NWP Writing Strand at NCTE

The NWP Annual Meeting is held in conjunction with NCTE Annual Convention, which features a writing strand, Writing and Reading in the Content Areas, offered by NWP. The strand will be held at the Gonzalez Convention Center. We encourage you to register for the NCTE Convention and attend the NWP Writing Strand.

ncte: Language Learners Developing Literacy in the Content Areas

8:00am - 9:15am Gonzalez Convention Center, Concourse Level, Room 215

Many teachers are working hard to ensure that ELL students develop their language skills while mastering academic content. In this session participants will explore promising practices and student work in elementary and high school content areas. We invite you to join us as we look together at classroom successes and challenges for students and teachers who are doing double the work.

Presenters: Richard Argys, Denver Writing Project; Ruth Devlin, Southern Nevada Writing Project; Michelle Ohanian, Northern Virginia Writing Project
Chair: Therese Fleming, San Antonio Writing Project
Recorder: Betty Hogan, San Antonio Writing Project

ncte: Making Writing Sing and Dance: The Cumulative Sentence and Free Modifiers

9:30am - 10:45am Gonzalez Convention Center, Concourse Level, Room 215

Imagine a sentence structure that will help your students generate ideas, use interesting words, and improve sentence variety. Through a series of interactive strategies, this session will focus on one solution to these writing challenges, and to the common problem of lack of ideas and support for ideas in student writing. Participants will explore the cumulative sentence form as described by Frances Christensen in 1963 (often called the "magic" sentence by students), and its application to the language arts and to other content areas.

Presenters: Richard L. Graves, Sunbelt Writing Project; Sherry Seale Swain, National Writing Project
Chair: Kalpana M. Iyengar, San Antonio Writing Project
Recorder: Nancy Gregory, San Antonio Writing Project

ncte: Using Digital Storytelling to Improve Literacy

1:15pm - 2:30pm Gonzalez Convention Center, Concourse Level, Room 215

This workshop will demonstrate the use of digital storytelling to support student improvement in all areas of the English language arts. Through exploring a class unit entitled The American Immigration Digital Story Project, participants will observe how students develop and improve in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Participants will see a culminating project, including a demonstration of the scaffolding process; the class materials used; examples of student work; and a showing of one student’s final digital story. Digital and hardcopy materials related to the project will be distributed.

Presenter: Yumi Matsui, Bay Area Writing Project
Chair: Shannon Blady, San Antonio Writing Project
Recorder: Jeanette Pierce, San Antonio Writing Project

ncte: Writing/Righting the World: Engaging Students in Social Justice Poetry

2:45pm - 4:00pm Gonzalez Convention Center, Concourse Level, Room 215

Teachers from diverse schools have been participating in a collaborative research project to explore various ways of integrating social justice poetry into their curricula. They will share a variety of strategies and resources for engaging students in the reading and writing of social justice poetry and helping students discover that they have the power to change the world one poem at a time.

Presenters: Honor Moorman, Joni Koehler, Kristen Renée Morgan, Kathi Kardon, Lindsey Perret, San Antonio Writing Project
Chair: Honor Moorman, San Antonio Writing Project
Recorders: Jennifer Hall, Roxanne Henkin, San Antonio Writing Project

ncte: How Student Choice and Technology Work Together to Improve Writing

4:15pm - 5:30pm Gonzalez Convention Center, Concourse Level, Room 215

Students are enthusiastic writers and care more passionately about improving their writing when they are engaged in the subject they write about. Key to this engagement is letting students pick the genre and subject matter. Add a technology component that many students already use outside of school and that allows for teamwide peer review and beta reading, and you have a compelling project. This presentation will demonstrate a novella project that has successfully engaged students in writing and learning more about how to write.

Presenters: Jennifer Hall, Lennie Irvin, San Antonio Writing Project
Chair: Christie Scott, San Antonio Writing Project
Recorder: Katherine Willis, San Antonio Writing Project