Thoughts (Very Late!!) from NCTE 2011 (Part 1)

It's been almost a month since I attended NCTE 2011, and much of my learning has been percolating in my mind, but I haven't been able to process how to share it. After reading a recent post from Cathy, I realized that snippets of thinking are all I could probably do as well without getting incredibly long-winded.

So, here is a breakdown of some of the sessions I attended, and a few of my take-aways:

I listened to Kathy Short at the Elementary Get-Together on Thursday as she accepted her award for the Outstanding Educator Award and was fascinated by how she talked about how important it is to share the stories of her life. What a great kickoff for the rest of the convention as I brought the framework of "story" to what I heard and experienced for the rest of the convention. It was also amazing that I sat a table right next to Ken Goodman - what an amazing thinker!!

I missed the first sessions of Friday because I needed to meet with my fellow presenters as we put the final touches on our poetry presentation for Saturday. One of the biggest stories that came out of this breakfast meeting was that I discovered that one of my cohorts, Katie, had gotten engaged since I last saw her (she lives in Oregon; I love in Ohio)!! Such exciting times ahead for her! The other story of this meeting is how much one can learn from doing a presentation with others. The two smart ladies with whom I presented (Katie and her mom, Dee) made me a better teacher just by our interactions through the past few months. It is a true gift to learn alongside others!!

One of my Friday sessions was titled Authors as Mentors for Peer Critique Groups, and it was a panel that included Matthew Kirby, Eric Luper, Linda Urban, and Kate Messner. Before I do any sharing here, can I say how fun it was to meet Kate in person after being connected to her on twitter (and after the session to get an autographed copy of her ARC, Eye of the Storm)!! These are four brilliant authors who go through the same struggles our students and we experience as writers. They all had similar messages -- writers need to engage in art of giving and receiving critiques, it is incredibly important to create a safe environment for this type of conversation, and the overall idea of critique groups is to bring out your best when writing. What terrific messages to take back to my own students.

Then, I was off to hear Ralph Fletcher speak. How fortunate that he had teamed up with Dan Feigelson and Kate Morris, as they all talked about how mentor texts lift students' writing. This session was packed with people even sitting in the hall to hear these panelists speak. Kate is a teacher who was sharing practical applications of her writing instruction. My favorite example was how she uses the v-shape to help students go from a big topic (vacation) and narrow their focus (how my brother broke his arm on vacation). She ended with my favorite line of the day, "My biggest dream is not for kids to be 'standard'." Brilliantly stated.

I ended Friday in another packed room for a session about nonfiction - Ellin Keene was the moderator, and the panel was comprised of Seymour Simon, Linda Hoyt, and Ann Marie Corgill. They were all wonderful. Seymour Simon shared how he uses strong words to enhance text - my immediate take-away after he shared some examples was that I need to go back to the books of his I own and focus on his language choices with my students. The idea that his books always promote curiosity intertwines perfectly with how we are wondering in our class this year. Linda Hoyt focused on the importance of modeling in front of students, but also making sure our modeling isn't just whole class modeling. We should also model in small groups and individually. I love Ann Marie; the thing she shared that I will be trying is the idea of group research. The level of her students' writing was really elevated because of this opportunity. Her final message was, "We want our kids to leave our classrooms thinking 'I can make a difference'."

Okay, as I look back at this post, I realized I got a lot more long-winded than I wanted, but I have the dilemma of trying to figure out what to cut. My answer -- look for Part 2 of NCTE 2011 in a day or two. :) I still have stories to tell...

Slice of Life - Dublin Lit Conference

It was brought to my attention recently that I never blogged about the recent Lit Conference held here in Dublin in February. I felt really bad about that because that particular day was an amazing day for me. So my "slice" for today will be a quick synopsis of some of the wonderful learning that took place for me the day of the Dublin Literacy Conference.

Keynote address: Dr. Tim Tyson was the keynote speaker, and he had the entire audience in the palm of his hand that day. His knowledge and application of technology was breath-taking. He had me early on with his screencasting of his entire presentation. Then, as he shared other technology that floored me with the possibilities, he also managed to include many smart sound-bites that are worth noting:

" School can be anything you can imagine.
Empowering human potential is the job of an educator.
We should constantly be revising and editing our thinking."
He said much more; this is just the tip of the iceberg.

He ended his keynote by sharing a video created by 7th graders in his school that celebrated the achievement and talents of a classmate. The video was powerful and brought tears to my eyes. In addition, the thinking, collaboration, and creating that went into this video was awe-inspiring.

I then later heard Dr. Tyson speak in a smaller group setting. His vision of where technology can go in education took my breath away! I was glad that I was sitting right behind my principal during this session. There were some ideas we floated by one another that we would like to see in our building. Lots of ideas; now we have to work on the funding.

Ann Marie Corgill: I went to hear Ann Marie (author of Of Primary Importance) speak for one of my sessions. Ann Marie used to teach in the primary grades, but has recently moved into a 6th grade position. What I loved about her talk is that it re-emphasized for me that good literacy instruction looks similar whether you are working with primary students or 6th graders.

Other important take-aways from her session were 1) the idea of keeping a "teaching point" notebook, 2) using share time to have students share what they learned during their conference or in strategy group, 3) using a Writing Journey Folder that contains the entire history of a piece, 4) how great her students' BIG published projects were, and 5) how important honoring children is everyday.

Later on in the day, I got to spend some one-on-one time with Ann Marie which was wonderful as well. We spent some time looking at the tech projects some students in our district have created, we spent some time watching Kevin Hodgson work his stop-motion magic with a large group of students that had signed up for his session, and we also spent some quiet time just chatting in the teachers' lounge (we also nibbled, okay gobbled, some of the best sugar cookies I have ever had).

Finally, the part of the conference that is always fun for me is when Bill (my blog partner) and I shared some of the best new books of 2009 with other teachers. We always have a blast together and the session just flowed naturally back and forth between us as we shared our favorites.

When you get to spend an entire day thinking, reflecting, and being challenged about what is best practice for our students, that is a great day!! Add to that the opportunity to spend time with so many smart people. I am so lucky that the Dublin Literacy Conference is in my own school district!!