Responsive Literacy: Illinois Reading Council 2016

One of my favorite times of year has come and gone again... The annual Illinois Reading Council conference was once again an inspiring event where I learned a ton, and took a lot of literacy guru selfies. :) Check the Twitter feed #IRC2016 for more tweets.

I started writing this post, but then realized I never published it. So, I am going to just share my #sketchnotes from the sessions I attended and call it a day. One word synthesis: Inspiring! My general, overall thoughts? Writing matters. Model it, use books as a model for it, and be a writer yourself. Non-fiction has so much potential for reading and writing, and we really need to think about how we teach it to our kids. Images and visuals in books and our writing matter. Literacy matters.

@amybender8

@writeguyjeff

@KyleneBeers @BobProbst
(I always misspell her first name, because our PE teacher is a Kyleen. Ignore the handle on the #sketchnote. Her real handle is @KyleneBeers)

@debbiediller

@writeguyjeff

@ReadDRjwilhelm

@maestracarrera @leahod
(I had the honor of presenting this session with the lovely and talented Lucy Carrera.
Thanks, Lucy, for your inspiration!)

@LynMullalyHunt

@FletcherRalph

For those of you who know me, I am a self proclaimed literacy nerd. In fact, I like to take selfies at reading conferences. I mean, who doesn't? The truth is, I like to go up to people who inspire me, and tell them that they inspire me, while posing for a picture with them. I figure it really helps me synthesize the influence others have on myself and my students, and shows a little gratitude for their dedication to our professional field. So, here are my 2016 #litguruselfies!