Apple Valley Reading Council at Peru State, Jan 2016

On Monday evening January 18, the Apple Valley Reading Council met at Peru State College in the CATS Conference Room.

I have worked on and off with the council for the past twenty years and enjoyed the chance to see a lot of familiar faces.

Gina Bitner and I served as presenters for the meeting.  



 
For the past two years, Gina and I got Student Enhancement Grants to take ten PSC English and Education Majors to the Plum Creek Literacy Festival at Concordia University in Seward.

This year marked the 20th anniversary of the event that featured some of the most popular writers and illustrators of Children's Literature who have presented at the festival, from Janet Stevens to Andrew Clements, pictured on the left.


I talked about the experience at Concordia

University and showed pictures from the event linked on the blog page.  English major Ryan Christensen talked with the group about his experiences and Education major Elizabeth Chamberlain read from a

book by one of the presenters at the festival that she admires, Eric Litwin of Pete the Cat fame.  Eric plays guitar and sings in the picture on the left.


Gina discussed her annual project with

fourth graders at Calvert Elementary School in Auburn.  Her students work with a class over the course of the spring semester and write a children's book.  At the final meeting, the hard-bound books arrive, and the students and youngsters share.

I take lots of photographs that got linked on the blog page created for the Calvert visit. 

Photographs from the two events played while we all spoke: 

Calvert Visit
Plum Creek