CCIRA Literacy Conversations

CCIRA, Inc.

CCIRA Inc., Colorado's literacy organization, is ready to chat about literacy with some fantastic literacy experts. Get ready to learn, expand your list of educational heroes, and gather ideas about ways you can improve your teaching practice.

  1. 09/18/2022

    Cornelius Minor: Bright, Bold Futures for Kids

    Cornelius Minor's Website  Cornelius Minor - Heinemann

    30 min

  2. 08/28/2022

    Charles R. Smith, Jr: From Photography to The Art of Writing

    Charles R. Smith Jr.'s Website

    41 min

  3. 02/09/2022

    Whitney La Rocca: Patterns of Power, world class writing mentors, and a lot of laughs

    *Links to resources to be added soon! 00:00:00 Molly Rauh Hello and welcome back to this CCIRA Literacy Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Molly Rauh with my co-host... 00:00:08 Jessica Rickert ...Jessica Rickert. Today's podcast features, Whittany La Rocca, Whitney's work centers around authentic reading and writing instruction. Whitney shares, ideas for grammar instruction, blending science of reading and balanced literacy, and the Patterns of Power resource. Well, welcome Whitney. We're so excited to have you on the podcast. Why don't we start with you just telling us a little bit about your background. 00:00:35 Whitney La Rocca Okay, well, thank you. And thank you for having me on this podcast. So I'm excited to be here my background, I guess, you know, starts since since you're up in Colorado, I can say, I'm originally from Wyoming. So we're formerly neighbors. I graduated from the University of Wyoming and then moved to Texas. And that's where I'm at no. I live in the Houston area. I have over 20 years of education experience. I I've taught I've been an instructional coach, and now I'm a full-time consultant, author, staff developer, co-author of the Patterns of Power family of resources. So Patterns of Power, Patterns of Power Plus. And recently we came out with Patterns of Wonder that I got to take the lead on for emergent writing. So my passion is definitely just supporting children as they find their identities and develop their identities in this world of literacy. So I'm super excited to continue to do this work all over the place, rather than just in my little bubble outside of Houston. 00:01:43 Jessica Rickert So I'm wondering, because you talk about authentic grammar instruction, and I think teachers really struggle with authentic grammar instruction and not just putting a worksheet in front of them, but integrating it. So what are your thoughts on authentic grammar instruction? 00:02:01 Whitney La Rocca Absolutely. You know, we're told so often as teachers well just teach grammar in context and keep it authentic. And we're like, okay, sure, how do we do that? What does that really mean? Right? And so when we think about authentic grammar instruction, what we want to do is really lean on brain research and the research that goes into education and how our brains are wired to learn. And if we look at these cognitive structures in our brain, we have this, this structure of observation. And so we get to observe what writers do. And that's what we begin with. We begin with, published children's literature, the books that we love that are in our classrooms. We share some sentences from those or with the emerging writers we share an entire page from a picture book where we look at both pictures and words. And we just ask our students, what do you notice? And we get to have these authentic conversations where students get to really just talk about what they're noticing, what the brain is observing, right? And this power of talk, this power of inquiry, just drives this instruction. And through these observations, our students begin to recognize what writers do. And we get to pull in grammar into this conversation as well. When we do pick sentences or a page from a book, we're very particular about what we choose, right? And so we're going to curate a sentence or a page that really demonstrates this grammar skill that we're looking to show off. But we don't tell our students what that is, because we want them to kind of discover that on their own through inquiry. And that's how this process begins with this authentic grammar instruction. We begin with authentic literature, and we have these authentic conversations within the context of reading and writing about what authors do, why they do that, how they do that. And then we move into comparing and contrasting that to something else, like another piece of writing, right? We're leaning in on the comparative analysis structure, cognitive structure of our brain, which is our brains are wired to learn through, compare and contrast. So we move into that to really retain that information even more. And then we turn around and authentically produce a piece of writing that looks like the model. So we get to imitate that, and we can imitate that together. And then we invite our students to turn around and try it out on their own. And we celebrate this. And our celebration, again it's through this conversation, the sharing, this displaying of the authentic writing that they have tried out, and we turn around and invite them to continue to play with this skill in other parts of their day of writing. In