Arts and Humanities Top

You Art To Know
This presentation provides ways to use art as a bridge to reading and writing. Participants are engaged in hands-on activities which use art to motivate students in thinking, learning, and problem solving. "You Art to Know" unlocks imaginations, providing exciting ways for an effective partnership between art and writing. Grades K-12.

Van Gogh's Starry Night: Art and Writing
Then we cross the Atlantic to take a close look at the work of Vincent Van Gogh through the eyes of song writer, Don Mc Lean who wrote about the artist in his song "Vincent."

Assessment Top

Assessing Young Children's Writing in a Writing Workshop Setting
This demonstration examines the advantages of setting up a primary classroom writing workshop, organizing a classroom for individual writing portfolios, and managing twenty or more conferences a week. Participants will review the writing process in a developmentally appropriate framework and generate several lists of possible mini-lessons and conference note checklists which can be used in their own classrooms. Finally, participants will have the opportunity to assess some student writing.

Preparing Students To Write Well on the State Writing Assessment--
Strategies for Teaching the Six Analytic Traits
This presentation shows how forty hands-on, classroom-tested, reading/writing activities using the best children's literature can be used to develop all six analytical traits in students writing. these traits include ideas, organization, word choice, sentences/paragraphs, grammar/usage, and mechanics. Actual student samples of descriptive, narrative, expository, and persuasive are shared.

The Write Ideas: Helping Young Children Create a Portfolio
This demonstration provides a variety of activities to use with young writers, taking them from prewriting to publishing. It will also explore the use of genre with beginning writers and suggest a way to accumulate and display student writing in portfolios. Student reflection is an essential part of a portfolio assessment program, and teachers will learn how to teach young writers to assess their own growth and to evaluate their peers' success. Sample evaluation tools will be included.

Writing Process In Narrative Mode, Grades 3-5
This unit was researched and written with the purpose of addressing all of the learner outcomes in language arts in grades 3-5. The unit was tested in a third grade class at Harris Jobe Elementary in Muskogee.

Using Scoring Guides To Evaluate Student Writing
This presentation explains the purpose of evaluation, demonstrates how to create a scoring guide, and illustrates the use of scoring guides for a variety of purposes. Participants read and score authentic student writing and assist in developing scoring guides for student work.

Building a Community of Writers in the Classroom Top

Building a Community of Writers
This presentation will show you how to manage a high level of involvement and independence in a successful writing community. Learn how to motivate students, set procedures for effective writing time, and maintain efficient record keeping. Participants will learn how to create a supportive and secure environment that encourages developing writers in the K-12 classroom.

Family Tales--Parents as Partners in the Writing Process
This presentation offers personal creative methods to achieve positive parental involvement in the classroom through family-oriented writing exercises. Participants will be introduced to various writing activities including writing from family pictures early memories, and personal letter writing. Participants will learn why, when parents are involved in their children's education, children excel.

Recipes for Writing: Creating a Writer-Friendly Atmosphere
This presentation offers a variety of creative strategies for building a community of writers in the K-5 classroom while developing an atmosphere of trust. Participants will gain a better understanding of how to create a writer-friendly environment and formulate a writing policy for their classroom. Participants will also learn about social and physical conditions that promote writing and find out what it means to teach writers and not writing.

Creative Writing Top

Motivating with Mysteries
There is no need to feel like Dick Tracy--searching for clues to get your students to write. Learn how to motivate even the reluctant writer and reader with mysteries. A variety of classroom-tested activities will be presented which engage students in interactive lessons and which meet the Oklahoma PASS objectives. Students will develop critical thinking skills and cognitive awareness and will improve writing and reading skills. Modifications are easily made for individual, small group, large group, and entire class instruction, including lessons for remedial and gifted. This presentation easily adapts for any grade level.

Understanding Story Elements -- The Project Way
Participants will learn how to motivate through creative projects that enhance student experiences with text. Inspire imagination, while enriching the understanding of characters, settings, and plots. Students of all ages love expressing their learning with special projects and celebrations for sharing.

