Teacher Librarian Day(s)

Writing Solidarity: Transnational Hip-Hop & the IGTimes, 1984-1994

Justin De Senso is an Assistant Professor of English at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He recently relocated from Penn State University, where he was an Associate Teaching Professor of English and African American Studies. He specialize in first-year writing, theories of race and racism, and post-World War II American history and culture.

This presentation will tell the story of the International Graffiti Times (IGTimes), a 1984-1994 aerosol artist zine that offers a window onto hip-hop’s solidarity ethos. Primary sources from the Cornell Hip Hop Collections will be used to highlight what the culture of hip-hop teaches us about the work of solidarity.

Chicano Murals: Preservation, Appropriation, and Conformity

Denver native and artist Carlos Frésquez people came from the centuries-old Mexican borderland culture of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, but he experienced his roots from a city boy’s cross-cultural perspective. It’s an intrinsic part of who he is as a human and as an artist: community-driven, rooted in religion and folklore, yet radically political and often satirical. But Frésquez, who teaches at MSU Denver, often still returns to the heart and symbology of his ancestral culture, leading his students in the act of becoming artists or creating traditional mural projects, and gently encouraging them to remain true to themselves.

Carlos will be discuss murals he has created over the years dealing with appropriation and conformity.

The Language We Inherit

Suzi Q. Smith is an award-winning artist, organizer, and educator who lives in Denver, Colorado. The author of poetry collections Poems for the End of the World, A Gospel of Bones, and Thirteen Descansos, Suzi is also a singer-songwriter, playwright, and multi-disciplinary creative. Currently, she is Affiliate Faculty with Regis University’s Mile High MFA, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and DU’s Prison Arts Initiative, as well as the [margins.] Conference Director for The Word. She also serves as a community representative on the Denver County Cultural Council.

In this brief talk, Suzi Q. Smith will discuss techniques to explore the language we inherit and ways we use it to navigate writing and our understanding of the world. She will share stories and poems that are shaped by identities, experiences, ideas, and self-language as tools to communicate authentically, and to identify contemporary, culturally relevant materials that engage students in new ways.

Critical Conversations:  Connecting Kids, Councils and Conversations

Conversations. It’s all about meaningful conversations. Kent Willmann, with Lessons on Local Government, will be joined by a group of teachers, students, and local government leaders to discuss the challenging issues involved when working with local governments and leaders.

Bridging partisan divides, tackling controversial yet important issues to students, and purposefully connecting students with local leaders provides a wide range of critical conversations.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Dawn DiPrince, Executive Director of History Colorado and the State Historic Preservation Officer will speak about the Treaty of Guadalupe and its impact on the land we now call Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. The Treaty will be on exhibit at History Colorado during TLD, which will allow for participants to engage with the actual historical document.

Artificial Intelligence, Primary Sources, Critical Conversations, and YOU

Whether its primary sources about the founding fathers, 500 year old maps, presidential correspondence, historic newspapers, or political cartoons, the Library of Congress has it all. But just like historical thinking, the Library isn’t only about history. Just recently, for example, the Library added resources involving terabytes of datasets, thoughts around artificial intelligence and copyright, as well as crowdsourcing our history so that future generations can more easily explore and research.

The TPS Western Region team will discuss what it means to be a primary source through intimate stories about the past, present, and future.