writing workshop, in writing in the content areas - continue to produce more writing in different ways, using that skill. And then we get to end with this conversation around editing and what that really looks like. So rather than starting with the wrong and correcting, correcting, correcting, correcting and focusing on right or wrong, we invite, you know, risk taking, because we're celebrating the craft of writing rather than wasting our time correcting errors. And with that celebration, and with this authentic move looking at what writers do and the craft that they use, we are able to move towards correctness. And we have to, as teachers have this understanding too that every writer has approximations along the way even adult writers, right? So we never have perfect writing. We're always moving towards correctness, but we're starting with correct writing to teach that, rather than starting with the wrong. So, in context, within the frame of reading and writing and using authentic literature and asking our students to produce authentic literature as well, and they lean on their scaffolds when they need to. And when they're ready to move away from that, they take those risks and try it out. And then we can. We can teach into those risks that they are trying. 00:06:30 Molly Rauh So knowing that you said, you know, we, it's an inquiry process, and we should start by observing and know, you know, every teacher has some of their like favorite books, or some of their go os. Yeah. So if you were going to share some of your favorite, some of your go-to is with our listeners, what might be some of those, you know, awesome books that you would choose for our class of emerging readers. 00:06:55 Whitney La Rocca Oh, my goodness, it's so this is this is so hard for me, because you, you both can see like my background or what's behind to be right? I'm in my home office right now, and the wall is just covered with books. I am a book, a holic. So for me, just to share a couple is like ridiculous. I could go for hours of my favorites. My biggest, my biggest tip, first of all, is a mentor text is a text that you love. So I could said, I could share text all day. I could send you lists and everything, but honestly, you have to love it for your students to really love it too. And so those books that are in your classroom, if you really love them, then they're probably a really good mentor text to use. And but I also will say it that we need to be diverse in the text that we choose, right? And we need to make sure that we have a wide representation and of people in the books that we use. We want to be inclusive. We want to make sure that our readers see themselves, and they see others. And this is how we build community. And this is how we build empathy through the books that we I said. Just those little tidbits before I do share some titles with you. So few for emergent writing, I guess, some of my very favorites and "Quit Calling Me a Monster" by Jory John, one of my favorite mentor texts that really could be used for anything. There's a lot of teaching points inside of that Troy Cummings', "Can I be Your Dog" is one of my favorites. He also has "Can I be Your Cat" or along that line. I'm waiting on it. I waiting on the paper back to show up to my house next month. So but there's a second one about a cat cat, as opposed to a dog. Anything by Mo Willems hands down, right? The Pigeon books, the elephant piggy books, pretty much anything there. I also love they, these, the Yasmine books, the these ones by Saadia Faruqi. I'm not sure that I pronounced her last name, right? But it's a series, the Yasmine books I absolutely love for younger readers as mentor texts as well. For older readers, I really enjoy pretty much anything by Matt De La Pena is one of my favorite authors, for sure. And I also love Peter Brown's "The Wild Robot" is probably one of my favorite novels, as well as Katherine Applegate's "The One and Only Ivan," but even more so, "The One and Only Bob," I like that one even more than Ivan, which I didn't think I could like anything more than Ivan. But Bob is just another one as well. So those are just some off the top of my head that I absolutely love. My some of my favorite authors might go-tos. But like I said, I could pull so many books off and just keep talking. So. 00:09:58 Molly Rauh You had talked too about, you know, when they're observing, especially with our younger, I called them emerging readers before. But we're really talking about emerging writers. Like you said. 00:10:10 Whitney La Rocca Both. Readers and writers and writers are readers. We make that reading-writing connection in everything that we do. 00:10:15 Molly Rauh When you're working with, you know, some of the really and honestly, I would probably still even do it with my high school kids looking at pictures specifically. You know, I think some teachers are really skilled at analyzing images as kind of a component of writing and others, you know, maybe that's something they're still trying to build. And I'm thinking, you know, this is one of my favorite books, so you said, you talking about books that you love, there's a book called "This is Not My Hat." 00:10:53 Whitney La Rocca Yes, I have it on my wall. 00:10:53 Whitney La Rocca It's very like it's an in

