On Tuesday, as part of the CSU Literacies of Contemporary Civic Life series, Dr. Patrick Camangian, offered his insight in a talk titled “From Coping to Hoping: Teaching a New Ending.” The entire discussion can be viewed below and I hope you will take a look.

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Dr. Camangian’s work can be accessed via his Academia.edu page. Additionally, Patrick mentions that his work builds on the scholarship of Jeff Duncan-Andrade and I would point readers to his “Note to Educators,” which offers a necessary look at “critical hope.”

As Patrick mentions at the beginning of his talk, he and I have been in similar circles for nearly a decade. My first teacher education class (taught by Dr. Duncan-Andrade) met in Patrick’s classroom. The picture of Tupac above his clock, mentioned in his talk, was my first look at what a caring, urban classroom could look like.

Marcelle Haddix’s presentation as part of the ongoing Literacies of Contemporary Civic Life series was thrilling. A recent graduate, currently teaching in a local school told me this was the talk she “needed” to hear. Likewise, many attendees (both in-person and via email afterwards) shared that they were invigorated and renewed by Dr. Haddix’s frank discussion of the needs of preservice teachers of color, the challenges with wanting to “help” a community, and the possibilities that unfold (to lift a phrase from one of her research participants) when we shift our stances as teachers and teacher educators. I hope you watch Dr. Haddix’s talk below.

“Are You Still Helping That Community?”: Toward a Publicly Engaged Teacher Education and a Focus on Community/ies

Next week will be an equally great presentation from Dr. Patrick Camangian of the University of San Francisco. As usual we will be in Clark A205 at 5:30 and the event is free. Here is a bit of info about Dr. Camangian’s presentation:

Moving Left of Center: Teaching a New Ending

If teachers truly want to make their classrooms more culturally empowering, we need the type of learning, an ability to read the world, as Paulo Freire says, that leads to social transformation in students’ actual lives. This presentation honors this by discussing the importance of tapping into the humanity that young people bring into classrooms, treating their most pressing concerns as worthy of intellectual interrogation and important starting points for all learning. Toward this end, this presentation will draw on work done in urban schools throughout California as a context to understand the socio-educational experiences of different cultural groups in urban communities and, more importantly, consider ways in which classroom teachers can more effectively remedy the problems facing urban communities.

This series has developed into a powerful, necessary dialogue and I am thrilled to imagine how next week will only further add to this more-than-conversation. Please join us!

Finally, as Marcelle mentioned, she and I met through the NCTE Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color fellowship program – there is still time to apply to join the next cohort of committed literacy scholars. (And shoot me an email if you are interested and have any questions.)

Two weeks ago, we had an awesome turnout at our second event as part of the Literacies of Contemporary Civic Life speaker series at CSU. Mark Gomez, Patricia Hanson, and Katie Rainge-Briggs shared their powerful work at the Schools for Community Action. They had an interactive presentation that involved researching issues local to Fort Collins and presenting elevator pitches for sustainable change. The work was engaging and a fun change of pace from the traditional academic mode of presentation. Their presentation can be viewed below (though if you find the small-group activity a bit dizzying, I encourage you to skip to around minute 44 when they do some larger wrap-up in a traditional format).

This Tuesday we are honored to have Marcelle Haddix as our next presenter. Below is the title and abstract of her presentation. I know it is one you don’t want to miss.

“Are You Still Helping That Community?”: Toward a Publicly Engaged Teacher Education and a Focus on Community/ies

Working from a scholarship-in-action, community engaged framework, Marcelle Haddix will discuss ways that notions of community/ies and public engagement are defined and taken up in English and literacy teacher education.   Her talk will feature examples from two areas of scholarship.  The first area involves a study of the ways students of color navigate the multiple discourse communities they inhabit as preservice teachers and their construction of teacher identities in the current climate of teacher preparation programs.  Specifically, Marcelle will highlight the ways that teacher candidates of color define public engagement and what it means for them to work with/in urban schools and communities.  The second examines the experiences of secondary English and literacy preservice teachers enrolled in a Teaching Writing Course where students coordinate and facilitate a community writing event for local middle and high school students.   In looking across both areas, her talk will articulate new directions for encouraging community building and public engagement in English and literacy teacher education.

As usual we will be in Clark A205 at 5:30 and the event is free. Please join us!

It has been exciting to put together the CSU speaker series, Literacies of Contemporary Civic Life, that is unfolding over the semester.

As I mention in the introduction to this series, I am hoping attendees (and viewers) will consider the dialogue that unfolds across these five different speakers. What intersections can we imagine in the work we do with and for young people across the U.S. today? Kicking off our CSU speaker series this week, Buffy Hamilton’s presentation “Metanarratives of Literacy Practices: Libraries as Sponsors of Literacies” helped us challenge our notions of what’s possible in libraries and how these spaces should be thought of critically as “Sponsors of Literacies” – building off of research by Deborah Brandt. It’s been a true pleasure getting to learn from Buffy (even if it means she’s been stranded in Fort Collins longer than she planned due to an insane season of weather). If you aren’t already reading The Unquiet Librarian, what’s wrong with you?

Buffy graciously allowed us to record her talk and she has shared her slides via Slideshare. Both the video and the slides are embedded below. A quick note that next week’s talk will feature three classroom teachers , Mark Gomez, Patricia Hanson, and Katie Rainge-Briggs who all co-founded the Schools for Community Action at the August Hawkins Learning Complex in South Central Los Angeles. Their talk is titled “Schools for Community Action: Addressing the Lived Realities of Inner-City Youth.” I can promise another engaging talk. For local folks, we’ll be in Clark A 205 on Tuesday at 5:30. Bring a friend!

Any Colorado-local (or Colorado-Adjacent folks): please join us!

The Colorado State University Department of English is pleased to announce the upcoming speaker series: “The Literacies of Contemporary Civic Life.” Throughout the spring semester the department will host nationally recognized literacies-based researchers and educators to discuss how literacy and youth civic participation intersect from varying, interdisciplinary perspectives. I’m thrilled to be able to put this event together with some of the most powerful scholars doing necessary literacies research.

The speakers will be presenting their work and engaging in dialogue from 5:30-6:30, followed by a brief reception. These events are free and open to the public. All of the speakers will be presenting at the CSU campus in Clark A 205.

The speakers and dates for this series are as follows:

• 2/11: Buffy Hamilton – School Librarian, Norcross High School, Atlanta, GA; 2011 Library Journal Mover and Shaker.
• 2/18: Mark Gomez, Patricia Hanson, & Katie Rainge-Briggs – School designers and educators from the Schools for Community Action, Los Angeles, CA.
• 3/4: Marcelle Haddix – Assistant Professor, Syracuse University School of Education, NY.
• 3/11: Patrick Camangian – Assistant Professor, University of San Francisco and teacher at Mandela High School, Oakland, CA.
• 4/22: Linda Christensen – Instructor and Director of the Oregon Writing Project, Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling & Rethinking Schools Editorial Board member, Portland, OR.

Buffy’s talk next Tuesday is going to be awesome! Here’s the title and description: