Assessment Top

Teaching Writing With a Common Vocabulary: The Link Between Assessment and Instruction
In this presentation, teachers will understand how a common vocabulary established via trait-based writing instruction is an effective link between assessment and instruction. Teachers will work with strategies and assessment rubrics targeting the traits of writing, specifically ideas, organization, word choice, sentences and paragraphs, and grammar/mechanics, which are directly linked to the Oklahoma School Testing Program Writing Rubric.

Portfolio Assessment
This presentation will include a definition of portfolio assessment, a description of different types of portfolios in various subject areas in grades K-16, a description of possible contents of a portfolio, sample rubrics, and a method for setting up a portfolio assessment program in a classroom or in a school district. Program participants will have an opportunity to write a reflective piece on one of their own writings. Various types of portfolios prepared by students will be on display for the participants' perusal.

Avoiding the "Red-Pen Blues-
Responding to, Evaluating, and Grading Student Work"
This Oklahoma Writing Project presentation highlights the various roles of the teacher of writing-responder, evaluator, grader, editor, supporter. It gives tips for the novice or experienced teacher who wants to encourage students to write more fluently and confidently. Participants will write and share their writing with others during this session.

Writing Workshop in a Curriculum Driven Classroom
Writing Workshop is about creating a time and a space for students to discover the power of words and the joy of writing. However, carving out that time and space amid obligations for PASS, team teaching, and a culture of High Stakes Testing, may seem daunting. This presentation will demonstrate how one Oklahoma teacher incorporates the practical guidance from Nancie Atwell's In the Middle within the unique circum-stances of her classroom practice. The presentation will focus on teacher/student conferencing and peer conferencing. Teachers will also discuss strategies for creating a writing environment and for designing mini-lessons.

Student Writing for Assessment and Beyond
Teaching students to write effectively must also mean teaching how to assess effective writing. First, this workshop will demonstrate how to teach students to recognize "effective" writing of their own, of their peers, and in the writing they encounter every day. Secondly,
participants will analyze the CRT Writing Assessment Rubric and learn how to scaffold student writing by working on one trait at a time

Reluctant Writers / ELL Top

101 Mini Lessons for Middle Level Success
Many experts now say the attention span of a child is one minute per chronological age, plus one. With the concept of mini lessons you can use that short attention span to teach valuable information and skills. This presentation will share 101 classroom-tested mini lessons on such subjects as multiple intelligences, registers of language, study skills and more from a laboratory class that focuses on creating more effective students. Many ideas are included for writing extensions for both creative writing and writing as a way of knowing. This session is designed for middle level students but presents ideas easily adapted to K-12 students.

Making a List, Using It Twice!
How many times have you heard your students say, "I don't know what to write"? This demonstration will show you ways of generating and using lists in order to overcome writer's block, as well as offering assistance for ELL students and reluctant writers in general.

"Engaging English Language Learners and Reluctant Writers in the Writing Process"
Many variables affect the rate students learn English. These include previous educational background, literacy skills in native language, and previous contact with English. However, students generally have the greatest difficulty in becoming proficient English writers. ELL students, like all students, must be provided opportunities to build, extend, and refine oral language in non-threatening ways. In this writing workshop, you will examine some strategies to get your ELL students writing. Because these are effective teaching strategies, they will also benefit regular students who are reluctant writers.

"Creating an Atmosphere for Writing"
Writing matters, and students need enhancement activities to motivate them to move on to the rigors of academic success in their writing. This presentation will show strategies to use to develop an atmosphere that makes writing a top priority in your class. Most strategies can be used at different levels of student development.

Literacy - Reading/Writing Connection Top

"Writing To P.A.S.S. the 8th Grade Reading CRT-How Writing Can Help"
Oklahoma Law now requires those under 18 to have an 8th grade reading level before they can take the driving test. The 8th grade reading P.A.S.S. skills can be not only achieved but enhanced by the use of writing. Reading improves writing. Writing improves reading. This presentation will show participants some ways to use writing to help with vocabulary, comprehension, and responding to literature.

"Writing, Literature, Arts of Such Stuff Dreams Are Made"
Writing, literature, and art are the stuff of which dreams are made. Art activities engage students in an exploration of writing and literature in fun and interesting ways. In this writing workshop, participants will examine ways to use a visual approach in the language arts classroom.

"Creative Reflections on Literature:
Enlivening Students' Responses through Painting and Poetry"
Review questions, study guides, outlines, class discussions, five paragraph papers. By the end of the school year, most teachers have exhausted their methods of eliciting students' responses to literature. This presentation demonstrates innovative ways of breathing new life into the reading, responding, and writing process. Participants will read selected passages of literature, respond to them using both poetry and painting, and share their creations with each other. Student samples of writing/painting portfolios comprised of responses to Herman Hesse's novel Siddhartha will be on display. Participants will gain clear, invigorating ideas on how they can engage their students in the read, write, and paint process with any young adult or coming of age novel.