    58 min

  4. 01/20/2022

    Pam Minard: Excitement for the 2022 In-Person Conference!

    Pam Minard: Exciting Features of the 2022 Conference 00:00:00 Molly Rauh Hello and welcome back to this CCIRAA Literacy Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Molly Rauh with my co-host... 00:00:08 Jessica Rickert ...Jessica Richert. Today's podcast features Pam Minard CCIRAs 2022 conference chair. We chatted a lot about the exciting opportunities, both learning and fun to get you rejuvenated. Join us on the journey to literacy and learning at the 2022 CCIRA conference, Feb 10, the 11th and 12th. All right, we have Pam Minard back on to talk about the conference. She had previously promoted the conference, but now we're moving the conference to from 2021 to 2022. So we're really excited to hear about some speakers and different things, because the conference is just around the corner. So Pam, tell us again about your thinking behind the theme of Journey. 00:00:57 Pam Minard Sure, my initial thinking was that journey that I see my students going through becoming literate in their lives, and how it's not just a quick journey. It can take a while. And then I thought about the journey in my own - journeys as a reader, as a teacher, as a bike rider. And just, you know, just takes time. When I first started mountain biking, I spent more time on the ground than I did on the seat of my bike, but I didn't give up, and that's what I want for my students. I want them to feel the challenge, but not give up. So that's kind of where my thinking was in 2019 when I chose the theme of Journey. Now, as we're moving into 2022 Journeys taken on a whole different meaning. And that is the Journey of covid and the postponement and the journey that we're all going through collectively across the world, not only in literate lives, but in our lives. So I could not, you know, I could not have picked a better conference theme that related to both education, personal lives and what's happening in the world than "journey." So we continue on like we always do. 00:02:18 Molly Rauh Well, I like the analogy that you mentioned with your biking mountain biking, and how you spent more time with your butt on the ground, then on the seat. And I feel like we're all feeling that as teachers right now, like the world has changed a little bit, and we're feeling a lot of hard days. But, you know... 00:02:37 Pam Minard Right. 00:02:37 Molly Rauh We get back on, and we keep writing. And so I really like that. I think that suits the world we're in right now, and the what you've dealt with trying to revise this conference now for, you know, first, to put it online. And then now again, to put it back in person, but I'm excited for you that we get to be in person and we get to have, you know, a real face-to-face conference with presenters. So my first question for you is, what are - I'm not, I'm not going to narrow you to 1 because that's just mean, three presenters and there's probably 50 to 100 that you're excited about, but three prisoners you're really excited to see at your conference this year. 00:03:18 Pam Minard Okay, I did a lot of thinking about this this morning. And of course, while I was inviting presenters who has been act impactful in my life as a teacher, and I have to say, above all else, Ellin Oliver Keene. I would say, if you have not had the opportunity to sit in the room and listen to her speak, it's just a session that cannot be missed. I feel like every teacher has to experience Ellin Oliver Keene. Just to tell you a little bit about her. She's a local. She's from Colorado. She has been a staff developer, nonprofit director, adjunct professor. She's been with Denver's PEBC for about 16 years, the Public Education and Business Coalition. She works with schools in the United States and abroad. She has an emphasis on long-term school-based PD and strategic planning for literacy. That is a mouthful that might sound intimidating to listen to somebody talk about this. But every time I have heard her, it's just such common sense. And she's so easy to listen to and has so many great ideas. So on top of all of that, that she's, that she does interactive life, she's also written some books. She's been a co-author. I met her through a book 20 years ago, The Mosaic of Thought. It's been rewritten, not rewritten, but added to in the past 20 years. But I had no idea that that's who she was until I met her through CCIRA and then realized, oh my gosh, you made an impact on me 20 years ago. So that is my number one advice to conference attendees, whether you're a new teacher, middle of your career, end of your career: she is absolutely should be on your list if you haven't heard her. She speaking on Friday again, only one session, and it's from 915 to 10:45, it's session 308. That's my number one recommendation. Shall I keep going? 00:05:24 Jessica Rickert Well, let me pop in, because I have to emphasize what Pam said, like, I love people that can entertain and educate me, and especially when you're at a conference and you're going from session to session to session. And just like Pam said, like Ellen, is that they she has the research to back her, but she's funny, she's engaging. And yes, it's just things that you can take directly back into your classroom the next day. Always enjoyable and such a hit. 00:05:54 Pam Minard Yeah. So she's my number one recommendation. Number 2 and 3 are both in the world of writing. And a lot of you might not know, but we do survey our attendees, our board of directors, our local councils for, who do you want to see? So these two people came up with on those lists of who would you like us to invite to the conference? And they are Whitney La Rocca and Brian Kissel. They both really speak a lot to writing. Whitney is the author of Patterns of Power. I've heard great things about her. I've never attended one of her sessions. I plan on attending this year, but she says that her book offers practical classroom, ready advice to take into teaching the conventions of writing to the next level. I know a lot of us struggle with teaching writing, and I am always happy to have some practical strategies to put into my practice with writing. Nicely, she's got two sessions. She's a Thursday presenter. In the morning, she's going to focus on first grade through fifth grade. And then in the afternoon, she's going to focus on pre-k through first grade. So I really like that really narrowed down emphasis of this is what you can do with our first graders that are just learning to write, just wrapping their heads around those ideas of being a literate writing person, to the pre-k's that you're going to be interpreting pictures, that they're drawing and having more rich conversations with them than maybe production of writing. So that's one that I'm definitely going to attend. Again, she's a Thursday speaker. And then Brian is also a Thursday speaker, and he's going to talk again. I love this that they're both really there for the primary, primary students. So Brian's got a session that's K through 2. And then another one that's three through six. So he's going to go a little bit higher, but all about writing and having these conversations that we need to be having with kids about race, gender, ability, language, poverty. So really, I'm really curious to hear both of them. They came highly recommended to me. 00:08:15 Jessica Rickert And Whitney's going to be on the podcast later in January too. Yeah. So we'll hear more from Whitney. I think Brian's going to write a blog to in January. So we'll get more information for both of them. So those are my two biggie's for writing on Thursday. And then I cannot leave out Angela Myers. I attended. I think it was the 2012 conference. When we had a huge snowstorm, one of our presenters called it snowmageddon in Denver and said, he had never seen a snowmobile riding down the middle of the highway, which was the case in Denver that weekend. But Angela came in as a pinch-hitter, and she was known at the time for a TED Talk that she gave called You Matter. And it was just so emotional. And so awesome to hear her talk about how we all need to matter. So she's been working on this mattering as a topic for several years now, and she's going to speak in a session later in the day on Thursday, called literacy, reimagined and just taking our literate lives, pre-technology into technology. And then her evening session on Thursday will be it's called Mattering is the Agenda. So please, I would encourage everybody to attend that it's from 4:30 to 6:00. You will probably walk out with wet eyes. She's just an amazing speaker, just makes you have that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when you leave her sessions. 00:09:56 Molly Rauh Well, and speaking of places, you get warm fuzzy feelings. I feel like one thing that is underutilized by new conference goers is General Sessions. Like some people just don't recognize, like that's there for everybody. You don't have to sign up for it, you just go and you enjoy the great speakers. And I feel like General Sessions, I always get, you know, they're the kinds of sessions that you're either, like laughing out loud. There have been ones where all up dancing around the room, there's probably some video from me, at a conference where I am for once being lively instead of a wallflower . There are, you know, sometimes they get you to cry. I've never teared up so much as I have at General Sessions. So who are some of our great General Session speakers that we get to look forward to? 00:10:50 Pam Minard I'm glad you brought that up, because Lucy Caulkins is going to open our conference. So that should be amazing. If you haven't had the opportunity to hear Lucy again, I would highly recommend her. She's just a phenomenal speaker again. So, real. So common sense. So, you know, evolutionary, she changes her thinking when it's appropriate to change your thinking, and she shares it with everyone. So she's going to be great on Thursday morning. And then Geor

