I’ve just returned from an invigorating experience in Hawaii. I left having grown an amazing circle of friends.

It’s too late to get a show out tonight but I will release a show tomorrow so stay tuned!

My plan for today is to create an opportunity for you to think about critical literacy as it is talked about and practiced in different spaces and places. To do this I’ve organized my talk using what I consider to be critical moves in my life as a literacy educator. By critical moves, I mean those moments in time that represent particular shifts in my teaching or practice. The three moves in particular that I will use to guide my talk are kid-watching, negotiating, and Podcasting.

In particular I will share two stories of life in a classroom and a podcast that represent for me the critical moves I mentioned earlier.

Kid-watching as a Critical Move
The first story took place, in fall 1986, when I was assigned, my first group of students, a grade one class of 29 children. That was when I met six-year-old Kevin. Little did I know how Kevin would impact my life as an educator. Why? Because of an incident ,that happened in the classroom that became for me a critical moment. In fact I ended up writing about this incident ,which was published in the Reading Teacher years later.

I wrote…

Tags : community, friendship, Hawaii, networking