Stories That Stick! Responding to Literature"
This presentation offers strategies to involve all ages of readers through novels or stories. Students involved in the writing process, whether alone or in small groups, can have a richer understanding of literature and an enjoyable, relevant reading experience. Participants will receive ideas easily adaptable to any classroom with a minimum of supplies and preparation.

All Books Are Either Dreams or Swords: Responding to Reading
This presentation offers methods to improve student responses to reading, by using traditional forms, such as the paragraph and the essay, as well as less familiar formats for responding. It includes suggested literary journal responses, major projects, collaborative activities, and assignments that draw upon varied learning styles and multiple intelligences. The objective is to involve students in the reading experience through writing and alternative ways to show knowledge. Ways teachers can adapt activities for other subjects and grade levels will be discussed.

"I Never Thought of It That Way!"
Motivating Students with Reading and Writing Responses
This presentation focuses on engaging readers in meaningful and personal ways in order to facilitate reading comprehension and higher level thinking strategies. Participants will learn techniques to stimulate and build background knowledge and how to utilize an aesthetic stance in writing. In addition, participants will learn how to implement character journals based on current research.

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.

"You Bet, They'll Read!"
There is good news about high school students' reading habits. This session will share the results of original teacher research. Students' reading habits, preferences, perceptions will be compared at three times during an elective English class designed to allow students to read self-selected materials-a class in reading for personal pleasure. Connections between reading and writing will be suggested.

Writing across the Curriculum Top

"You Have to WRITE To Learn Social Studies"
Without writing, students can miss out on one of the best ways to develop critical reflection and critical thinking skills. This presentation will inspire educators to improve student learning by teaching writing through social studies. Participants will practice writing activities they can adapt to their own classrooms to connect students to social studies.

"Reading and Writing -- the Foundation for Learning Social Studies"
Current research in literacy education stresses the importance of both reading and writing for all ages and subject areas. New concepts and vocabulary can be used creatively in diaries, poetry, diagrams, stories, or graphic organizers. These ideas can be adapted for individual or group activities. Using reading and writing can help lead to deeper learning for the varied learning styles and ability levels found in our classrooms every day.

How to "Get Real" with History!
Make history come alive with art, Character journals, newspaper headlines and other engaging activities. Get out the watercolors and the tabloids! Participants will engage in fun, meaningful activities that promote high level thinking processes and writing skills. Activities will integrate different learning styles and will correlate with PASS skills, National Board Standards and current research.

"P.A.S.S.ing Science with Authentic Writing"
Writing is a powerful tool used by all scientists. However, many science teachers claim they do not have enough time to teach writing, so students miss out on opportunities to enhance what they have learned through written practice. This demonstration will explore ways to incorporate writing into the science curriculum while meeting the P.A.S.S. standards and process skills.

"Different Genre Writing within a Science Classroom"
It can be difficult to foster student enthusiasm for writing in a science classroom. Students crave laboratory experiences and hands-on activities but often complain about recording metacognitive process into written form. Strict cookie cutter labs and worksheets requiring the perfect answer are the basis for many students' negative feelings toward science. This presentation will offer some alternative methods of assessing science content knowledge while strengthening creative writing skills. By providing a variety of writing alternatives, students are given an opportunity to become more proficient in communicating their ideas effectively.

"Writing To Learn the Electives"
In elective classes, students write to learn. They also learn to write more effectively because more teachers expect them to produce more written work. Abraham Lincoln said, "Writing--the art of communicating thoughts to the mind--is the great invention of the world.Great, very great, in enabling us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn, at all distances of time and space, and great not only in its direct benefits, but its great help to all other inventions." Writing empowers students as it helps them learn, discover, and share their knowledge.

This participant-oriented workshop will focus on how to teach writing in the electives using the writing process. Writing exercises and assessment techniques will be shared. Objectives include making students better, more self-reliant writers who use the writing process

"Writing in Math? Exactly!"
Two plus two is four, exactly. A circle is an arrangement of points all equidistant from one point, exactly. The slope of a line is constant, exactly. No question about it, mathematics is an exact study. Since writing is a tool for exactness, then using writing will aid students in being appropriately exact in mathematics. Be careful, though. Exactness can be deadly boring! Balance desires precision with life and creativity. This workshop provides participants with opportunities to engage in hands-on activities, including making graphic organizers, graphing real life applications, and preparing manageable personal time capsules. Creative attention is given to the writing process as a tool for learning in math classes.

"Building Vocabulary, Strengthening Reading Comprehension, and Using Writing Response To Teach Foreign Language"
This presentation will provide teachers with an idea of how students view a piece of text in a foreign language. The participants will be engaged in activities such as using real life prompts for vocabulary building, writing using Bloom's Taxonomy as a guideline for combining written response and reading comprehension. The content, ideas, and activities will be beneficial for 5th through 12th grade classrooms.