    27 min

  5. 01/17/2022

    Krista Griffin: Early Career Teachers

    Krista Griffin: CCIRA's Early Career Network 00:00:00 Molly Rauh Hello and welcome back to this CCIRA Literacy Conversations, podcast. I'm your host Molly Rauh with my co-host... 00:00:08 Jessica Rickert ...Jessica Rickert. Today's podcast features, Krista Griffin, who's the co-chair of CCIRAs early career Network committee, the early career networks work centers around supporting pre-service teachers and teachers early in their career. Krista shares learning opportunities at the conference and how new teachers can add to their toolbox. Well, welcome Krista. Thank you so much for joining us. And we're excited to hear a little bit about the early career Network committee for CCIRA.. So can you just kind of dive in and start telling us about that? 00:00:46 Krista Griffin Sure, the early career network is a committee that is really focused on how we can support pre-service teachers and early career teachers as the name suggests. So we know that either there's there's a lot of support that that new teachers need pre-service and in-service. And we also know there's a void in that in that arena. So we really need to figure out, how can we? What can we do? And we're thinking about this from I'm at the university, the university standpoint, but from CCIRA, what can we do? Because we know that we've all benefited from um, the wisdom and help from others in our careers. And so we're just we just think about what can we do? How can we? How can we support students, pre-service teachers and in service in, in their desire to be stronger literacy teachers? So we have a focus on trying to help, trying to think about what can what we can do with the conference, but the CCIRA Conference. So we've done lots of different things. A lot of a lot of what we stress is networking and introducing them to principles and introducing them to other teachers and letting them hear that basically, they're not, they're not alone, they're not, you know, the some of the questions that they have and the imposter syndrome feelings that they might have, or ones that we've all felt. So that's that's something that we do at the conference level is host a luncheon, bring in people. We're trying to figure out how we can make this more than just a once-a-year conference thing and covid - we have some good plans going in and covid was like "Naw." So what we'd like to revisit our plans again and figure out what can you know, what is it, that our early career people need? And how can we? How can we support them? So we've investigated different social media platforms. You know, we thought if we had a Facebook page and we're like, no those are for old people. And then we, we're just trying to figure out what's you know, how can we? How can we keep us, how can we create this support network? Because right now it's pretty, you know, we meet, and we get a lot of momentum at the conference and we'd like to put that momentum to continue. I don't know if that answered your question, but that was a lot of information about what our goals and aspirations are. 00:03:29 Molly Rauh Well, and I'm also curious, Krista. How did you get into this role of helping to coordinate ECN? 00:03:37 Krista Griffin Yeah, you know, I ask myself that all but no, just just kidding. No, I some I have taught at the University level for for several years. And when I first got well, when I was an undergraduate, I had heard about CCIRA. And that was a, you know, quite a long time ago. And then as a master's student, I got a grant to come myself that paid for me to attend this event to buy supplies. And so I thought, wow, that you know, that's a really great thing as we pull as we pull people in. But then when I got to Metro where I currently teach the professor that with that was there was said that we could get these memberships and we could take students. And so what she did was she just gave out the memberships. And I said, wait, what if we went with them and what if we, you know, made it a thing. So at my University, I figured out how I could. My students could apply for student I'm travel grant, and we could get paid for. So, so then, for the last, I think it's been 10 years. I've just been collecting students who want to go helping them receive the grant and taking them. So it was a kind of a natural thing. So I would take them. And then friends who were running the early career Network in years past from UNC would talk to me about this. And then that's kind of, and then you know, the next thing I know I'm my name is on the thing. So anyway, it aligns with my passion, which is preparing pre-service, and also early career network teachers in it. But that's that's how it evolved was I was bringing them, and they're like, hey, you're bringing them anyway. Let's make you official. 00:05:32 Molly Rauh Well, and that, you know, makes me think. And this is actually something that I've brought up before. But teachers, if you're out there listening, and you have connections for awesome professors at different universities in Colorado or and nearby, who would do awesome work like Krrista's doing, we need you, because I think, you know what, what you do for your students would support so many new teachers in doing their best work. I didn't get started at the University level, but, you know, as a first year teacher does early career, is it the first three years that you guys support? Or just the very first year? First three? 00:06:14 Krista Griffin I think it's one two, three years. Other people have said 125. I feel like we're all inclusive. If you are considering yourself, an early career person, and we would love to support you. 00:06:24 Molly Rauh Yeah. So, like I got started my very first year, and, you know, you were talking about that networking, peace. And, you know, I had so many great connections, not just in my building, but in my district, and later on in nearby districts, because somebody pulled me in in the beginning. And, you know, I think all those people have allowed me to stay in this career, even when things get tough. So I, you know, I think that early career network is a beautiful thing to help those new teachers get started and really feel supported and be able to do this job, especially in what's become a pretty tough climate to teach in. So, you know, you talked about what you do with your students. So what are some of those fun things that you're working on that covid kind of messed up, that you would like to see happen, that maybe teachers around the state hearing this can say, hey, that's something I can do, even if they're not officially in a roll with CCIRA. But things they could do to help, kind of build, yeah, an unofficial early career network. 00:07:38 Krista Griffin Yeah, I think that some of the some of the ideas that we had talked about in, maybe the last three times that we had done these, our luncheons at CCIRA. We had talked about meeting in the summer. So having some kind of a summer get together. So and it, it doesn't have to be summer, and it doesn't have to be around a training. But whatever ideas was to bring in somebody, you know, to do some PD that's specific and, and and very, you know, just something that that early current teachers would really, really go to, because a lot of the professional development that are that we are required to go to may be necessary but it may not be our passion or what fills us and brings us joy or meets, you know, the very direct need that we have at the moment. So that's one of the things that we're thinking about is, how could we have? Because see CCIRA has so many great sessions for students to attend. It is students come away from that, and teachers just so invigorated. And so they, but they get all of it at one time, right? And? And there becomes an overload at some point. You're like, great. And so we thought, well, if we can do something at a different point, maybe, you know, maybe in a kind of a midpoint in Denver, maybe, or the other thing that we were thinking about was how we could get our councils more involved in in the early career network and maybe figure out how they can reach out, empowering council members to reach out to new teachers in their schools and districts. So maybe having some little campaign that is grass roots from schools. So that, and then once we build, you know, we don't want, I will build it, and they'll come type of thing we want, they'll come, and we'll build it because it should be based on the needs of, you know, what those teachers are feeling and needing. So those were some of the things things that are percolating that we hope to be able to to continue to support. And and to we always. This is true of students of any age teachers of any age. Everybody is motivated by different things and needs different things. And there's no one-size-fits-all in anything. So we can't assume that we know, you know what a specific groups needs are we want to know from from from all of them, what are they? But sometimes saying, what do you need is overwhelming? And we're like, "We don't know what we need besides wine and chocolate!" So coming up with some amount of choices like, you know, we know and. And and we also know that that's motivating right? Like research on motivation says, controlled choice is also motivating, and sometimes is even helpful when, when we're not sure what we need. So those are those are just things that we were considering. And the other thing that I was thinking about, when you were talking Molly, is that one thing that we know is if we can get people, especially students, or early career, we can get them to come to CCIRA once we can most likely get them to come back again. And so if it becomes a part of their professional development early, then it becomes something they can look forward to, and they can invite their friends to their, you know, at their schools. And then it becomes both both a learning and a social time of joy. So anyway,

