Dublin Literacy Conference

A quick post to mention that I'm presenting at the Dublin Literacy Conference in Dublin, Ohio this February and registration is now open. Click HERE if you want to learn more.

At the link you'll find the brochure to see all of the amazing sessions that there will be that day. Pam Allyn and Jason Reynolds (!!) are Keynote Speakers. Bill Bass, Hena Khan, and I are featured authors. In the brochure you will see there are also many educators presenting throughout the day.

The conference is on February 23rd and you must register by February 16th. Registration is only $120, unless you're a preservice teacher, then it's $70. 

My friends and I have often said there is something in the water in Dublin, Ohio. All of the teachers I know from there are simply amazing. I am thrilled to get the chance to travel there and share what we're doing here in my town while learning from the amazing folks that attend. If you are in the area, I hope to see you there! 

Side note - check out this blog tomorrow (Tuesday, January 2nd). I'm starting a new blog series that I'm super excited about! 

nErDcamp Round-up

I have been blessed in regard to the conferences I have attended this past school year: NCTE, MRA, IRC, All Write, ALA… so much to learn and so many friends to see. All of the conferences have been special in their own way, but none have intrigued me as much as last week’s nErDcamp.

Based on the Edcamp model, nErDcamp was the brainchild of an awesome friend, Colby Sharp. Along with his wife, Alaina, and a fabulous group of educators/friends, the first nErDcamp occurred this past Thursday.

I headed north to Michigan on Wednesday with Donalyn Miller driving and book titles flying between us. We were both excited to see some friends and intrigued at what nErDcamp would be like. That night many Nerdy Book Club friends met up for dinner at Dark Horse Brewery. I won’t even bother to list the folks that were there for fear of forgetting someone, I’ll just say it was an amazing evening and if you were there, the chance is good that Colby Sharp convinced you to write a post for Nerdy Book Club – or called you to remind you to write the post.

Thursday dawned early and many of us headed to nErDcamp – after picking up some much needed coffee. Upon approaching the high school we were greeted with the sign welcoming us

And many enthusiastic volunteers. The nErDcamp organizers had bags of goodies for the first one hundred and fifty people there – advanced copies of books, posters, bookmarks, and more. We checked in, ordered our lunch, and headed to the main room.

Once everyone was settled, Colby explained how the day would work. We had six slots each hour and were going to have two hour-long sessions before lunch, two after. We brainstormed as small groups what sessions we would like to see the first two hours of the day. If you were willing to lead a session, you told the organizers and your session title and your name were added to the Google Doc. Once the morning sessions were filled, it was off to learn.

I will say regarding the brainstorming session that I was floored by how quickly the sessions were filled. I was worried at first – what if no one wanted to lead a session? What if everyone just sat there? I needn’t have worried; the energy in the room was electrifying. I wish it could be bottled and passed out at faculty meetings around the country. AMAZING!

I first attended a session on Evernote led by Cathy Mere, Karen Terlecky, and Alaina Sharp. I was super excited about this because I’ve begun using Evernote this year but know there are ways to use it I haven’t even begun to see. The session was wonderful with great ideas being shared by presenters and participants.

The second session I attended was Motivating Readers and Writers through Technology led by Suz Gibbs and Donalyn Miller. Again, great ideas given by the presenters and participants. I left with new ideas for my class and was tying the new learning to the #cyberpd book I’m reading as well.

Jerzy

We broke for lunch and then brainstormed the sessions for the afternoon. Again, the energy rocked. I ended up agreeing to led two sessions – one with Jerzy Drozd and Laurie Keller on Graphic Novels: A Pathway to Learning. The other session was with Cindy Minnich and Donalyn Miller entitled Nerdy Book Club Needs YOU.

Nerdy Book Club Team

I’ve led several professional development sessions over the past few years and these were some of my favorites. I didn’t have to prepare, stress out, work hard on a presentation before attending nErDcamp. After lunch Donalyn turned to me and asked if I wanted to do something on Nerdy Book Club. I said sure. Shortly after that Colby came up and asked if I’d join Jerzy in talking about the importance of graphic novels. I agreed. I walked into each session with no preparation beyond what I know to be true in my classroom – and that was all that was needed. I also loved that the presenters learned as much from the participants as they did from us. This was collaborative learning as it was meant to be.

We wrapped up nErDcamp back in the large room with door prizes and folks heading to the front to share what they learned that day. I shook my head as we finally headed to the car. I spent the day with folks that willingly gave up a summer vacation day to learn, lead sessions, and grow as professionals.

