Connecting Reading and Writing

Seeing the Sky:  Visions for the Struggling Reader and Writer in the Process Classroom
Consultant:  Isoke Titilayo Nia
For many teachers the idea of a reading and writing workshop is a challenge.  They do not see their students as being able to participate fully in such a community.  In classrooms where teachers try to make literacy authentic, to respect children' intentions, and to create joyful learning environments, we are sometimes dismayed to know that we are still not reaching our struggling readers and writers in the way that they need to be taught. 

This work is based on the premise that, if our goal is for students to read and write for their entire lives, inside and outside the classroom, then part of our focus as teachers has to be on rigorous teaching within the independent reading workshop (defined as the time in the day when students choose their own reading for their own purposes) and writing workshop.  Once we give kids the chance to choose what they will read and write and how they will respond, we can, through our conferring, small group, and whole-class work, teach actively and assertively onto and into what they have chosen. 

The purpose of this workshop is to help teachers gather strategies to assist these students.  We will look at many ways in which learners struggle, and then we will think together about strategies for observing and identifying the nature of their struggle.  We will also consider whole-school and classroom structures and contexts which might best serve these struggling students. 

Writing at the Middle and Secondary Levels

Workshop Title:  Teaching Writing / “Spice Up the Process”
Consultant:  Susanne Rubenstein
Audience:  6–12 Teachers
Under the demands of state-mandated testing, writing instruction can become too methodical and template-driven. This workshop offers both veteran and new teachers the opportunity to expand their work with and understanding of the writing process. In a supportive atmosphere, participants experience, through their own writing, all stages of the process—prewriting, writing, response, revision, rewriting and publication—and discover how process writing contributes to students’ success both in the classroom and on standardized tests. Participants develop a repertoire of classroom activities and assignments based on the process writing model that can be used throughout the curriculum. This workshop can be presented in abbreviated form in one daylong session, but it is designed to be offered in a series of sessions, allowing participants time for writing and revision.

Workshop Title:  Teaching Writing / “Publishing Our Students, Publishing Our Selves”
Consultant:  Susanne Rubenstein
Audience:  6–12 Teachers
This workshop is for middle and high school teachers who are committed to the process writing model and who are eager to promote the last step of the process—publication. The first half of the workshop offers a variety of specific ideas and classroom activities that help students develop the confidence and ability to publish their work in a wide market. With the goal of publication in mind, students come to realize that the real purpose of writing is to communicate with an audience, and, with this understanding, they find a reason to write well. The second part of the presentation focuses on the teacher as published writer with the potential to be a strong voice in the field of education. The workshop also offers an overview of accessible markets for both students and teachers and information on the publishing process.

Writing in a Digital Age
Consultant:  William Kist

Overview
What’s new in adolescent literacy?
—Kids are still reading books
—Kids are also doing a lot of reading and writing online
   Fanfiction sites
   Chat rooms
   Instant messaging

Quick overview of trends in helping struggling writers be better writers
—Motivating struggling writers
—Activities to do Before Writing
—Activities to do During Writing
—Activities to do After Writing
  
What are “reading” and “writing” in the 21st century?
—Literacy will probably be more “screen-based” than “page-based.”
—People will still need to be good at reading and writing print.
—Writing will also include being able to create in media other than print:
   graphic design, music, video and still photography

What are some assignments that teachers can give that will tap into these new literacies?
—Examples from my book, New Literacies in Action
   Video clips from documentary footage shot on location
—Examples of digital portfolio management systems

Breakout Sessions with Smaller Groups (60-90 minutes?)
During these small-group sessions, I would train teachers on how to use some very simple activities to help struggling writers.

Before Writing Activities Building/accessing prior knowledge Connecting to personal experiences Developing vocabulary List/Group/Label Using props as story starters Writing activities to do in a computer lab Tea Party Game “I Wish” Poetry Activity Found Poetry

During Writing Activities Peer Conferencing Teaching Conferencing Authors’ Chair Writers’ Club groups Listing Questions Activity Imagery Building Activities Using Simulations

After Writing Activities Talking about writing conventions with students Text-Messaging English versus Standard English Publishing venues (new and old) Internet, Digital Portfolios, School performances Readers’ Theatre Formats for Sharing Student Writing Parent/Student Writing Clubs

Writing at the Elementary Level

Workshop Title:  My Students Are Writing, Now What Do I Do?
Consultant:  Trina Randle
Audience:  Elementary school teachers, administrators, literacy coaches.
Purpose of Workshop: This session is designed for teachers who have Writing Workshops or writing activities going on in the classroom already, but want to know how to maintain the writing energy through thoughtful planning.  The focus will be on the multiple genre possibilities for study.  View Trina's listing of story formats for the writing workshop and engagements with a study of narrative and memoir texts.

Workshop Title:  Spelling Instruction
Consultant:  Trina Randle
Audience:  Elementary school teachers, administrators, literacy coaches.
This session will equip teachers with strategies to analyze students’ developmental spelling stages.  After a thorough look into why students spell the way they do, teachers will learn about ways to instruct students at each developmental stage.  View Trina's listing of children's literature for spelling.