    43 min

  6. 01/09/2022

    Melanie Conklin: Counting Thyme and an author's process

    00:00:00 Molly Rauh Hello and welcome back to this CCIA Literacy Conversations podcast. I'm your host Molly Rauh with my co-host... 00:00:08 Jessica Rickert ...Jessica Rickert. Today's podcast features, Melanie Conklin, Melanie's work centers around writing middle grade novels. Melanie shares about her writing process, inspiration for her stories, and how Nicholas Sparks helped her get started in the publishing world. We are here with Melanie Conklin. Thank you, Melanie, for joining us on our our podcast. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your background? 00:00:36 Melanie Conklin Sure thing. Hi, I'm Melanie. I'm very excited to come and visit Denver in the beginning of 2022. Let's all take a moment to acknowledge how ridiculous it is that it's almost 2022. But my background was in not writing at all. I actually went to design school and studied to be a product designer. Most people don't know what that is. But basically, if you've ever been in Target or Walmart, all that stuff on the shelves that's what a product designer works on. We decide what something looks like and how it works; these kind of consumer products that you have in your home. So if you've ever seen like a giant cupcake birthday cake, it's like a giant cake, and it comes out of a pan. I designed that pan. So you probably have stuff in your house that I designed and worked on. That's a fun talking point. But so I was I was a designer for about 10 years. I quit to stay home with my kids while they were little, and I still liked them. And and I got bored during that time, started writing. And, and five years later, I was an author. So that's how I got here. 00:01:41 Molly Rauh So I feel like they're have to be more steps from going from writer to authors. Or are there some stories or some pieces there of how you went from? Like I'm writing with my time to I have something published? 00:01:55 Melanie Conklin Sure. You know, it's interesting because I've been in publishing for a few years now, and I've met a lot of writers, and a lot of them have very circuitous unexpected paths to becoming authors. For me, I just think I have always had a love of the creative process. So when I had this like energy, one day, I woke up and thought, Oh, I have this idea for the story. Well, if I was writing that, I'd started this way. And so at nap time, I was like, well, why don't I just write that down? Like I have Microsoft Word like I can do that for free and product design. You have to bet I have about a million dollars to like, make a product. But for a book, all you have to have is somewhere to write, you know, even on paper. So I started writing, and I told my husband, you know, I think I'm writing a book, and he was like, of course, you are. So just let me know when it's done. And then I then I tried to read the whole internet, you know, to learn how to be a writer. I finished that first draft, and it was really bad. It did all the things that you're not supposed to do. So the protagonist was like 14 which is the dead space in between middle grade and YA. And she woke up from a dream on the first page and looked in the mirror immediately, which all three of those things are bad. Like none of that is good. And so once I started learning what I needed to do, I explored more, discovered that my voice for middle grade was something that really resonated with me. And "Counting Thyme" was my first book that was published was the third book that I wrote. And when I wrote that one in my critique, partners are reading it. They were like, you know, this is something like this. This reads like a real book. What's funny is it really didn't. There was still a lot of work that needed to be done. But at that point, I entered into the arena of trying to find an agent. And, you know, most people are always like. So how did you get your book published? Like, did you just send it to the publisher, or whatever? What happens is, an author works with an agent who's like your representative, who then takes your book to a publisher and convinces an editor at that publisher to buy it. And then you get paid, and the agent gets a chunk of what you get paid. So it's the first big decision you have to make when you're entering publishing is what agent are you going to work with? And so I had a few different agents that were interested in me, which was great, very fortunate. And my agent that I ended up working with at that time, he was didn't have a ton of experience yet with his own clients. But he said, you know, one of our I want to have one of our agency clients call. You can answer questions. And I was like, okay, that sounds good. So he told me what time I was going to get a call, but he didn't tell me who was calling. So my phone rings and I pick it up. And on the other end of the line, the guy says, "Hi. This is Nicholas Sparks, isn't that wild?" And I went, "What?" and he goes, "This is Nicholas Sparks, you know, the author, you know, I you, you're looking to work with one of my agents." And I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." So I was totally my brain emptied of all thoughts. Like, what am I supposed to say to Nicholas Sparks? Right? Well, he turned out to be super helpful. You know, has a ton of experience could answer any question I had. And of course, had some real verbal gems that I was just like, wow, I can't believe I just heard him say that to me on the phone. So I did end up signing with that agent. We don't work together anymore now, for totally other reasons. But we had a great time working together for a few years. And I will never forget having Nicholas Sparks call me from from the road to talk to me about publishing. 00:05:40 Jessica Rickert That is an amazing story. I would have probably freaked out too, and not been able to talk about anything, coherently. So with your first book, it centers around cancer, right? 00:05:54 Melanie Conklin Yeah. 00:05:55 Jessica Rickert So, tell us about how did that play? Like, was there a personal experience that you felt the need to write this book around that? 00:06:07 Melanie Conklin Sure. So my my debut novel was for middle grade readers, and it's called "Counting Thyme." But time is spelled with an "H"- "Y" like the herb. And it's about a girl named Thyme who moves across the country for her little brother's cancer treatment. And it's sort of about that conflict that you have if you're a sibling where you often want things for yourself. But you have to compromise a lot, because there are other children who need things in your family as well. Which I have a little sister. So there's a lot of fodder for me about that topic. I was gravitated towards writing about pediatric cancer and specifically, neuroblastoma, because a few years prior to writing this, when I lived in Brooklyn, one of our neighbors' children was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. And this was when blogs had just started. And so everybody was like, wow, you can read it. You can read about each other's like daily lives like, and they can just post updates. And everyone in our neighborhood followed their blog and organized meal train and raised funds when they needed it for different things. And I became pretty intimately familiar with how difficult the treatment is for a lot of pediatric cancers, specifically this one. And I felt like it was just a really, really tough position for parents to be in that you're pursuing a treatment that you know is painful and difficult for your child. But it's the best chance they have. It's the best chance science can give them to outlive the disease. That's what I wanted to write about in that book. And I think it was the first middle grade that was had neuroblastoma knit, pretty sure, but I was personally familiar with it. Then I started working with a group called Cookies for Kids Cancer that raises funds to support research in that arena and part of what I, my proceeds from "Counting Thyme," went to supporting their research. 00:08:02 Jessica Rickert And you have some crazy statistics about childhood cancer on your website, which, like, shocked me. I didn't know that it would - isn't it the greatest killer of kids? Like that's how kids die the most deaths are attributed to cancer. 00:08:23 Melanie Conklin Yeah, you would. You would think it might be something else. But actually, pediatric cancer is the leading cause of death in childre. A lot of times, because it's not discovered until it's quite late. A lot of times you don't have the signs that you have with adult bodies. And so, and things are progressing quickly, because they have rapidly dividing cells, you know, because they are growing. So that's what neuroblastoma in particular is cancer of the nervous system. So it can appear anywhere that you have nerves, which means it can be all over your whole body, not only in your brain and your spine. So that can make it really hard to treat. And and that's what was kind of astonishing to me when I got to know the statistics through cookies for kids cancer was that there was so little money being spent on on cures for for children or even treatment, and that it's very difficult to even develop treatments ethically, because you don't want to do a study where you're giving placebo to children, you know, in order -so most of these treatments, including the one that's depicted in "Counting Thyme," which is an antibody treatment. They remain in clinical trial status permanently, because in order to get approval, they have to do a blind study, and they would have to knowingly let children suffer without getting the treatment. And that's just a real conflict of ethics. So it's very complicated trying to develop new treatments for pediatric cancer. And that's why supporting it is really important because they don't have the same kind of funding draw that say breast cancer awareness has. However, they have some of the best results. When I first started and learned about neuroblasto