What's in a Name?
This activity helps students to feel they authors. It gives them a cloak of anonymity, enabling them to share their writing without feeling self-conscious. The first step is to choose a Nom de Plume. Students use the letters of their name to create anagrams or pen names. Once they have an author's name chosen, then they develop an identity for themselves. The new authors may use fact or fiction, even a little of both, in their personal histories. Once students have their facts, then they publish their author's page. Published writing is posted on the bulletin board by their page and classmates may read new works during free time. Only the literary agent (teacher) and writer know who they are. An Authors' Party is held at the end of the year to share their creativity with friends and parents and reveal their identity. Awards are given for best examples in each genre. Every author is honored.

"Breathing Life into Poetry"
Poetry meets the interests and abilities of any age, from the most gifted to the most reluctant reader, opening a world of feelings for readers they never thought possible. Goals of this workshop will be 1) to spark students' interest and creative juices in reading and writing poetry; 2) to help teachers learn ways to incorporate poetry across the curriculum; 3) modeling successful techniques with poetry; 4) awakening the poet within yourself.

"Penning Down Connections"
Have you ever wondered how you could improve test scores, use the writing process, meet the state PASS skills and help students make connections to literature all at the same time? This presentation will show you how something as simple as letter writing can help you do just that. Program participants will have an opportunity to write letters themselves and to practice the activities they will be having their students doing. Teachers can quickly and easily implement all activities into the classroom.

Reluctant Writers / ELL Top

Recipes for Writing: Helping ELL Students and Everyone Else
Teachers often wonder how a new non-English speaking student can participate in class. This presentation offers practical activities and helpful hints to support the writing efforts of second-language learners in the elementary classroom.

Courage To Write: Using Visual Materials To Develop Writing Skills
Through visual materials, this presentation offers a five-step writing plan with writing exercises related to each step, together with a group of visual organizers. These activities, designed to develop thinking and writing, will improve students' skills in all areas--class discussion, social skills, language arts--and will encourage enjoyment in reading and learning. This workshop is especially beneficial for teachers of English as a second language students, reluctant writers, and deaf students.

Motivating Reluctant Writers
This presentation targets methods to entice the reluctant student to write. Practical strategies, reasonable to implement in the classroom, will motivate students to begin writing. This presentation is intended for the K-6 classroom but may be modified for the secondary classroom.

Writing Ideas for Reluctant Writers, a Workshop Approach to Essay Writing
This upper elementary through high school presentation offers insightful ideas for writing concrete detail and commentary for essay writing. Participants will be given definitions, examples, and practice in the craft of zooming in on the moment to create concrete detail, and of pulling back to reflect on the meaning of creating commentary.

Literacy - Reading/Writing Connection Top

"Building Blocks of Literacy Development in the Early Childhood Classroom"
This presentation will provide participants with practical developmentally appropriate ideas to build literacy in the early childhood classroom (Pre-K through 2nd grade) through listening, speaking, reading, and writing opportunities.

Links to Literacy in the Primary Classroom
This presentation provides literacy activities for the K-5 classroom teacher. Participants will learn strategies and activities to enhance and balance their reading and writing programs, while maximizing their time by integrating reading, writing, skills, and literature.

Literature Links: Connecting Reading and Writing
This presentation includes information regarding the importance of connecting reading and writing. Participants will take part in hands-on activities and receive a list of resources to take back to the classroom and put into practice immediately. The projects showcased in the presentation require little preparation, allowing the teacher time for writing instruction and book discussion.

"Book"ing It into Writing
This presentation will offer strategies to assist students in becoming writers. Using trade books such as Nate the Great, If You Give a Mouse A Cookie, 10 Black Dots and many more, teachers will learn how to use story maps and classroom modeling to improve student writing.

Byte-Sized Goodies: A Wholesome Part of a Balanced Literary Diet"
Have you ever worried that computer-based reading incentive programs might be spoiling your students' appetites for reading? This presentation serves up ideas for keeping elementary students hungry for books by offering tantalizing opportunities to respond to literature through writing. Participants will leave with ideas for "byte-sized" activities that can be done with or without computers in a small slice of time.

