Breakout Sessions

Friday, March 2, 2012
A Sessions 9:15-10:30 a.m.
1.	"The Power of Writing Poetry in the Elementary Mathematics Classroom" Betty Porter Walls, Harris-Stowe State University Grades K-6 Regardless of the method or mode of writing-iPad, PC, whiteboard, or the basic pen and paper-the use of poetry can be powerful for the teaching and learning of elementary mathematics.  Using principles from the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), Betty will take you on an interactive standards-based journey with ideas, materials, and strategies to infuse the writing of poetry into math content, vocabulary, and skills in computation and problem solving.  Betty invites you to "come examine pertinent children's literature which incorporates poetry and math; come be creative while improving your skills for increasing elementary students' engagement in math; come rhyme with me and you'll see that adding 1 and 2 makes 3.
2.	"What's in a Word?  Vocabulary Development for the Intermediate Grades" Libbie Hampton, Missouri Reading Initiative Grades 3-6 How students come to formulate meaning in what they read is tied closely to the understanding of vocabulary word development.  Helping students develop richer, more broad vocabulary has to be purposeful and intentional.  In this session, you will look closely at various strategies for incorporating vocabulary development within any classroom.  The use of direct, specific, intentional strategies will be the main focus.
3.	"Making Meaning from Texts: Research-based Strategies that Work" Lorene Reid, University of Missouri-St. Louis Grades 3-6 Of the five basic reading components, comprehension is the most important.  There is no doubt that making meaning from text is crucial.  This presentation is an interactive exploration of three research-based comprehension strategies that help both independent and dependent readers make meaning from texts.  By engaging in the Tea Party, Anticipation Guides, and Reciprocal Questioning, you will see first-hand how these comprehension strategies work, and you will be ready to use them right away in your own classroom.
4.	"Small Writing Groups" Betsy McQueen, Branson Intermediate School, Branson School District Grades 3-8 Can't get to all of your students regularly for a writing conference?  Do your students need an audience other than you, the teacher?  Would meaningful and collaborative talk about writing help your students become better writers?  Then small writing groups might be for you.  Come to this session and learn how to implement both collaborative and teacher-led small writing groups in your classroom in order to help your students improve their writing skills. Collaborative small writing groups can provide your students with skills to succeed in their world.
5.	"New Reads, New Settings, New Worlds" Missy Henke and Mernie Maestas, Wentzville School District Grades 4-8 Got Books?  We Do!  Come see Mernie and Missy book talk the new 2012-2013 Mark Twain (grades 4-6) and Harry Truman (grades 6-8) book nominees chosen by the Missouri Association of School Librarians.  Discover how these nominees, from a variety of genres, can be incorporated into your classroom along with activities and resource lists to enhance your lessons.  Tips and examples will be provided for you to utilize and share when you return to school.
6.	"I Link, Therefore I Think: The Impact of Prior Knowledge on Substantial Learning" Mary Kim Schreck, Educational Consultant, Poet, and Author Grades 6-12 Helping our students understand and remember the material we cover is crucial to success at every grade level.  In this session Mary Kim will review current brain research in regard to how the mind makes meaning by connecting prior knowledge to new information-especially through the use of student hemispheric strengths and tendencies.  She will provide examples of effective methods to both access and build prior knowledge as well as practice using them, and she will show you how to avoid the pitfalls of misunderstanding that often make learning more difficult.
7.	"Cause Baby, You're a Firework": Igniting Student Writing with Soundtracks Chris Goering, University of Arkansas Grades 6-12 This presentation will detail, demonstrate, and update two successful and widely adaptable composition-focused assignments, The Soundtrack of Your Life, a personal narrative designed to explain student's lives by connecting their lives to their music, and The Soundtrack of the Novel, an approach to teaching novels (or other pieces of literature) that asks students to connect and explain readings through music. Ideas will be shared that can be implemented immediately.