    28 min

  7. 01/02/2022

    Marc Tyler Nobleman: Finding and Writing Untold Stories

    00:00:00 Molly Rauh Hello and welcome back to this CCIRA Literacy Conversations podcast. I'm your host Molly Rauh with my co-host Jessica Rickert. Today's podcast features, Marc Tyler Nobleman. 00:00:14 Jessica Rickert Marc's work centers around writing fiction and nonfiction books for young people, Mark shares how he writes books that grab an interest people will welcome. Mark we're so excited to chat with you tonight. Could you start by telling us a little bit about your background? 00:00:34 Marc Tyler Nobleman Well, thanks for having me. And I am very excited to be making my return to CCIRA. It's either my third or my fourth; I can double check that before I get there. So I am an author of books for young people. I've been doing this for most of my adult life. I've written both nonfiction and fiction. My main criteria is I want to write books that grab your attention. I want to tell....If it's nonfiction, I want to tell an Untold Story, or at least what I hope will be an untold story to most readers. And if it's fiction, I just want to surprise you. I wanted to be funny, or just feel fresh to you in some way, and something that you that might grab you just from a quick, quick little glimpse, or a quick initial explanation, not a deep dive. But just I want to grab people right away. 00:01:25 Jessica Rickert So when did this start? When did you start writing? 00:01:29 Marc Tyler Nobleman Well, same time as everybody when I was a tiny person, but I liked it at the time, unlike a lot of my peers. And so I would write short stories. I know I did that in high school, so that might be the earliest I can say definitively. And in college, I knew I wanted to become some kind of a professional writer. It didn't know what. And I got out of school, and I stumbled into being a children's book author that was not on my agenda. Not that I was against it. I just didn't think of it. And here I am. All these years later, I'm very happy with that. I mean, it's expanded into a variety of types of writing, but that is my that is, my focus really is writing for young people. And and there are adults, their loved ones who are adults, their parents, their teachers. 00:02:15 Molly Rauh Well, and you and I have already... So people who can't see, he and I share the love of comics. And so I'm kind of curious. One of your more nonfiction stories is about the sort of originally unknown second co-creator of Batman. How did you get into that story? 00:02:42 Marc Tyler Nobleman Yes. 00:02:42 Molly Rauh How do you spell across that? Where does that come from? 00:02:45 Marc Tyler Nobleman Well, do we do? Should I explain to who our listeners who Batman is, or do you think they already know? They probably... 00:02:53 Molly Rauh I hope they know 00:02:54 Marc Tyler Nobleman They probably know. Let's give them that benefit of the doubt. So that is my big story. I will be talking about that in person. I don't want to spill the beans too much on that. But I'll answer your question, which doesn't spill the beans, which is that I was a comic book reader since I was in, again, a tiny person. And back then it wasn't cool. Now it's cool now anyone can do it, now, there's no judgment, but back then it was not exactly mainstream, or, you know, widely accepted. In fact, you know, when I was in, when I was in grade school to high school, I think there were only two or three mainstream superhero movies in that entire 10 or 12 year stretch. Now there's two or three a week, just to put it in perspective. You know, there were the Superman movies. And then at the very end of high school, the Batman movie came out. Those are the main ones. And then there was a couple lesser ones. So it really wasn't something that was, you know, widely accepted. And I, as a as a person who became a writer, I started to pay attention not only to the fictional side, but to who created these characters. And I, I remember that on my 16th birthday. The cover of Time Magazine was Superman's 50th birthday, and it talked about his creators. So I was a sixteen-year-old reading Time magazine in my school library, you know, having an epiphany that yeah, these characters came from somewhere, and I was interested in that. So I don't know exactly when I learned about the story behind Batman, but I know it was not in college. It was after that. Because in college, I proof that I did not know about The Unsung co-creator, because there's not my proudest moment, but I'm just gonna be honest with you, because you're all adults, some of my friends and I would crank call each other each other, not strangers. And this is back in the answering machine days. So our goal was to just fill out the tape. Just talk until we got cut off. So I would just ram- We would all just ramble. You know, I would just pick up a book and start reading. I would tell some story from my childhood. I am. One of the stories I told was this story began Batman, and all I mentioned was Bob Kane, the artist, the man who was credited on Batman at the time, the only person. I didn't mention Bill Finger. So as as late as college, I had never heard of this man who then end up becoming the subject of my most, I think, my most popular book and a huge part of my life, which is, again, a story that I'll tell in great detail at the conference. But you know, just the point being that, you know, you can't, as we I'll say, as adults, and as teachers and Educators can't believe everything you read. Got to look further, you might be even if it's something as huge as Batman, maybe even, especially if it's something as huge as Batman, you've got to know your source. You've got a double check. Make sure you're getting the true story you might be, you know, pulling the wool over your eyes. 00:05:39 Molly Rauh Now, you just made me more curious. There's no answer. 00:05:41 Marc Tyler Nobleman That's the goal right? 00:05:42 Molly Rauh I'm gonna have to come see you at the conference, so I can get more info. 00:05:44 Marc Tyler Nobleman Please, do. That's what I want. I want a big group on a big, huge attendance. 00:05:50 Molly Rauh Okay, so, thinking more about because, you know, we have teachers here. And so they're trying to inspire their own next generation of authors. In terms of process, how do you go about writing a book? Like what? What steps do you work through? 00:06:11 Marc Tyler Nobleman So if it's fiction, I like to try to sketch out the arc of the story in advance. Now you're not locked in, but it helps me to have guideposts. And when I teach creative writing to kids in the summer and at various times during the year and I always tell them that you, I recommend that you do that, but don't feel beholden to it. You know, if your writing and your story goes in another Direction, that's okay, you're not breaking a law or a rule, but it does help to have that outline, especially, I think, the ending, because I really think with fiction, it's and I think it's important at least it helps me to have some sense of your destination so that you get there and an exciting way. I talk about it with kids by saying, if you know, there's let's say it's a Sunday, and your family is all hanging out, looking for something to do. Someone in your family might say, let's go get ice cream, but you know, we're not going to go straight there. We're going to take the scenic route. Another person might say, let's just get in the car and drive, and who knows where we'll end up. So in one, in case you've got a destination which you might get excited about, and then you take a roundabout way to get there, because that's fun in another, you're excited because you don't know what at all where you're going. So it's just one of the two, but I just prefer knowing that we're going to get ice cream at the end. That's how I like to write that I know that's where we're going. Now with nonfiction. It just starts with just the, the, the, you know, the spark of the electricity running up my spine. I mean, I read something, I hear something that I feel is so enticing and even better again, if it hasn't been done before, and it's own book. So most of my nonfiction in recent years, it's that category. Its if given my know some of the story, of course, but it hasn't been the focus of its own book. And so I love that I love feeling like I'm walking through the forest by myself. No one else is looking for mushrooms or whatever you're foraging for. You're the only one you're going to get all the best spoils. And I also just love the excitement that I see on faces of both kids and adults want to telling a story that that is new for them. So, you know, with all no love loss to Rosa Parks and Babe Ruth. And, you know, any number of other textbook names that get tons of picture books about them all deserve it. Muhammad, Ali. And, well, a lot of the presidents are falling out of favor these days. But, you know, you know who I'm talking to. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. All these people have multiple picture books by now, and they deserve them. But I want to I want to be one of the people that writes about someone that you don't really know. So that, to me, is just it's a little riskier as some some publisher. Some editors don't want to work on books that aren't pre-sold. But for me, it's the only way forward. I just want to be fulfilled by the read, the process. So with fiction, I have to sketch it out a bit with nonfiction. I just have that spark, and I just download as much as I can about the topic. And then I go through and it's fun, because then you go through and pick out the kid-friendly parts. The parts that you know are going to excite kids. It might not be them. You know, the linear story from. I mean, it will be linear when it's done, but, you know, you might be missing big moments that are not appropriate or interesting for kids. You still have to make it, you know, a cohesive whole. So that's finest. Yet. What are the pieces of th

