Language and Learning Conference
Past speakers have included:
- Donald Murray
- Donald Graves
- Ralph Fletcher
- Miles Myers
- Barry Lane
- Linda Rief
- Nancy Martin
- Bob Tierney
- Toby Fulwiler
- Tom Romano
- Alfie Kohn
In 2006, The Language and Learning Conference was renamed the Bernadette Mulholland Glaze Language and Learning Conference, in honor of the conference’s founder, NVWP co-director Bernie Glaze.
Some comments from teachers who attended the conference:
- “This will help me go back to school on Monday and START WRITING!”
- “The keynote speaker made us laugh, cry, and motivated us to teach writing in a better way.”
- “The ideas shared were more than theory — we can actually use these ideas in the classroom.”
2008 Presentations
Do We Really Have to Write Today? Motivating the Unmotivated Student
Ellen O’Ryon, Woodson Center
How do you motivate your struggling student who “hates to write”? Many of these students have come to expect failure and view our classes as something they must tolerate. This presentation will give techniques, strategies, and lessons to help turn unmotivated students on to writing. The central focus is twofold. It first stresses the importance of getting our students to write, and why it is worth our effort to do so, and second, leads participants through a variety of exercises and lessons that are easy, fun, and motivating for students to do. It definitely addresses the LD/ED high school population, and is aimed towards engaging all students in the writing process.
History, Oral History, Immigration Oral History
Amanda Hurowitz, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
This presentation focuses on oral history, which is exactly what it sounds like–the interviewing of people about their life experiences to understand the past. Completing an oral history gives students something to write about–someone’s story to tell, someone that they have actually met and talked to. It’s a personal history, but not their personal history. Oral history can also give purpose and ownership to the research process. The presentation addresses writing across the curriculum, document analysis, interviewing and listening skills, and research skills.
Celebrating Writing with Creative Ways to Publish in the Classroom
Michelle Haseltine, Algonkian Elementary School
This presentation focuses on in-class publication as a way to motivate students to write. Practicing creative techniques to publish “low-stakes” writing in class, and publishing with a focus on connecting with the public (peers, teachers, other classes, principal), we’ll create a showcase, publish Golden Lines on sentence strips, and (weather permitting) publish original haikus with sidewalk chalk outside. Window markers and fabric markers may also be used. This presentation was originated in an elementary setting, yet can be applied to all levels.
Roller Coaster Writing: A Series of Mini-Lessons
Jo Gordon, Gesher Jewish Day School
Riding a roller coaster is purposeful, just like good writing–there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. To keep readers from bailing out, they need to be firmly belted in for the duration of the ride. Carefully chosen words keep them in place, propelling them forward, building tension, maintaining action that includes loops and twists, and then arriving at the destination easily and comfortably or breathlessly with hearts hammering. Whether expressing, exploring, informing, or persuading, the roller coaster analogy works. By infusing their writing with energy, across the curriculum, our students engage their readers in every discipline.
This presentation addresses WAC, focused introductions, powerful thesis statements, evocative imagery, vocabulary building/word choice, dramatic conclusions, and motivating unmotivated writers.
MeaningLESS to MeaningFULL: Turning Writing Folders into Writing Portfolios
Erinn Harris, Robert E. Lee High School
This presentation shows how teachers can utilize writing portfolios in their classrooms. Instead of the portfolio merely being a dumping ground for student work, students are asked to choose pieces that best reflect their growth as a writer throughout the year, or over a more extended period of time (i.e., all of middle school, all four years of high school). The presentation shows teachers how they can move to this model. It also addresses revision, assessment, motives, and genre study.
Assessing Math Skills Through Writing
Susan Robertson, C. Hunter-Ritchie Elementary School
The central focus of this presentation is writing across the curriculum and assessment. Participants will explore how learning about student attitudes toward math help the teacher plan, and see examples of student works. They will explore what a teacher can learn about student understanding of math content and processes through writing, and what a teacher can learn about how students link skills and concepts by writing word problems.