Anticipate Success! Use Literature and Writing
To Enhance Comprehension and Word Recognition
This presentation will show how to use literature to enhance students' anticipation of what will happen in the story. The anticipation allows students to have a framework of what the story will be about, therefore allowing the student to be more successful with word recognition skills and comprehension. Ideas for prewriting, writing summaries, and share writing will be included.

Helping Little People Become Big Writers
This demonstration offers writing strategies for the K-8 Classroom that can be incorporated into the existing curriculum. Participants will be introduced to numerous ways of connecting student writing to literature and trade books. Participants will be shown how to complete successful writing activities with their class such as big books.

Pump It Up! Motivate Your Students to Read
Pump it up and motivate your students to read more with these hands-on strategies that utilize current literature and promote interest in reading. This presentation gives teachers of all ages reading ideas to use immediately in their classrooms.

Reading Without Books: The 90% Factor
This presentation explores the nature of reading and the implications for reading instruction at the secondary level in both language arts and content area courses. Most of the reading that students will do after leaving high school will be to gain information. Is our present course of instruction addressing this? Are students as proficient in reading for information in content textbooks as they are in narrative fiction? What about reading from books? This presentation examines the seven organizational patterns for informational texts and how to use the writing process to teach students to become more efficient readers.

"What's It Say?" Learning about Print
Participants will interpret a cave drawing, make a word cup, have a "feet on" experience with a printed page, and use the rainbow and sign language to spell words. The session will end with a participants Share Time. This unit started when someone in the class said, "What's It Say?" Time to learn about print. Children studied sounds and symbols for communication, wrote a poem telling of the difficulties of communicating correctly, worked as archeologists to interpret a cave drawing, learned communication takes many forms, took a stand on the written page, and practiced communication skills using different modalities. These activities developed a foundation to build on and expand literacy skills.

Write To Read: Integrating Reading and Writing Across The Curriculum
This presentation offers a variety of motivating ways to focus on reading and writing for the K-6 classroom. Participants will be introduced to various literacy activities using literature, interviewing, games, and more. Boost those reading and writing scores while still having fun!

Big Ideas for Little Writers: Writing Activities for Primary Students
This presentation offers writing activities for pre-kindergarten through third grade students. Participants will be actively involved in a variety of writing activities that incorporate high quality children's literature across the curriculum.

Writing across the Curriculum Top

A Blast in the Past: Writing in the Social Studies Classroom
This presentation will create excitement in your classroom as you use literature, reference materials, and the internet to encourage student participation in research. The information will then be used in a variety of writing activities, such as poetry, journals, letters, and books.

Artifacts, Biographies, and Commemoratives
Correspond as Columbus, catalog artifacts, immerse yourself in a time period. Students will delve into history. This presentation focuses on the use of various aspects of the writing process to enhance learning, create a deeper understanding, share knowledge, and apply skills in social studies.

Incorporating Writing into Your Mathematics Curriculum
This demonstration offers writing in mathematics strategies for the K-8 classroom that can be incorporated into the existing math curriculum. Participants will be introduced to various writing activities using literature, free writing, journals, and math autobiographies. Each participant will learn how writing in mathematics meets NCTM Mathematics Standards and encourages students to become writers.

Writing All the Live Long Day -- Incorporating Writing Into Your Existing Curriculum
This demonstration offers writing strategies for the K-8 classroom that can be incorporated into the existing curriculum. Participants will be introduced to various writing activities using literature, free writing, journals and word hunts.

Writing for Real: A Celebration of Authenticity
This presentation will explore the importance of using authentic writing in K-5 classrooms. Participants will learn about using various authentic writing activities as ways to allow their students to express their feelings and thoughts in purposeful ways.

Writing Takes You Everywhere; Integrating Writing Across the Curriculum
If your teaching is separated by subjects, spice it up by writing across the curriculum. This presentations offers integrated writing ideas for the K-6 classroom. Participants will be introduced to various writing activities using literature. Activities include interviewing, journals, character creations, and more. Learn how writing across the curriculum motivates, enhances learning, and inspires students to become better writers.