    44 min

  8. 12/22/2021

    Pernille Ripp: Honoring and Centering Our Students, Especially in a Pandemic

    Transcript created using Maestra. We apologize for any errors. 00:00:00 Molly Rauh Hello and welcome back to the CCIRA literacy conversations podcast. I'm your host Molly Rauh with my co-host , Jessica Rickert. 00:00:09 Jessica Rickert Today's podcast features Pernille Ripp. Pernille's work centers around creating a classroom environment based on student needs. Pernilleshares how important it is to keep students in the forefront of teaching and how to bring joy into the classroom and slow down to support students' learning . Welcome Pernille. We're so excited to have you on the podcast. Would you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself and your background? 00:00:39 Pernille Ripp Sure. So my name is Pernille Ripp. And most days you can find me in seventh grade English and Oregon, Wisconsin, right outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Or of course, at home, with my own for kids, trying to navigate what it means to be a teacher and a parent during an ongoing Global pandemic. If I'm not teaching or with my own kids, I'm usually either reading or writing or speaking. We're running the Global Read Aloud, which kicked off this week. And so there's always lots to do and lots of crazy busy-ness. But I would say that I'm easily found, and I love usually wherever I'm at. And I just like to try to think about how we can change all the things that we see need to be changed, and what we can do within the frameworks that we work within, and how we can continually provide students opportunities to reclaim the power that so many of our systems have taken away from them, whether it's within their reading and writing instruction, but also just in like, how they get to be in our schools and the systems that we have set up for them thereA 00:01:49 Molly Rauh Awesome. So my first question for you, Pernille, is just thinking about my own time and energy as a teacher. What was it that kick-started for you, like going beyond teaching in your classroom and starting to write professional development resources for teachers? And then where do you find the time and energy to do all the great things you do? Because the rest, the rest of us need to know. 00:02:20 Pernille Ripp Yeah, I don't think there's such a thing as finding time, right? Like I think I make the time, and some days I feel super balanced and on top of the world and other days, I definitely don't. And I will say that the last 19 months. Now, with pandemic teaching, my world has been completely off kilter. I have not blocked as little as I have in all the years since I've been blogging. Even tonight. I sat outside for maybe 30 minutes, drinking a cup of tea, and just trying to read it. Book. And like my brain just could not connect with the words that I was seeing on the page. But I also say, like I have an incredible support system, right? I have a husband who is super invested in making sure that I have space to process, because that's how my writing started. It was a frustration with what I was doing, and then recognizing that some of the things that I was doing had been directly passed on to me in Traditions, right from helpful mentors and and college experiences. And also just what I had witnessed whatever was the traditions of teaching. And I was just really frustrated with how I had ended up becoming a product of the system that didn't work for all kids. And so I spoke a lot about it to my husband, and he's super, and he's a first-year teacher. He's really into education as well. But he was the one that said, you know, you really like writing, and he thought about writing about it. And so that's how it started. It started and continues to just be this, this kind of ongoing dialogue with the world, but also a monologue with myself with going. Okay, I saw this. And here are my thoughts. And here's what I'm going to try and hear what? Here's why this doesn't work. And so my blog is really just this, like random collection of experiences from the last 11 years, both in the classroom and also outside of it. And somehow that hit a chord with a lot of people. And it was not something that I set out to do. You know, it was not a diss intention of like man. I was a second. I was a third-year teacher when I started writing, and I did not think that I had the answers for anything, and I still don't have many answers, but I had a lot of questions. And I also had this hope that if I could change some things, maybe I could make the situation in front of me better. And my students were kind enough to share their voices with me and say, yeah, you go share this with other adults to, because it would be really nice if more people hurt at the new. And so I think that's it's just a super organic Journey that I've been on and continue to be on. Right. The learning never stops. And, and I think, especially in the last 19 months. Now more than ever, when we've just been told, we'll figure it out, or, you know, here's this new initiative. Can't you just make it work? I've tried to share all the dumb little things that I have done to try to make it bearable and manageable, but also been very vocal about like this is not sustainable, and it's not okay for us to feel like we're the ones failing here when there's so much more going on than just the decisions within our own classroom. 