Feedback, please

This request is for parents and teachers.

In November I'll be at the annual conference of the National Council of Teachers of English. I'm on the Committee on Racism and Bias, and we'll be meeting at the conference. It might be nice to share with the rest of the committee "stories from the field." That is, stories from parents and teachers about positive/negative experiences with books by/about American Indians, or books that have Native characters.

This can be wide-ranging. A good book, a bad book, what you found when you tried to speak to a teacher or librarians about a book... How a child responded to a particular book...

Send me your comments and I'll share them. Send right to my email: (debreese@uiuc.edu).

Arigon Starr

Some years ago, I worked with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), reviewing and selecting proposals for their annual conference. Through that work, I met Vivian Vasquez. She is currently a professor at American University, and has recently begun a podcast called CLIP, which stands for "Critical Literacy in Practice."

On Tuesday, August 8th, she will play Arigon Starr's song My Heart is on the Ground. I'm not yet up to speed on podcast's, but I understand you can listen to them on your computer. Here's the link to her site http://www.clippodcast.com/. Camping in Canada, I doubt I'll be able to listen till I'm back in Urbana. Readers who know how to listen using a computer, please post info in the comments section. For new readers, read my blog post on July 26th for background (filed under archive dated July 23rd).