We Can't Do That in Here!
Revitalizing the Classroom with Thematic/Interdisciplinary Units
Have you ever been asked to do the impossible? Many times the hardest things that we are asked to do as educators end up being the biggest blessings in our lives. This presentation will discuss how to develop, implement, and gage the success of interdisciplinary units in the language arts classroom and across the curriculum.

"Keeping and Creating American Communities"
This presentation takes you from recent memories of your home and community to yesteryears. The writing process is taught through a sense of place. We will look at how our feelings about where we are from can inform our teaching and help students write about their place in the world. Our Oklahoma texts range the plains from author, Joyce Carol Thomas, to Cowboy Poetry and Toby Keith, country music's Entertainer of the Year for 2003.Making Memories: Writing Family Folklore

The Writing Process Top

Planting the Seeds: Using the Writing Process with Growing Writers
This presentation gives new and experienced teachers a variety of hands-on methods to take their students through the entire writing process. Participants will be involved in various stages of the writing process and will see examples of student work using these methods. From prewriting to publishing, directing students through the steps will make their writing bloom. Learn how to cultivate ideas and turn your students into enthusiastic, budding authors

Using the Writing Process with Intermediate Writers
This presentation gives new and experienced teachers a variety of hands-on methods to take their students through the writing process. Participants will be involved in various stages of the writing process and will see examples of student work using these methods. From prewriting to publishing, directing students through the steps will develop and improve their writing skills.

Using National Geographic and Newspapers for Writing Across the Curriculum
This presentation offers writing ideas for teachers through the use of National Geographic magazine and newspapers. Subject areas focus on science, social studies, and language arts. Participants will be introduced to many ideas that meet P.A.S.S. objectives and can serve as alternatives to tests and textbook assignments. Participants will make triaramas, flip books, accordion books, and other projects using photographs and words in their printed media materials.

Lighting the Fire: Motivating Students To Write in the Four Modes
"Teacher, I don't know what to write." Students often have difficulty getting started because it is not personal to them. This presentation will provide several activities that you can use for learning to write in the four modes. Using these ideas, paritipants will be able to give their 2nd-8th grade students a choice on their final product.

WRITE AWAY!
Engaging activities to teach students informative, descriptive, narrative, and persuasive writing. Students will enjoy writing while improving their skills for standardized tests and authentic writing.

Writing for Real: A Celebration of Authenticity
This presentation explores the importance of using authentic writing in K-5 classrooms to allow students to express their feelings and thoughts in purposeful ways.

Writing from Life: The Memoir
This presentation will include information about how to build a writing portfolio throughout the year and demonstrate steps that will lead students to write a memoir. Research will be shared on how children use personal experiences to generate topic lists, personal narratives, and journal entries. Participants will work step by step through the hands-on activities to complete a personal memoir page to be included in a class publication.

Creating Concrete Detail and Commentary: A Workshop Approach to Essay Writing
This upper elementary through high school presentation offers insightful ideas for developing concrete detail and writing commentary for essay writing. Participants will be given definitions, examples, and practice in the craft of zooming in on the moment to create concrete detail, and of pulling back to reflect on the meaning to create commentary.

Vocabulary Top

Oh My Word! Teaching Vocabulary Skills Through Word Play
Enrich your curriculum with classroom-tested ideas for helping students learn about words with an increased interest and enjoyment. Boost vocabularies with activities such as vocab graphing, synonym toast, mural dictionaries and a plethora of other motivating methods. Watch your students reach higher reading levels as they develop a greater knowledge of words and how to apply them in their own speech and writing. Fun activities are easily adaptable for any grade level.

Multimedia Technology Top

Things That Make You Go Hmm:
Integrating Multimedia, Media Literacy, and Writing into the Classroom Curriculum
We all have things that catch our eye: fancy commercials, snazzy ad, thought-provoking movies, exciting movie clips, songs that bring out the poet within us. Our world is submerged in a multimedia environment. As media continues to play a vital role in communication, it becomes increasingly important for us to be aware of its impact on us and how we can use it in a positive way in our classrooms and across the curriculum. This presentation will introduce concepts using different mediums as writing prompts.