8.	"What has Competition, Teamwork, Off-the-Chart Critical Thinking, and Media Literacy?  The Pitch Game!" Kim Blevins, Mt. Vernon High School, Mt. Vernon School District Grades 7-12 Will you win the Blevins & Co. Pitch Game?  Experience brainstorming, loaded language, figurative language, and persuasive techniques to create advertising!  Create a biased message that looks like news.  Dissect current advertising in all media including print, television, and online.  Learn basic business etiquette.  Utilize personalized skills to assist your group, and maybe you will win "the pitch game."  This is a several-week-long unit, or it can be used off and on throughout the year.  Kim calls her version of the game Blevins & Co. because, in her classroom, she's da boss.  Students fill out a job application and are "hired" for teams to pitch ideas for nonprofits such as the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, etc.  An added benefit on top of the media literacy skills learned is learning about these nonprofits and possibly helping students to make good decisions about alcohol, tobacco, and texting and driving.  In this session, you will get to experience a crazy brainstorming session that truly shows students how to be creative; dissect a print ad, a commercial and online media; and receive all the materials Kim uses in this unit.
9.	"To Infinity and Beyond!  How the Gateway Readers Award and Your Librarian Can Take You Out of this World" Jenni George, Ft. Zumwalt School District, and Amy Taylor, Lee's Summit School District Grades 9-12 Blast off with books teens love!  Let Jenni and Amy show you how the Gateway Readers Award and collaborating with your library media specialist can open up whole new worlds for your students.  The Gateway Readers Award, sponsored by the Missouri Association of School Librarians, features the top fifteen books published for teen readers.  Jenni and Amy promise enthusiastic book talks for the 2012-2013 nominees and exciting ways you can collaborate with your librarian to incorporate critical thinking, awesome teen literature, and the ever-changing world of technology into your classroom.
10.	"Reading the Streets: Using Street Fiction in the Secondary Literacy Classroom" Marc Lamont Hill, Author and Media Personality Grades 9-12 In this workshop, Marc Lamont Hill examines street fiction, a popular new genre of novels that focuses on contemporary urban life.  Hill introduces this genre, describing what it is, who writes it, and who reads it.  He them offers critiques of the genre and outlines concrete strategies for linking street fiction to the English classroom.  In particular, he discusses how the texts can be used to encourage composition, inferential reading, and engagement, as well as bridge to traditional canonical texts.
B Sessions 1:30-2:45 p.m.
11.	"Building Better Readers and Writers" Julie Hoffelmeyer and Jeana Wise, Marshall Public Schools Grades K-3 Building readers and writers in the primary grades involves laying the foundation while providing scaffolding to help the reader/writer develop a strong self-extending system.  In this session, you will see examples of effective instructional strategies and materials that will support the beginning and/or struggling reader/writer in grades K-3.  Through hands-on examples, activities, discussion, and PowerPoint, you will explore how to use supportive language and how to design activities that will support readers/writers in using meaning, structure, and visual cues.  You will examine techniques to teach for, prompt for, and to reinforce effective reading/writing behaviors through solving words, searching, self-monitoring, and self-correcting while developing fluency and comprehension.  Let's build better readers and writers!
12.	"Action Strategies for Readers and Writers" Jeffrey Wilhelm, Boise State University, Literacy Expert and Author Grades K-12 Participants in this interactive workshop will experience how to use action strategies and drama-in-education techniques to engage and assist readers to use sophisticated comprehension strategies like seeing complex implied relationships to make inferences, and understanding authorial generalizations; and assist writers to develop knowledge of purpose, planning and forming.  A variety of creative techniques like forum drama, four corners, hotseating, radio show and tableaux will be highlighted.
13.	"Digging Deeper: Levels of Comprehension" Libbie Hampton, Missouri Reading Initiative Grades 3-6 How do we get kids to dig deep into the meaning of text?  That question is one for which teachers everywhere are seeking an answer.  For so long now, we have accepted answers that only scratch the surface of understanding.  If deeper knowledge is what is sought, then deeper questioning is what is required.  This session will explore the use of question framing paired with specific comprehension strategies to dig deep into the meaning of written text.
14.	"Crafting Meaningful Responses to 21st Century Text" Tamara Jo Rhomberg, Zaner-Bloser Grades 3-6 This session focuses on creating the connection between quality literature that represents 21st Century issues and crafting meaningful written responses.  Tamara will demonstrate the use of quality literature to stimulate deep comprehension and active student oral discussion.  This dialogue will then be transferred to writing through a series of reseach-based writing activities.  You will leave with a list of potential read alouds, discussion stems, and writing strategies to apply to your own classroom.