Workshop Title:  Teaching Standardized Testing as a Genre
Consultant:  Trina Randle
Audience:  Elementary school teachers, administrators, literacy coaches.
This session will engage teachers in thinking through reading and writing testing strategies.  Teachers will get ideas for how to teach about standardized testing as a writing unit of study.

Workshop Title:  Literacy Coaches Teaching Writing
Consultant:  Trina Randle
Audience:  Elementary school teachers, administrators, literacy coaches.
This highly-interactive session will feature practices that support the teaching of writing during study groups.  Participants will explore the writing process together by actually engaging in a Writer’s Workshop.  Bring  a Writer’s Notebook and prepare to learn how to teach writing by writing.

Workshop Title:  Poems You Didn’t Know You Could Write: Language Play with Reluctant Readers and Writers
Consultant:  Ingrid Wendt
Looking for new ways to “snag” students into writing?  This hands-on workshop will help non-writers lose their dread of teaching poetry writing in the classroom through engaging activities that bring out the poet in everyone.  Participants begin by looking at “writer’s block” and ways to get around it.  Then, with the pressure removed to produce whole poems, they experiment with some of poetry’s building blocks:  figures of speech,  musical language, rhythm, parallel structures, and repetition. 

Using poetry models in Ingrid’s teaching guide "Starting with Little Things," as well as supplementary materials, participants will then explore such poetic conventions as the “protest poem,” the “big brag,” and the “letter poem,” discovering how poems can come from real-life experience.  Understanding the importance of process over product, pleasure over labor, participants will learn strategies for responding to student work with positive, honest, and helpful comments. 

Ideal for the classroom teacher planning a unit on poetry, or wishing to include poetry into daily or weekly routine, this half- or all-day workshop can be individualized for elementary, middle- and secondary-school audiences (or a mixture of all levels). It can also be offered as a more comprehensive workshop or seminar of two to five days.

Some half-day variations of this workshop:

• Teaching Diversity through Poetry
• Reading and Writing Poetry in an Age of Anxiety
• Here’s Looking at Me, Here’s Looking at You: Creating Portraits with Poetry
• Thinking for Others through Poetry: Poems in Voices of Animate and Inanimate Characters
• Responding to Visual Art through Poetry 

Workshop Title:  “Meet IRA/NCTE Standards, Teach Character Counts, Through Poetry Writing in the Classroom”   
Consultant:  Ingrid Wendt
Poetry in the classroom:  frill or tool?   This hands-on session for elementary and middle-school audiences will support your hunch that what is learned while writing poems does carry over into all areas of Language Arts, and across the curriculum, actually fulfilling IRA/NCTE state-mandated standards.  Poetry writing in the classroom can also be used in conjunction with teaching the Six Pillars of Character:  

• trustworthiness
• respect
• responsibility
• fairness
• caring
• citizenship 

Ingrid will present a variety of easily-grasped poems, chosen for student appeal, and will lead participants in ways to use these, and others, as springboards for such non-threatening, playful poetry writing activities as:

• writing poems in the voices of others, speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves.
• turning abstract concepts (trust, respect, etc.) into concrete images and figures of speech.
• celebrating wonder and awe of the environment; encouraging stewardship.

The workshop will conclude with an examination of two lists—IRA/NCTE standards and the Pillars of Character—with participants discovering how the writing activities have actually fulfilled many Language Arts requirements as well as led to the internalization of concepts inherent in “character.” 

Online Writing

Workshop Title:  Working with Writers Online
Consultant:  Beth Hewett
Ideal for WAC or English professionals, this workshop uses the principles of investigation, individualization, immersion, association, and reflection to help educators respond to student writing in online settings. Beth introduces some of the characteristics of writing instruction through asynchronous and synchronous online platforms, and she provides examples and suggestions for responding to student writing in a variety of settings. Using models and providing online practice with the host institution’s software, she enables participants to work both individually and collaboratively to develop outcomes and to practice useful instructional responses.

Variations of this workshop can be developed for both secondary and post-secondary audiences:

• Teaching through Text
• Conferencing in Tutorial Settings
• Subject-Specific Strategies for Online Writing Instruction (for example, architecture, biology, or psychology)
• Aligning the Goals of an Online and Traditional Writing Program

Workshop Title:  Maximal Feedback in Minimal Time
Consultant:  Beth Hewett
Research has shown that giving students formative feedback helps them to become better writers. However, particularly in secondary school settings, teachers have limited time to comment on student writing drafts. Using contemporary research, Beth will review some of the most useful ways to provide and maximize formative feedback using minimal time: strategic marking; focusing on “HOCs” and “LOCs”; commenting from the “inside out”; and addressing fluency, form, and correctness. Teachers can employ these strategies through comments on student papers, in individual conferences, within writing groups, and among peer response groups in both traditional oral and online settings. Participants will have opportunities to practice these strategies, with time for discussion of their experiences. Beth will individualize this workshop for either secondary or post-secondary settings.