Word Processing for Writers: Beyond the Red Pen
In this presentation, teachers will practice some little-used tools that make word processing a particularly effective writing tool. Tracking changes, inserting comments, saving versions, hyperlinking, highlighting, text color, headers and footers can all be used to provide feedback to the writer, whether that feedback comes from the teacher or from partners in a writing group. Information will also be given about using the thesaurus, the dictionary, word count, readability, and the spelling and grammar checkers.

Powerful PowerPoint: Student Presentations and Portfolios
This presentation focuses on student-generated PowerPoint projects, such as small group book reports, author research reports, résumés, personal portfolios, webquests, and games such as Jeopardy. Teachers will work in small groups to prepare and deliver a sample presentation. Templates and online resources will be provided.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Blogging
Blogs (web logs) offer a way to create, edit, maintain, and update webpages through a simple browser interface. A blog requires no programming knowledge, yet it allows the "owner" to customize the website and to preview online publication and responses. Sample blogs, ranging from private journals to class publications, will be examined. Teachers will create a free practice blog and explore free sources such as Manila's Userland, EBN (Educational Bloggers network), Schoolblogs, and eBlog.

Digital Storytelling: Music, Photographs and Movies
Digital storytelling is movie-making at its simplest level. In this presentation, teachers will work in small groups to create a short QuickTime movie by combining photographs, music, and words. Sample class movies, from ones in which students primarily perform to total student productions, will be examined. Alternatives such as the PowerPoint Photo Essay will be explored for those without access to QuickTime.

Beyond Google: Online Research Resources and Strategies
The research paper just isn't what it used to be. Teachers need help designing assignments that are plagiarism-proof, yet that still take advantage of available online resources. This presentation will look at specialized search engines, advanced search techniques, online databases, evaluation of web resources, webquests, and sample research projects for different grade levels.

Teacher Tools: TrackStar, Puzzlemaster, ePals, and More
Free resources tailormade for teachers are awaiting discovery. This presentation will introduce online lesson resources, sites which generate teacher materials, specialized service sites, and content-specific link sites. Teachers will also learn how to bookmark sites for their classes and how to share those bookmarks with students.

Brain Series Top

Got Brains? Brain Basics 101
This presentation explores new discoveries in current brain research. It provides teachers with a better understanding of the brain and how it works by providing examples of how this new information can be applicable in the classroom

MINDFUL LEARNING-- Creating the Brain Friendly Classroom
Imagine a whole classroom of eager, motivated, and engaged brains! Discover the exciting research on how the mind processes information. Energize your teaching practice as you create a brain friendly learning environment to optimize your instructional time, using music and other active learning strategies.

MOVEMENT FOR THE MIND, Part 1 and Part 2
Integrate movement into your classroom and watch your students get turned on to learning. Learn how movement can alter brain chemistry, energize students, boost attention, learning, and memory. Teach smarter using movement. You will ignite your students' natural love for learning by teaching the way the brain best learns. Part 1 of this session will focus on strategies that engage the brain for any content. Part 2 will present ideas for specific content areas and integrated curriculum.

CHANGE YOUR BAIT! Brain-based Instructional Strategies and Assessments, Part 1 and Part 2
This two-part presentation is no fish story! Participants will be provided with a variety of instructional strategies and authentic assessments for the sea of students we encounter each year. Incorporating brain basics for teaching and learning provide a foundation to guide educators in preparing their own tackle boxes of instructional strategies. Participants will learn how to select the proper lure to catch all of the students and leave no child behind. They will learn how to prepare students for learning and know when to "change their bait" for a successful catch.

National Board Certification Top

Writing for National Board Certification
This presentation for both candidates and those interested in learning more about National Certification provides an overview of the National Board Certification process and the role of writing in that process. This presentation is especially designed for those who may feel uncomfortable about their writing skills or those who just need clarification of what will be expected of them.