I keep thinking about this model of learning – could it be done on a district level? Would that work on one of our Inservice days? I’m sure that it could, but I need to think it through. What I do know is this, it was incredible and I cannot wait to attend again.

If you couldn’t attend, the link to the doc showing the sessions is here:

Google Doc

Click on the room number to be taken to the notes page someone in that session recorded for everyone.

If you did attend and wrote your own blog write up, will you link the blog in the comments? I will add them to the bottom of the post as we go so we can have a one-stop spot for our reflection from the amazing day.

Thanks Colby, Alaina, and everyone who worked hard to make the first nErDcamp such a success! 

nErDcamp blog post round up 
(click on the blogger's name to be taken to their blog - this will be updated)

Franki Sibberson
Travis Jonker

Holly Mueller
Stephanie Shouldis

Michele Corbat
Crystal Brunelle
Jen Vincent
Niki Ohs Barnes
Colby Sharp

Slice 24 - Jeff Anderson

Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers. For the month of March we are challenging ourselves to write a Slice A Day.

At dinner on Friday night I was sharing with my friend what sessions I had attended at Illinois Reading Council’s annual conference and then I realized I had never written about it on my blog. An oversight that must be corrected! 

Let me begin explaining IRC – it is held in Springfield each year and spans three days. I was only able to attend on Thursday due to scheduling, but even one day was worthwhile. The thing I love about attending conferences like IRC is that you have many presenters to choose from and can tailor your PD to meet your needs. As it so happens, I was in need of some laughs and a shot of energy into my writing workshop. I met both needs by attending two sessions from the wonderful Jeff Anderson.

I have pages and pages of notes on my iPad from attending Jeff’s sessions and debated how to share the wonderful things I learned. After reading them over I realized something – I don’t think I can. To try and summarize two sessions with Jeff is nearly impossible. He’s so damn funny that you are wiping away tears as you howl with laughter and then you straighten up and realized the thing he just said was brilliant, you rush to type it out and then find yourself bent over laughing again.

The best I can do is tell you six things I loved that Jeff shared. (And I’m limiting myself to six!)

In his session on Informational and Explanatory writing:

àAll explanatory writing is informational but not all informational writing is explanatory. Reminded me of squares and rectangles – which he then used as an example.

àPointed out that a lot of the non-fiction writing we read is narrative – even though some that talk about the Common Core State Standards seem to believe we need to limit/ eliminate narrative writing. One example he shared was from the book Flesh and Blood So Cheap – the sample he read was a narrative. He also showed how you could use the narrative (here talking about the lack of fire drills which lead to a disaster in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory) and then move your students to writing argumentative papers.

In his afternoon session on Grammar and Conventions:

 

àSaid something along these lines: Just because it makes kids miserable, just because it isn’t fun, doesn’t mean it’s rigorous. Can I say AMEN?

à Kids are afraid of being wrong. We want them to make decisions as writers. Hard to do when they are scared.

à On Daily Oral Language worksheets – Would we put up a poster that said Thomas Jefferson was the president on the five-dollar bill and then teach them the correct answer later? Why are we showing them what’s wrong? Why not give them mentor sentences that show them what is right?

àWhen working with students: honor what they say. Name what they’ve said. Extend their thinking.  

Finally, and I didn’t want to bury this above, Jeff did talk about the scary idea that computers will be scoring the writing on the CCSS tests. If that doesn’t give you nightmares, it should. To learn more about this, read this link from NCTE:

MACHINE SCORING IN THE ASSESSMENT OF WRITING

I want to point out that the Gettysburg Address would score a 2 on a scale of 1 to 6. Considering that Lincoln's famous speech was the focus of my senior paper in college – 25 pages written on that beauty – I know it pretty well. What the heck are we doing? This is scary, folks. Thanks to Donalyn Miller for that link.

And, if you are as freaked out by this idea as I am, head on over to this link:

humanreaders.org

There you can sign a petition to state that you’d prefer humans to score our students’ writing – not a machine. They only have a bit over 1,300 signatures so far. We all need to sign this. Thanks to Jeff for that link.

I could go on and on. We could talk writing, grammar, Jeff’s presentations, the need for people to score writing, etc. all day long. Let’s just end with this - if you don’t own Jeff’s books – fix that. They all are amazing. And if you are anywhere he is speaking, make sure you go see him. He is one of the best professional development speakers I’ve ever seen - and has been every time I've seen him. I only wish every teacher in my district had been there.