00:05:28 Molly Rauh I love the that started as a reflective practice for you that you were just kind of reflecting on your work and writing about it. And, you know, I also think it's really neat that it was your husband who was like, write about it. You know, he recognized since what you needed when maybe you couldn't. So I think that's that's kind of a neat thing. 00:05:48 Pernille Ripp And I think maybe he was just sick of hearing about it. You write like, because it's it's also like when you're in this vacuum together. Now that we were to teacher household, we also have to have like, we've really recognize some boundaries. And being like otherwise. It's all consuming. And I think he was at the point to where he was like this is all consuming for you. How can you get it out, step away? And then feel like you did something productive with all those thoughts? And so he knows me. Well, he knew that writing would be a good outlet for that. 00:06:16 Molly Rauh And I think one of the beautiful things about that as starting this journey for yourself as a third-year teacher. I don't know to me, that's like the prime time. You still have lots of energy. You still, like you have questions about things. You have all these ideals that you haven't forgot, if that makes sense. Yeah, because I think I don't know about you, but as I go through my own teaching journey, sometimes you lose sight of like that, that ultimate goal of who you want to be. Because, like you said, those systems, they end up changing us. And sometimes you look around suddenly, and you're like, I don't want to be part of these systems anymore. And you said, like you said, they're part of traditions, and they get passed down. And I think we all slowly, over time, you know, become complicit complicit in some practices that we probably don't love. 00:07:13 Pernille Ripp Absolutely. And I think they I think the system is set up to do that, that I think it's meant to wear as down the way that we are spoon fed this, you know, statement of, like, will do it for the kids. And the minute you raise your voice, well, then you're not in it for the right reasons. And what an incredibly toxic way of thinking. Like the reason I raise, my voice is for the kids, but it's also the create a profession that is sustainable for people, because it does not work if we're, if we are self sacrificing our health, our families, everything, our finances, just to fix a system that isn't working for kids, and then in Reverse being told, like, you must not have done enough. You know, when we look at burnout, it's like there's so many reasons. But of course, it's also like the burden that educational staff and the system is supposed to to carry is just too much. And so I think it's also, I think you're right with that, like I love being around new teachers because they're still hopeful. And then I look at myself, and I'm like, man, when did I become the jaded old teacher, right? Like when did I become that teacher? I was like, oh, here we go, another new idea, you know, like that voice in the staff meeting. But I get it now, And I get why people end up there. And so I think it's important to continue the dialogue with students to, because the students have been in our grade before. And so while I might be a eight year veteran of seventh grade by now, this is my students, one and only time in seventh grade, and they have hope and they want to change things. And so that's why I think it's so important for me to have those conversations with kids as well. 00:08:47 Molly Rauh Okay. So, thinking of like going from that blogging piece to your first book, and and just to give you a little bit of heads up. So, you know, I like to poll some of my colleagues and friends in education before I do these interviews. And I would say, I there were there were two kinds of teachers. They either knew who you were, and there were like, oh, my gosh, that's so exciting. She's great, or they had no idea who you were. And so for the you know, I think on a literacy podcast, most of our listeners probably know who you are. But on the off chance that there are some who don't know much about you, I think like I want, I want you to go back to early as a professional writer. How did you go from the blog to a book? And then kind of quick summary of what your first book was about that our listeners can maybe go. Maybe I need to pick that up. Okay? 00:09:48 Pernille Ripp Ya, no, how did that? So I was Brave. I saw a tweet. So I've been blogging for a couple of years, and people were responding, which was crazy, right? Like even the first blog post that I wrote somebody responded,

    40 min
See All (36)

About

CCIRA Inc., Colorado's literacy organization, is ready to chat about literacy with some fantastic literacy experts. Get ready to learn, expand your list of educational heroes, and gather ideas about ways you can improve your teaching practice.

Information

  • Creator
    CCIRA, Inc.
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2022
  • Episodes
    36
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2018 CCIRA Literacy Conversations
  • Show Website
    CCIRA Literacy Conversations