15.	"A Few Famous Words" Heather Erickson, Hatton McCredie Elementary School, North Callaway School District Grades 6-10 With one project, Heather's 7th and 8th graders developed a level of expertise with all of the Information Literacy GLEs, along with many from Reading and Writing.  After reading several speeches important to American history, each student selected one for further study.  Using the text of one speech, information gathered relating to the moment in history when the speech was given, images, voice-overs, and music, her students created multi-media projects using PhotoStory3.  This project would be good to use during those days when winter weather makes lesson plans hard to follow or as an independent project that could extend over a period of weeks.  Revision and self-improvement were constants, but not because Heather forced the issue.  As students viewed each other's projects, they developed deeper ideas, more flexibility with the software, and a strong desire for perfection.  While perfection may never be possible, these projects were well-loved by parents, other teachers, and students alike.  For teen learners, making such a strong connection was a rare treat that Heather would like to share with you.  Heather will provide handouts and links to help your classroom develop a few famous words into amazing multi-media projects.
16.	"The Kids are Alright: Popular Music as Connective Tissue between Students and Standards" Chris Goering, University of Arkansas Grades 6-12 Engaging students in classroom learning through popular culture helps bridge out-of-school literacies to those literacies and skills typically used in academic settings.  In this session, discover ways to use popular music to inspire writing, facilitate critical thinking and discussion, and strengthen literacy skills.  Ideas will be shared that can be implemented immediately.
17.	"Writer's Notebook to Go!" Kerry Townsend, Instructional Technology Department, Columbia Public Schools Grades 8-12 Have you ever had a great idea, but you didn't have paper and pen to capture it?  Now your writing materials are with you everywhere!  Teachers attending this workshop will learn how to use the Evernote App (www.evernote.com, Android, iPhone, iPod, and iPad) to collect writing material.  Signing up for Evernote, creating Evernote notebooks, collecting artifacts, and sharing notebooks will be discussed.
18.	"A Core Literacy: Reading and Writing Nonfiction" Maridella Carter, Sara Crump, and Christa Wenger, Blue Springs School District Grades 9-12 In this session, the presenters will describe several approaches and lesson ideas they have implemented in grades 9-12 to help their students read, interpret, and respond to print and video nonfiction media texts in various ways: questioning the text; using short related texts as a basis for writing to support a claim about a current issue; and composing a creative response to a video text.  The presenters teach both high school and college and will present ways these approaches can be used at various levels to improve students' abilities to read a variety of nonfiction texts competently and to compose creative, analytic, and persuasive writings in response to nonfiction texts.  High school teachers who are anticipating the new state assessments that will be based on the ELA Core Standards will get ideas about how to prepare students for those assessments.
19.	"Moving to the Digital Photo Essay" Candy Holloway and Tony Primeau, Ft. Zumwalt School District Grades 9-12 Are you afraid of going digital?  Do you avoid programs like Movie Maker, Prezi, and Power Point in your classroom?  This workshop will empower you to take something students already know-the essay-and enhance it using everyday digital tools.  By viewing lessons and student models, you will witness how students can both deepen their ideas in a traditional essay and narrate their personal stories more powerfully.   Come learn how students are able to creatively weave together images, texts, and audio to visually depict well-developed ideas that are engaging, and walk away with mini-lessons and scoring guides that will enable you to transform your next essay assignment.
20.	"New Teachers. New Discoveries. Always Beginning" Amy Lannin, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Keri Franklin, Missouri State University Grades K-College (specifically for new teachers) Writing teacher Nancie Atwell describes teaching as "always beginning."  Whether you are just starting your career (or haven't officially started yet) or have been teaching for a few years, you likely know that feeling of "always beginning."  However, all of us should view our teaching as "always beginning" as we learn anew each year based on the students we get to work with each day, the new books that arrive, and the new discoveries we make.  This session is for those of you truly new to teaching or in your first few years (though the presenters welcome those with a few years of experience who want to remember and share beginnings).  You will be able to share some of your highs and lows of starting out as a teacher.  Amy and Keri will provide information on what to do on the first day of school, how to look at your curriculum (or where to begin if there isn't one), and resources to turn to so that you don't find yourself isolated in your new classroom.  Teaching is about discovering within a community that supports one another.  Come and discover ideas for getting your teaching career off to a flying start within the supportive community of this workshop.
C Sessions 3:15-4:30 p.m.
