ILA15 Top Ten!

Top Ten Reasons the CRL are Pumped for #ILA15

10. New Crazy Reading Lady Shirts.  Get ready St. Louis, we're bringing enough to keep ourselves decent for three whole days!

9. Vacation Food. We've been on a sugar cleanse for the last week. (9 days, 7.5 hours, to be exact.  But who's counting?) Said sugar cleanse will include more flexible rules as soon as we cross state lines.  Translation: Mary will be ordering dessert first.  And last. 

8. Our peers.  Our peeps.  Our tribe!  Passionate educators whose enthusiasm and abandon are contagious. We love making connections to other professionals who can talk for hours about YA titles, cross-curricular connections, and Woodcock-Johnsons. (If you're laughing right now, you clearly don't assess literacy skills for a living. This is the name of a highly-regarded reading assessment. Get your head out of the gutter!) Nothing is more rejuvenating and satisfying than spending time with professionals who never accuse each other of having a "teacher voice."  (Hi, Mom!) Last year, while in line for coffee, we were treated to an impromptu characterization dance by a woman we had never met. It was one of the finest moments of our trip.

Does this outfit meet dress code?

7. Functioning technology!  We hope!  Keep your fingers crossed that we'll actually be able to show the presentations we've poured hours of blood, sweat, and tears into.  We're still a tad traumatized from last year's experience, during which our finely-crafted, labor-of-love presentation refused to be projected onto the big screen. This brought four tech guys to our session as the clock clicked down and participants arrived.  An hour later, there was still no reasonable explanation as to why our laptop had friend-zoned the projector. Throughout that hour, Mary's wallpaper pic of her boyfriend (Hi, Jim!) was projected for all to see while Erin rambled aimlessly, vamping to buy time. It was a hoot. In all seriousness, we ended up winging it.  We were able to get slides up when we had about 25 minutes left, but at that point they seemed superfluous.  We talked and told stories and laughed and were pretty dang proud of ourselves. The bright side is we know we can do this without a net, but dang! It'd sure be nice to have a net.  But hey, they invited us back this year - for a session AND a workshop - I guess we did okay.

6. Hotel toiletries! Last year, our New Orleans hotel boasted Erin's favorite Aveda shampoo and conditioner. Once word got out, visitors brought handfuls for her stash. You've got big shoes to fill, St. Louis. I mean that stuff is normally, like $30 a bottle! (We don't get out much.)

5.Ideas. The thought of filling our notebooks with "We're SO doing this" ideas, collected from brilliant speakers and inspiring sessions. Last year, we returned from ILA with grand plans for redesigning our library into a literary cafe. It only took a year of planning, but that vision will become reality this fall.  I'm sure our fearless Gandalf awaits our return - and plans to take over even more of the school - eagerly.  (Hi, Mr. Fortin!)

4. Authors and books. Lots and lots of books. We'll happily wait in line to get books autographed for our kiddos, or to tearfully thank an author for writing something that made *that* child love reading.

3. St. Louis.  Home of the arch!  And BBQ!  And...other stuff!  Okay, so it's not New Orleans, but it's not Franklin.  As long as we can visit the local coffee shop without stopping to talk to six or seven current or former students, it will feel like a vacation. 

The CRL found this waiting in N'Awlins.

2. Bus schedules. You'll thank us later.

Aaaand, most of all...


The number one reason we're pumped for #ILA15...

It's a chance to share our crazy!

Please join us at:

Session #00562 - Building Intrinsic Motivation in Middle Level Readers: Tips to Get 'Em Hooked and Keep 'Em Reading.
Sunday, 1pm, Room 232

Workshop #00634  - Putting the C in the CRL: Experience the Outright Craziness the Ladies Bring to Literary Adventures.
Sunday, 3pm, Room 127

Putting Books to Work with Ellen Hopkins and Una LaMarche
Monday, 11am, Room 124

Look out, ILA15!  The Crazy Reading Ladies are coming!