Conferences

MCTE Autumn Assembly 2009: Many Voices, Many Literacies

Friday, October 30, 2009, 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. at the Lexington Hotel, Lansing
Open registration begins at 7:30
Breakfast 7:30-9:00
Keynote address begins at 8:50
Conference Program (PDF)
Conference Flyer (PDF)

Critically Acclaimed Speakers

This fall we will welcome three nationally acclaimed, award-winning authors to our annual conference to inspire our conversations on language, teaching, and learning: Jacqueline Woodson, George Ella Lyon, and Constance Weaver.

Jacqueline Woodson is an award-winning author of young adult books. Raised and educated in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, Woodson graduated from college with a B.A. in English, and then worked in New York City as a drama therapist for runaways and homeless children. She now writes full-time in Brooklyn. Woodson often writes about characters that feel out of place and the difficulties young people face. Woodson won a Newbery Honor in 2006 for Show Way. Locomotion was a National Book Award finalist and won a Corretta Scott King Honor in 2004. Woodson also won a Corretta Scott King Honor in 2001 and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Miracle’s Boys, which was made into a mini-series. In 2006, she won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults from the Young Adult Library Services Association (infoplease.com). After her morning keynote, Ms. Woodson will do a small, breakout session followed by a book signing.

George Ella Lyon was born and raised in Harlan County, Kentucky. She is the author of With a Hammer for My Heart (a novel), Catalpa (poems, winner of the Appalachian Book of the Year Award) and Where I'm From, Where Poems Come From, a primer for young poets. Her books for young readers include three novels (Borrowed Children, The Stranger I Left Behind, and Here and Then), nineteen picture books (among them Come a Tide, Together, Who Came Down That Road?, Counting on the Woods and Book), and an autobiography, A Wordful Child (Nantahala Review). Many teachers throughout Michigan have used Lyon’s work to inspire and engage their developing writers. After her luncheon keynote, Ms. Lyon will do a small session followed by a book signing.

Constance Weaver, for years a professor at Western Michigan University and a recipient of MCTE’s C.C. Fries Award, is now the Heckert Professor of Reading and Writing at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her classic text Reading Process has just been updated with an introduction discussing DIBELS and what led up to it, in a brief version of the third edition. Her most recent books on teaching grammar in the writing process, The Grammar Plan Book: A Guide to Smart Teaching (2007) and, with Jonathan Bush, Grammar to Enrich and Enhance Writing (2008), address ways of teaching grammar for writing that honor best practices in the teaching of writing, while still helping prepare students for standardized tests.

Informative Sessions

LOL, ILY, TTYL, &BRB: Reading and Writing for 21st Century Learners
Teaching Grammar, “the Research,” the MDE Grammar and Rhetoric Module—and You?
Finding the Literate in Graphic Novels
Engaging Unengaged Males—What Works?
Rethinking Technology in the Multimodal Classroom
Oral Histories: A Pathway to Authentic Learning
We Are a Family of Books: How to Create a Community of Readers
Young Writers Craft with Picture Book Mentor Texts
Engaging Students in the Obama Era Classroom
The Marriage of Poetry and Science
Introducing Literary Theory Through Film Study
Hip Hop as a Tool for Engagement in Composition Classrooms
MACUL Presents TPACK for ELA
The Teaching of Grammar: Toolbox to Treasure Box
Civic Engagement through Media Production

Pre-Conference Workshop

As an added special feature, we are sponsoring a pre-conference session presented by Toby Kahn-Loftus, Taryn Sabo, and Sue Ortlieb entitled: “Reading Like a Writer: Strategies for the Writing Workshop Classroom.” The focused audience for this pre-conference is teachers of grades 1 – 8, elementary – middle school. In this 2 and ½ hour session, participants will explore the strategies of using mentor texts to teach reading, craft, vocabulary, and conventions in a seamless writing workshop classroom inspired by the work of Katie Wood Ray and Lisa Cleaveland. The cost per person is $25 and includes materials, snacks, and door prizes. Space is limited to thirty participants so if you can join us, please try to register soon. We are sending registrants for the pre-conference an online piece from Ray’s classic text Wondrous Words as part of the materials packet.