Download Schedule for the Conference and descriptions of the 10 Breakout Session workshops

1. March 24, 2012 CSWP Spring Strategies Conference Program
8:15 - 8:45 Registration, Breakout Session Sign-up, Book Sale, & Refreshments
8:45 - 9:00 CSWP Director’s Welcome
9:00 - 10:00 Featured Speaker: local Author and Educator Patricia Bee
10:00-10:20 Book Sale by Usborne Books and local authors & Refreshments
10:20-11:20 Breakout Session A Workshops
11:35-12:35 Breakout Session B Workshops
12:35-12:45 Conference Evaluations and Professional Development Hours Certificates
Brochures are available for the Summer Institutes in Writing and Reading and
for the April 28 Super Saturday Strategy seminar on Poetry Writing.
SESSION A WORKSHOPS:
• Guiding Elementary Writers to Craft Stories Like the Pros—Grades K-5 (N Baylor)
Learn critical crafting and revising techniques that transform students’ stories from flat to
extraordinary! Kindergarten and first graders can do this too. This will be an interactive hour of
writing for K-5 teachers.
• Connecting Readers with Text: Writing Poetry in Two Voices—Grades 3-9 (D Martin)
Student writers often find it difficult to engage with a text and its characters. This presentation
will demonstrate how the use of poetic dialogue (or poetry in two voices) can ease student
writers into making meaningful connections with the characters, real or fictional, in the text.
Resulting poetry reveals a depth of understanding as well as identification with the text.
• Writer's Notebook: Improving Voice in Student Writing—Grades 5-12 (L Sumner)
The Writer’s Notebook changes lives! With the use of Writer’s Notebook in the classroom, both
teacher and students will grow as writers. Specific strategies for implementing as well as the
Writing Workshop approach will be provided. Writer’s Notebook is useful and adaptable for all
content areas.
• Put Those Words to Work: Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary—Grades 3-12 (L
Roessing)
Make vocabulary study fun, memorable, and effective with innovative and engaging activities
that employ students' multiple intelligences and get them drawing, rapping, and rhyming
vocabulary. Research-based ideas for improving vocabulary understanding and retention in all
content areas, as well as techniques to help attack new words, will be presented. In this
interactive presentation, teachers will pick up new ideas to close the achievement gap.
• Cubing: A Writing Strategy to Encourage Critical Thinking—Grades 5-12 (D Loyd)
Cubing, a writing-to-learn strategy, can be used in all content areas to encourage higher-order
thinking skills and includes both individual and collaborative writing. During the lesson the
students will examine a concept, issue, topic, poem, book, or historical event from six
increasingly complex perspectives. This strategy is engaging for all students. Workshop

2. March 24, 2012 CSWP Spring Strategies Conference Program
participants will create cubes to take back to the classroom along with ideas for implementation
SESSION B WORKSHOPS:
• Differentiating Instruction: Writing for Authentic Audiences & Purposes—Grades PK-4
(D Ward)
Real writers write for a specific purpose. Authentic, functional, writing gleans a platform of
uniting people in a caring open environment of learning. By arranging and allowing students to
write for authentic purposes and audiences, teachers can truly differentiate
• Using Personification to Teach Elementary Science (& other Content Area Classes)—
Grades 2-6 (L Mesco)
Personification is a great tool for teaching content areas such as science and social studies. This
workshop will explore several science topics and, using graphic organizers, we will create stories
filled with facts and information.
• Getting Them to “Get It”: Encouraging Reader Response to Increase Comprehension—
Grades 4-12 (L Roessing)
Daily, students sit in front of us, reading–fiction, nonfiction, textbooks. How can we tell if they
comprehend all they read and how can we train them to comprehend better and read more
reflectively? The advantages of using response journals and scaffolded strategies that encourage
student response before and during reading will be demonstrated. Teacher-created forms and
student examples will be shared by The Write to Read author.
• Logos, Pathos & Ethos: Developing & Improving Persuasive Writing—Grades 7-12
(N Nolasco)
Teachers often wonder how to prepare students for a high-stakes writing assessment and at the
same time continue best practice methods. In this workshop participants will learn how to
integrate the study of argumentation and persuasive writing into daily lessons. Through applying
Aristotle’s logos (logic), pathos (emotion), and ethos (personal experience), mundane test
preparation plans can be transformed into meaningful
• Using Free Tech Tools to Teach Revision Strategies—all Grades (J Warner)
When "faster", "instantaneous" and "right here, right now" defines our modern culture, it's no
wonder that our students see revision as revisiting a task that is already completed. And if they
aren't reluctant to revise, they can't make it past editing mechanics to real revision. Revision is at
the heart of the writing process, but many of us are unprepared to teach 21st century revision to
students. Luckily there are many free tools available that take the drudge work out of revision.
This session will provide strategies for using Wordle, GoogleDocs, digital idea maps, online peer
response groups, and more.