Join educators from all over the state in the online Winter 2026 IRC Book Club!  Choose one, two, or all three books!

Read, reflect on, and respond to Building Bigger Ideas: A Process for Teaching Purposeful Talk by Maria Nichols and/or Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal by Bettina L. Love and/or Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for Multilingual Learners by Ofelia Garcia, Jo Anne Kleifgen, and Claudia Cervantes-Soon.  

Beginning January 18, educators will participate in online discussions for the next seven-weeks. With Building Bigger Ideas, the book will guide participants beyond teaching students to talk politely about books to teaching them to have meaningful conversations with purposeful talk that serves as a tool for constructing understanding with others. With Punished for Dreaming, participants will delve into the last forty years of educational reform through the lens of 25 Black Americans with a roadmap for transformations for all children at its core. With Educating Emergent Bilinguals, this widely used textbook has been expanded to explore the potential of translanguaging and the promises and pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence. It also addresses the harmful role that colonialism and raciolinguistic ideologies play, offering guidance for transforming policies and practices to improve the education of emergent bilinguals.  

Required for participation:

• Gmail address (free at https://mail.google.com/).  The Book Club uses Google Classroom, which does not work with Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, etc.  School gmail accounts may also not work and a personal gmail account will need to be created.
• Texts:  Books can be purchased from the bookseller of your choice.

 Register by January 15, 2026, to participate in the book club.  Registration is FREE for IRC Members.  The cost for non-members is $50, which includes IRC membership for one year.   PLEASE NOTE:  The cost of book is not included.