21.	"Improving Literacy through Rich Experiences in Social Studies and Science" Terry Sherer and Glenda McCarty, Culver-Stockton College Grades K-8 As the United States continues to compete in a global economy that demands innovation, it is an essential role of schools to prepare students to be successful in today's world.  Our students must learn critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity throughout their school years.  Join Terry and Glenda as they explore social studies and science activities that promote such 21st century skills in the early years, and continue building these skills all the way through the middle school years.  This integrated approach of using children's literature and information books to explore strategies that promote literacy in the content areas is exactly what is needed to energize your students!
22.	"Real World Writing" Debbie Lacy Anderson, Educator, and Jenny Uptergrove, Lawson Elementary, Jefferson City School District Grades 1-3 In the real world, nonfiction texts govern as much as 90% of the reading and writing done by literate adults and comprise more than 70% of the material on standardized assessments.  Using children's own natural curiosity about the world, writing is a natural way to wonder, learn, and think about topics that excite them.  By using a variety of real-world nonfiction texts, our students learn to work collaboratively as researchers and writers to create their own informational texts.  In this session, you will learn how to support your primary students as they read, write, and create their own informational real world texts.
23.	"Five Kinds of Knowledge/ Five Kinds of Writing: Structuring Writing Assignments for Success!" Jeffrey Wilhelm, Boise State University, Literacy Expert and Author Grades 3-12 Participants in this interactive workshop will learn principles for organizing writing instruction that will prepare students for success through the use of five kinds of activities that develop the five kinds of knowledge necessary to all successful reading and writing.  The activities familiarize students with important concepts, structures and conventions of writing in sophisticated genres such as narrative, argument and explanatory/informational required by the CCSS.  An example of a complete sequence will be modeled and used which can serve as a template for all writing instruction.
24.	"Tapping into the Creative Writer that Lurks in Everyone" D. J. MacHale, Author Grades 4-12 Anyone can learn to write.  It isn't a mystical process that can only be successfully accomplished by erudite intellectuals who hover on a higher plane of awareness than the rest of us pitiful mortals.  It does take discipline and dedication, but if a young (or old) writer puts in the work, he or she can master the craft.  However, that's only half the battle.  A box of shiny new tools is worthless to a carpenter with no plans.  That's the other half.  Though anyone can learn to write, the trick is to have something to write about.  A writer must find his or her voice, not only with style but with substance.  That's the true challenge in becoming a writer.  In this workshop, D. J. will explore the concept of creativity in its most basic form.  You should come prepared to write.  Seriously.  You will do an exercise that requires pen and paper.  Bring them.  Don't be afraid; it's going to be fun.  This exercise works for all ages and can be brought back to your classroom the very next week.  It proves that everyone can write, everyone has something to write about, and it doesn't always have to be torture!
25.	"Making New Literacies Come Alive with PSAs" Lisa Joy Inniss, Columbia Public Schools, and Brandy Hackett, Moberly Public Schools Grades 6-12 Come to this session and learn how you can use one activity-PSAs (public service announcements)-that creates multiple tie-ins to your curriculum.  You will learn strategies for incorporation of this activity and get the opportunity to walk through the process, as well.  With just a FlipVid or a microphone, you can have your students practicing and integrating the Common Core State Objectives in no time!  In this session, Lisa and Brandy will show you, step by step, how to get your students to create PSAs and, along the way, learn new vocabulary, research skills, and persuasive techniques.  You will plan your own PSA during the session, and you will see first hand how you can hit a multitude of Common Core State Objectives and media literacy skills with this activity.  You will learn several different ways to use PSAs in your classroom, and have a great time doing it!
26.	"Forms of Formative Assessment" Christine Warren, Southeast Missouri State University Grades 6-12 We all know how crucial it is to know what our students are learning-before they take the final, summative evaluation.  Formative assessment gives us this crucial knowledge when we need it-while students are still learning-and allows us to adjust course, if necessary, so our students will have the best chance to succeed.  In this session, Christine will present and have you participate in several formative assessment techniques she has gathered from multiple sources and uses with her senior English Education students to take to their classrooms.  Techniques include cubing, categorizing grids, line-ups, and Four Corners.  Some can be performed spur of the moment; others will require pre-planning.  You will be able to implement these immediately in your own classroom to gather that all-important data for instruction.
