to build teachers’ professional knowledge, the power of participating in a book club as a means of building one’s love for reading, or the development of teachers’ writing skills as they take risks to find their own writing voice. (See TALL Application Guidelines for more information). The deadline for the Teacher as Literacy Learner Grant is March 30, 2023.

Fannie Stabenow Award Nominations - Now Open!

We are soliciting nominations for the prestigious Fannie Stabenow Award. The purpose of this award is to recognize a CCIRA member that has made outstanding contributions to CCIRA. Eligibility for this award is as follows:

1. Any educator who has an active interest in reading and has made a significant contribution to CCIRA.

2. The nominee must be a member of CCIRA

3. Members of the Executive Committee of CCIRA are not eligible.

4. A person may be nominated more than once but may not receive the award more than once.

5. A pervious nominee who did not receive the award may be nominated again.

For more information and/or the nomination form please contact Lisa Kahn, lisakahnccira@gmail.com

CCIRA is a non-profit organization that works to empower literacy educators. As a non-profit organization, we appreciate support in a variety of ways:

• Donate
• Support a Conference Scholarship Opportunity
• Leverage fundraising programs to earn CCIRA money
• Volunteer with CCIRA

This Month's Featured Fundraiser

CCIRA Partners in Empowering Literacy Educators

TOP REASONS TO PARTNER WITH CCIRA

• Over 2000 conference attendees will learn about your partnership with CCIRA.
• Our 1300+ members will see your support on our webpage.
• Visitors to the CCIRA website will learn about your organization and its events.
• Our combined support of literacy will impact students across our state and neighboring states.

Check out the offer from our partner,

Knowledge Bound!!

Meet Members of the

CCIRA Executive Committee!

Anne Folsom

Anne Folsom is super excited to be attending her 20th CCIRA conference this year, and even more excited to be chairing next year's conference.  By day she works in Jeffco as a teacher on special assignment, working in the Elementary Literacy team.  She's taught 3rd - 5th grades and supported teachers in all elementary grades for the last 25 years. Anne recently finished her Masters in educational leadership - though being a principal is a terrifying thought.

Outside of the education world, Anne is happily a band mom and soccer coach, loves skiing and hiking with her family, and is always happy to find time to read just for fun. She looks forward to seeing everyone in a couple of weeks - and again for the 2024 CCIRA conference, "Branching Out and Staying Rooted".

CCIRA collaboratively encourages, supports, and advances literacy through research-based instructional practices to increase literacy access to all.

All people will be empowered to critically engage in our changing world by developing and utilizing literacy skills throughout life.