Pencil Dancing with Writing and Art
Gayle Corrado, Indian Hollow Elementary School
This presentation focuses on drawing as prewriting. It also addresses motivation, inspiration, and teacher confidence with the activity. Participants will experience drawing activities that inspire and motivate writing–activities that they can take back to the classroom and use with confidence. Participants will be introduced to the history of writing; drawing is our first written language, and it comes from memory, observation, and imagination.
ELLs Writing in the Digital Age
Michelle Ohanian, Mountain View Alternative High School
ELLs need opportunities to not only type on a computer but also use new technologies to communicate. Come see samples of ELLs’ writing for a discussion board and our class wiki. Scaffolding will be shared on how to introduce these technologies to your students (and you.)
Teaching Punctuations in the Editing Phase
Mary Tedrow, Handley High School
This presentation focuses on a holistic approach to the use of punctuation and an argument that conventions of language should be viewed as tendencies. Writers are encouraged to examine their punctuation in terms of intent and to reflect the craft of writings. During this presentation participants will free write/discuss their own experiences with teaching/learning/using punctuation, deconstruct a professional writer’s use of punctuation to create meaning and voice in collaboration with their peers, and use their new knowledge/understanding of punctuation to edit a nearly complete piece of writing.
The Quilt Project: Bringing Students Together in a Writing Workshop
Allison Lowe, Chantilly High School
This presentation shows the importance of building community in the writing classroom and demonstrates ways to build a community within the first two weeks of school. It combines artwork and writing. The presentation also addresses writing workshop procedures, mini-lessons, and peer-revisions. In this presentation participants will read two poems in pairs and brainstorm meaning in groups; create representations of quilt squares; participate in a paragraph writing mini-lesson; and write paragraphs.
Using Learning Logs Across the Curriculum
Courtnay Weitekamp, Charles Barrett Elementary School
Participants will perform hands-on science experiments, share ideas and try several forms of writing. Come and discuss the use of learning logs as authentic assessment and reflect on the adaptation of session activitiesto your classroom practice.
Manipulatives in the Writing Classroom
Claudia Kilmer, Marsteller Middle School
Manipulatives (e.g. Cuisenaire rods and Tinkertoys) have long held a place of honor in math classrooms. Experience their value as aids in the reading/writing classroom and see how they can help students bring concrete order to abstract world of words.
Data Sheets for Original Reports
Jane Murphy, Sherando High School
Reading, writing, organizing, citing, paraphrasing–all the things my language disabled high school students struggled with. This presentation addresses the steps of research writing for my LD students. Topics include source selection, organization of material, research writing, and citing sources. Participants will practice the steps of research and look at ways to adapt this writing to their own classrooms.
Redefining Our Critically Literate Lives with New Technologies: Podcasting in a 2nd Grade Classroom
Carol Felderman, Bailey’s Elementary School
Students today come to school with knowledge of and experience with new technology. Looking into a 2nd grade classroom, and considering existing and critical literacy practices, this presentation demonstrates how work with podcasting affords children opportunities to address a greater audience as they seek to contribute to social change.
Blogging the I-Search: Using Blogs to Facilitate Personally-Relevant Research
Eric Hoefler
In this presentation, we will consider how Ken Macrorie’s concept of the “I-Search” is relevant to the use of blogs in conducting personally-relevant research. After a brief overview of the tool itself, we will examine methods–online and off–for using blogs as personal research tools and spaces for exploration, insight, and synthesis.
We Hear You: American Kids’ Reflections on Darfur
Logan Williams
Can the power of words change history? This question was presented to 149 fifth graders after studying the novel Number the Stars. The students set out on a mission to prove that words can change history. Maya Angelou, Don Gallehr, and the authors of Darfur Diaries all contributed inspiring words to the poetry book, We Hear You: American Kids’ Reflections on Darfur.
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