27.	"Using Film to Teach Reading and Writing" Jeff Baxter, Leavenworth High School, Leavenworth, KS Grades 9-12 Teachers of reading and writing are often stuck in the 60s when it comes to innovative ways to improve their craft.  However, literary devices (point of view, foreshadowing, motif, metaphor, irony, etc.) and writing strategies (diction, syntax, tone, etc.) are also present in film.  Teaching literacy today still involves traditional strategies, but teachers must become more comfortable with new literacy, including film.  Literacy experts point out that the most influential modes of communication are visual, and that students need to be literate with film.  Jeff uses popular film clips in this session to demonstrate how the literature of film can be used to more effectively teach reading and writing skills.  You will learn the key components of the grammar of film and how to use film to stimulate writing and improve reading, and you will receive activities to begin using these strategies in your classroom right away.
28.	"Podcasting: Literacies for a New Generation" Josh Cantrell, Marshfield High School, Marshfield R-1 Schools Grades 9-12 The iPod has become a symbol our students' generation.  As both an entertainment system and a tool, the iPod is bursting with possibilities.  The question is, how can we connect this world of listening to a world of learning?  The anwser is podcasting.  In this session, you will see how technology and writing go hand-in-hand by giving teachers the information and skills to take their students' work online, converting the student from a consumer to a creator.  Starting with the basics of podcasting and going step-by-step through the process, Josh will show you how it's done.  You will leave the session feeling confident and ready to bring podcasting into your classroom.  During the session, you will work on a short piece of writing, edit the writing, practice delivery, and then see the necessary procedures to record and publish your writing online.  You will also learn how to fund this type of project for your own school with programs such as underwriting and grants.  If you would like to see students sharing and experiencing writing in ways they never before dreamed of, come check out podcasting for yourself.
29.	"Helping Students Maneuver in the Digital World" Candy Holloway and Tony Primeau, Ft. Zumwalt School District Grades 9-12 While many of our students are experts at texting lingo, sending pictures via Smart Phones, and posting YouTube videos on their Facebook pages, many are unsure how to become more than just consumers of the digital era.  In this workshop, you will learn ways to not only analyze media--its use of graphics, texts, and audio--but also move students to craft and produce digital pieces for larger audiences.  Tony and Candy will share mini-lessons they've used to teach students how to locate and upload images, to embed and upload videos, and to attach audio (songs/voice recordings).  By equipping students with the skills to tackle the digital world, we allow them to be creators of the 21st century.
30.	"Plagiarism: Changing World, But An Old Problem" Kim Chism Jasper, Stockton High School Grades 9-12 Plagiarism can be confusing for students and even for teachers.  If I go to a conference and bring back ideas to use in the classroom without attribution, why can't students do the same in their writing?  It's time that we acknowledge that not all formats require the same attribution.  (Journalists certainly don't use MLA citations.)  But it's also important that students avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism in the digital age, where an abundance of information waits just for the taking.  How can we teachers help students discern how and when to cite their sources?  Veteran teacher Kim Chism Jasper will share techniques for helping students avoid plagiarism in their works, whether they are summarizing, paraphrasing, writing news and feature stories, creating brochures, creating soundtracks, writing parodies, or writing cited reports.  And she will give credit to all those teachers whose ideas she is sharing!
Saturday, March 3, 2012
D Sessions 9:30-10:45 a.m.
31.	"Conferring with Students: The Heart of the Work" Ann Marie Corgill, Developmental Studies Center, Oakland, CA Grades K-5 Carl Anderson has said, "Conferring is not the icing on the cake; it is the cake."  In this session, you will explore the importance of conferring with your writers during the literacy block and examine how you can foster individual students' growth as caring, thoughtful, and inspired writers.  The research for this session comes from experts such as Carl Anderson, Lucy Calkins, Donald Murray, and others who have found that, through conferring, we build community with our students.  Conferring affords us the opportunity to reach every reader and writer in our classrooms.  By regularly conferring with your students, you play a pivotal role in supporting students in their move toward literary independence.
32.	"Transitioning to the Common Core State Standards" Diane Audsley and Linda Shippy, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Grades K-12 In this session presenters from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) will discuss updates on the state's transition to the Common Core State Standards.  You will learn what steps you can take to help students successfully meet the new standards which will be assessed beginning with the 2014-2015 school year.
33.	"The Friday Activity That Lasts All Week Long" Thomas Ratledge, Kelly Middle School, Scott County R-4 School District Grades 3-8 Would you like to learn how one activity that you do on Friday can not only give your students a grade, but also serve as the launching pad to engage students in grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and usage?  Not only that, but this activity also teaches self-editing skills and raises error awareness.  And, if that wasn't enough, it can be used to engage students in a great piece of literature that makes them BEG you for a book to read!  Oh, and there's one more benefit: you can't do this activity without hitting tons of GLEs!  Come to this session and learn all about this powerful, multi-use strategy.
