With students in our classrooms writing daily and developing their ideas into finished writing projects, how do we teach in ways that raise the level of the writing students are able to do? We start by helping our students learn to read like writers. By reading differently, students can develop the visions they need to write well. This institute will focus on how to teach students to read like writers and to create curriculum around "stacks" of texts that show students the kinds of writing we'd like them to produce. Katie Ray will demonstrate how to read like a writer, explain how to immerse students in cluster texts that model specific qualities of good writing, and offer ideas for planning units of study around these text sets. You'll find new ways to engage students in the curriculum, connect their reading to their writing, and encourage them to become lifelong writers.
AGENDA
Day One 8:30 am–3:00 pm
- Understanding the curriculum embedded in writing workshop
The essential elements of the writing workshop—time for writing, choices about topics, expectations for finished work—serve both instruction and curriculum as students are developing the work habits necessary to become competent writers. When teachers understand the workshop structures and routines as curriculum, they can strengthen their support for children engaged in a workshop setting. - Understanding product curriculum: Reading like a teacher of writing
When teachers of writing learn to read with a sense of possibility, they will find good writing curriculum all around them. With Katie's lead, participants will study sample texts and develop curriculum from what they see writers doing in these texts. - Understanding process curriculum: Writing like a teacher of writing
As Katie often says, the "writing process" is the story you tell after you've written—not a set of steps to follow like a recipe. Teachers of writing must learn to speak the language of process, telling their own stories, and listening to the stories of others—their students and professional writers as well. - Writing conferences: Curriculum meets individual students
When teachers sit down next to students for writing conferences, they must draw on their existing curriculum knowledge to teach in an individualized way. The more teachers know and understand about writing, the more they have to offer students with a variety of needs as writers.
Day 2 8:30 am–2:30 pm
- Units of study: Organizing whole-class teaching
A unit of study in a writing workshop is a series of whole-class conversations, demonstrations, lessons, and inquiries around some big topic of interest to people who write. Often these studies are of particular genres, but studies of different aspects of process and particular aspects of craft offer support for writers as well. The goal of these studies is depth rather than coverage. - Exploring a framework for product study
Countless professional writers give the same advice: read if you want to learn to write well. When teachers use a predictable framework for planning whole-class units of study, a framework that always begins with reading immersion, students come to recognize the teaching and the habits of mind that inform it. - Finding texts to support units of study
Teachers who utilize reading immersion in their writing workshops must pull from the rich variety of texts available to them. Magazines, newspapers, picture books, collections, and the World Wide Web are all good sources for finding well-written, short texts to support student writers. - Curriculum decisions: Deciding what to teach in a world of mandatesand standards
Because most state curriculum documents and testing mandates use the language of mode to define what students should be able to produce in writing, teachers sometimes must engage in what Katie has called "curriculum translation" to decide what their whole-class units of study should be. Through curriculum translation, teachers learn to broaden curricular possibilities rather than narrow them.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
- Specialists
- Classroom Teachers
- Supervisors
- Elementary Language Arts Teachers
- Middle School Language Arts Teachers
- Staff Developers
- Administrators
EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT
Registrations must be received by April 1, 2009, and they must be sent in at the same time to qualify for these early bird rates:
- Individual $359 per person SAVE 10%
- 3 or more $339 per person SAVE 15%
- 10 or more $319 per person SAVE 20%
Call Heinemann at 800-541-2086 ext. 1151 for more information.
Register now to save! After April 1, the fee is $399 per person. A discounted rate of $369 per person is available if you register 3 or more at the same time.
CREDIT
Participants will receive 1.0 CEU which is equivalent to 10 class participation hours.