34.	CANCELLED - "Revision:  The 'Screaming Eagle' of the Writing Process" Mindy Ridings, Hardin Middle School, St. Charles School District Grades 5-8 Revision causes some teachers to drag their feet and bite their nails.  For some of us, it may leave our stomachs queasy afterward, as well.  Then, there are those who try to avoid the revision ride altogether.   Join Mindy in this session and take the "scary" out of revision and discover how much fun it can be.  Mindy will show you how to use picture books as a way to teach revision, particularly Rollercoaster by Marla Frazee.  She will cover the familiar "explode a moment" strategy, but will also explore other revision strategies by visiting classroom stations.  The variety of strategies covered in this session will provide students with a way to work through revision in a way that requires less hand-holding by you.  This session also focuses on using writer's notebooks as more than an idea collector.  You are encouraged to bring your own writing to try these strategies out on, but it is not absolutely necessary.
35.	"Fresh Perspectives: Using Art and Technology to Shift Student Writing" Kathryn Mitchell Pierce, Wydown Middle School, Clayton School District Grades 6-8 Using art, photography, and accessible technology tools, Kathryn's middle school students have stretched their writing into new territories.  We all know that technology, opportunities to collaborate, and personally-relevant topics help invite our students, particularly the most reluctant ones, into the process of using writing to support their thinking and to express their ideas.  Samples of student work will show you how the teachers in Kathryn's school are using photography and painting to shift students' perspectives about their writing topics.  Other samples will show how collaborative digital tools (Moodle, Glogster, Prezi, GoogleDocs, PhotoShop, etc.) allow students to express their ideas in multi-modal, multi-media compositions.
36.	"I've Got My 21st Century Toolbelt, Now What?" Misty Burright, St. Joseph School District Grades 6-12 In this workshop, Misty will concentrate on two aspects of 21st Century skills: (1) using practical Web 2.0 tools in the classroom and (2) learning to organize and maintain your online tool belt.  During the first part of the workshop, Misty will share practical tools she has used with her students that encourage engagement in both reading and writing online.  Next, she will share easy ways to organize your online tool belt through professional learning networks so that you can bookmark your websites, find what you need quickly, and continue to learn more from your online network community.  All content from this workshop will be archived at wikispaces so you can enjoy the time with colleagues, rather than worry about missing website addresses, YouTube titles, etc.  Bring your laptops, tools to share, and zest for learning!
37.	"Giving Literature New Life: Reader's Theater in the Secondary Classroom" Zachary Hamby, Dora High School, Dora R-III Schools Grades 6-12 In this session, you will learn how to use reader's theater to give literature new life.  Reader's Theater lets student act out the written word, creating a unique connection between the work and themselves.  Reading aloud can be an exciting event your students actually anticipate!  Whether it's reformatting required reading into speaking parts or creating original scripts, reader's theater is a creative way to bring writing to life.  Zachary Hamby (published author of multiple reader's theater-based textbooks and teacher-consultant for the National Writing Project) will provide you with many ideas for the use of this technique in your own classroom.  Those who attend this session will leave with ideas and materials for implementing reader's theater immediately.
38.	"'Just Read' Isn't Always that Easy: Reading Strategies to Help Reluctant, Low Achievers and Challenge High Achievers" Mary Kim Schreck, Educational Consultant, Poet, and Author Grades 6-12 Research shows that students engage best when they are involved in project learning, when they have access to non-linguistic visual representations, and when learning is both challenging and possible to be mastered.  In this workshop, you will get practice with hands-on examples of all three elements that, when used together, help both low and high achievers do their best work. Because "what we learn with pleasure, we never forget," you can look forward to this workshop being a "memorable" experience!
39.	"Incorporating Technology in Mythology Class-It's all Greek to Me" Elizabeth Mael and Sherry McClain, Kearney High School, Kearney R-1 School District Grades 9-12 Are your students tired of the same pen and paper assignments that they have been completing in English classrooms for years?  In this session, Elizabeth and Sherry will show you how to engage your students by incorporating Photostory and Glogster presentations, as well as utilizing websites like myfakewall.com to study characterization.  Creating Facebook pages for the Greek gods and goddesses or the archtypal characters of Star Wars is relevant to your students.  While these assignments have previously been implemented in a Mythology class, they could easily be adapted for your classroom.
40.	"Facebook: Marketing Your Classroom to Your Students" Kelly Seymour, Missouri Western State University Grades 9-College In this session, Kelly will discuss how Facebook can be employed as an effective, safe, and legal teaching tool.  While most young learners are more concerned with socialization than developing their writing skills, by entering their realm, teachers can not only enhance students' writing skills and critical thinking abilities, but also foster a deeper sense of community in the face-to-face classroom.  Facebook can expand the amount of time students devote to the concepts taught in class as they unwittingly continue to get lesson reinforcement.  In this session, you will learn current research on Facebook use by teens and college students, understand the benefits of Facebook over current educational sites like Blackboard or class web pages, establish content for a class community page, and develop a personal model for how you want to incorporate Facebook into your teaching practices. Note: It is recommended that participants have a working knowledge of Facebook prior to the session, as the session is not designed to introduce Facebook to teachers who have never used it.  Rather, the session is organized to show and to strategize how existing practices can be incorporated with one another to maximize student benefit.
E Sessions 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
41.	"What Writing Can Teach Us" Penny Kittle, Teacher, Literacy Expert, and Author Grades K-6 Student writing is filled with lessons. As we assess the work of our writers, we can plan the next steps in teaching.  We'll gather around writing samples to discuss what we see, what writers need, and what to teach next that might help move writers toward greater joy and facility with stories and ideas.  Explore strategies for conferring and think deeply about the opportunities we have with young writers to extend thinking, craft language, and create writing communities where students learn from each other.
42.	"Revising and Editing Using Google Docs and Smartboard Technology" Deborah Goff and Susan Henderson, Rogers Public Schools, Rogers, AR Grades 4-6 Teachers can give their students opportunities to revise writing collaboratively using Google Docs.  In this session, you will see how a group of real students worked togther to help each other revise short works using Google Docs.  When students are ready to edit their work for final publication, using a smartboard lesson on editing enables the whole class to develop an editing checklist.  As an added bonus, you will see how analyzing error patterns in student work identifies grammar skills appropriate for minilessons.
43.	"The Art and Poetry of Place" Colleen Appel, Fair Grove R-X, and Kate Baird, Community Foundation of the Ozarks Grades 4-12 Colleen Appel, Middle School English teacher, and Kate Baird, teaching artist, piloted a six-week Placeworks program funded by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.  The project combined poem sketching with poster making and was designed to involve and interest students in the places they live.  In this session, you will learn how to connect images of place to meaningful word groups, and you will write poems to be interpreted in posters.  Finished student posters and Colleen's classroom, with a description of the Placeworks program, can be viewed at http://www.ruralschoolspartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/PlaceworksFinal.pdf
44.	"Everyday Applications: Reading and Writing Nonfiction" Tracy Brosch, Sunrise R-IX School District, and Cathy O'Brien, Affton School District Grades 6-12 Creating nonfiction readers and writers is a process, not a lesson.  In this session, Tracy and Cathy will present yearlong strategies that build strong nonfiction readers and writers.  Students need to be exposed to the endless forms and shapes nonfiction takes as often as possible.  Reading nonfiction writing, students have a chance to think, question, wonder, form arguments, tell their stories, and gain insight into various topics and events.  This session presents strategies for sharing, discussing, and responding to: newspaper articles, news stories, current events, memoirs, persuasive pieces, argumentative pieces, and other nonfiction writing.  Take the opportunity to view a teacher in action as Tracy and Cathy present strategies and show their sample video created by Gateway Writing Project for the DESE website.
45.	"A New Comma Outlook: Comma Rules for the Non-English Teachers Out There" Melissa Duckett, Simonsen Ninth Grade Center, Jefferson City Public Schools Grades 6-12 A fun way to integrate comma rules in the classroom?  It's possible!  Using Jeff Anderson's FANBOYS and AAAWWUBBIS, as well as brushstrokes from Noden's Image Grammar, students learn comma rules through a descriptive writing assignment.  The written project becomes a photograph of words with creative sentence structure and encourages comma usage.  This approach works well for students on all learning levels because it ditches difficult terminology and avoids generic worksheets and skill and drills that make even teachers hate commas.  Instead, it gives students an authentic opportunity to play with language, sentence structure, and mechanics while creating a personal and fun piece of writing.  Suggestions will also be provided for student friendly "learning targets," revision and editing techniques, and self-assessment.  You will also see student examples and examples of student video projects.
46.	"Twitter, Fan Fiction, and Literature" Kim Blevins, Mt. Vernon High School, Mt. Vernon School District Grades 7-12 This unit marries two popular teen web actitivies with literature.  Students tweet as characters from a literary work.  They have to know the work well enough to know what the character would tweet and how to respond as another character to others tweets.  Does your school block Twitter?  No worries.  In this session, Kim will show you a paper version that can be done inside the classroom also.  Fan fiction is another craze among teens and (mostly young) adults today.  The skills of writing from a character's point of view to add a scene, extend a chapter, or change one action in a novel or short story take writing and critical thinking skills, as well as knowledge of the work.  Crossover is another exciting fan fiction phenomena where writers combine two works into a new story.  You will be able to experience writing tweets and fan fiction during the session, and you will take home a packet with all the directions and ideas you will need for further classroom use!
47.	"New Tools for New Literacies" Josie Clark and Stacia Studer, St. Joseph School District Grades 7-12 When your students read, do their interpretations of text float on the surface?  Would you like them to dive deeper into the page, but don't know how to catch their attention?  Students today have a digital way of thinking, and if we are to reach them, we must help them find relevance by diving online to explore texts.  Common Core Standards call for us to teach deeper and push students toward more challenging texts, and we now have the ability to meet students where they are by combining the two worlds of text and technology.  In this session, Josie and Stacia will get down to the nitty gritty of thinking about texts with online tools such as Diigo, VoiceThread, and Screenr.  Come see how students can annotate and analyze text in a way that helps them dive into a new kind of literacy.  After being introduced to these digital tools, you will practice using them so you can leave the session with ideas and inspiration!
48.	"Music, YouTube, and Images: An Unlikely Trio of Tools to Increase Literacy" Leia Brooks and Danielle Johnson, Columbia Public Schools Grades 8-12 Ever wonder what resources are available to increase the literacy skills of your junior high/high school students beyond what little might be in your textbook?  You don't have to look too far!  Our secondary students have the capacity to read, write, and think critically-we just have to tap into their interests.  In this interactive workshop, Leia and Danielle will show you how to use familiar pop culture tools (YouTube clips, popular music, parodies, and images from print ads) to engage your students in critical reading and writing activities.  A student who may not comprehend mood will be able to create a parody of a popular story after watching fake trailers for Mary Poppins and The Shining.  We all require our students to read critically, but they do not necessarily know how.  After using a different type of text-a print ad from a popular magazine-students will see how much more information is being transmitted to them beyond the literal words and phrases.  Many of the activities used in this presentation have been successfully implemented by members of the Missouri Writing Project in individual classrooms and during middle and high school writing conferences.
49.	"Creativity and Composition: Write in the Palm of Your Hand!" Troy Hicks, Central Michigan University, Writing Expert and Author Grades 9-12 In this interactive session, you will explore the connections between creativity and composition using mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets to create multimedia texts.  How can we employ the digital writing tools that we hold in our pockets and purses in a creative manner?  In what ways can we broaden our definition of writing to include the composition of images, videos, and other multimedia?  Come prepared to explore, play, and create!
50.	"Balancing the Old and the New" Dana Whitesell and Jesse Fields, Stockton High School, Stockton R-1 Schools Grades 9-12 "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha," says veteran teacher Dana Whitesell as Jesse Fields, a newcomer to the field of education, shares another of his fresh ideas for the classroom.  Sometimes veteran teachers feel a little like Jan Brady, always being shown up by "Marsha"-you know, that tech-savvy newbie down the hall that all the students think is so cool.  So how's a teacher who still uses overhead transparencies going to compete?  If she's lucky, she will combine talents, and the two will learn from each other.  Dana, a 20-year veteran, and Jesse, a teacher of two-plus years, will share their insights and ideas about balancing the old and the new.  Technology can sometimes be a distraction, acknowledges Jesse, who was a computer programmer for six years.  So while he embraces the new, he also knows that much of the old still works.  Dana and Jesse will share a sampling of ideas: "Festival on a Stick," "speed dating" book chats, and the Odysseus rap are just three of many.  Whether you've been in the classroom for years or are just getting started, you will walk away from this session with activities (low- and high-tech) to use in your classroom.