Write To Learn: Painless Ways To Bring Writing into the Classroom
This presentation offers a method of using writing to learn. Adaptable to any area of the curriculum, this workshop focuses primarily on science, introducing a variety of ways to use writing as a tool for learning. Various student samples illustrate steps of the writing process and activities for the multiple intelligences. Adaptable for K-12.

See, I Told You! Visual Literacy
How often have the words, "See, I told you," been repeated as proof of something said or written? This presentation will demonstrate the power of photos to inspire writing, learning and remembering. Students of all ages, languages, abilities, and in most curriculum areas are taught to understand, respond, and read written language. Visual images do not require all audiences to have prior knowledge of the subject, but instead allows interpretation based on experience.. This workshop will demonstrate how to make visual literacy a part of your writing curriculum.

"The Right Tool for the Write Job:
Using Picture Books To Teach Literary Devices for Creative Writing"
This presentation provides ideas for helping students learn to use literary devices and descriptive language in their writing through picture books. The projects highlighted are designed to maximize students' imaginations for good writing.

"Talking to Learn and Talking to Write:
Helping Struggling Writers in the Classroom"
Students benefit in using oral language as a bridge to written language. This demonstration will explore the stages of the writing process for the addition of talking and peer discussion to increase writing success. Activities include both oral and written language.

Teaching Genres of Writing Top

Mentoring Young Poets: Using Writing to Teach Literature
How do student writers connect their own cultures and communities to characters and literature? In this workshop, you will be guided to discover vivid images of home, neighborhood, relatives, family gatherings, and rules to live by as you create a poetic mosaic of your culture and community and another for characters from literature. Come and enjoy the experience of the writing process: generating ideas, drafting, revising, editing, and sharing.

Packing For A Successful Journey:
Prewriting Strategies To Get You Going In The "Write" Direction.
Your student has been working on a paper for weeks. When you receive the paper, it's not quite complete. There are gaps throughout the paper, lack of detail, and loose ends. It seems there was not any pre-planning involved. This workshop will address prewriting strategies, while incorporating the elements of a story. Participants will be engaged in cooperative learning activities and leave with teacher friendly strategies that can be implemented in the classroom. This workshop is beneficial to all K-12 Language Arts classrooms and writing abilities.

Sensational Satire
Students have much to gain from analyzing satire and writing their own satiric pieces: the critiquing and creating process exercises students' critical thinking skills; familiarizes them with literary terms such as irony, wit, hyperbole, understatement, sarcasm, parody, etc.; and provides interesting writing for both peer review and whole class sharing. During this presentation, participants will learn the critical literary terms necessary to understand satire, analyze humorous samples of modern satire, view successful student examples, and write a short satiric piece of their own. After experiencing this engaging and informative process for themselves, participants will feel confident adapting it to the needs of their students.

The Essay in Action and Other Powerful Writing Projects
In this presentation, you will experience a hands-on method for teaching students to write persuasive essays. You will learn strategies to help young writers develop unity and coherence in their essays with strong thesis statements, persuasive evidence, thoughtful organization, and effective transitions. You will also participate in a peer writing group and gain tools for using writing groups in your own classroom. You will respond to quotes from artists, writers, and researchers. Finally, you will get a glimpse of many other powerful writing assignments to motivate and challenge your students.

Using Junk Mail and Magazines To Teach Persuasion
This demonstration uses readily available materials--junk mail and magazines--to teach persuasive writing and connect students to their communities. The objectives include 1) to teach persuasive writing strategies using the writing process; 2) to help students see themselves as active civic participants; 3) to engage students in gathering, evaluating, and synthesizing data from a variety of sources on topics they consider important.

Shape a Personal Narrative:
Mine Your Memories and Let Then Shine
What were you like as a little kid? Goofy? Tongue-tied? Obnoxious? Did you draw pictures in the dirt out in left field during your season finale t-ball game? Did you secretly fancy yourself a Power Ranger, always alert to avenging evil? And how have you changed? In this writing workshop, you will delve into your past to explore experiences and unearth a treasure trove of ideas for writing a personal narrative.

"People Talking ~ Jumpstart Your Short Story with Dialogue
Think of a couple of characters who are just naturally going to have a conflict. (Little sister, big sister. Highway patrolman and speeder. Priest and confessor.) Describe the characters. Now let them talk. In this session you'll work with a partner to create an idea for a good short story. Next you'll add the characters' personality quirks and actions. Then you'll perform a skit. Next step? Turn it into a story by breaking it into paragraphs and adding the uotation marks around the dialogue.

Voice in the Essay: Anecdote, Imagery, Epiphany, and Rant
Using artificial fruit and real fruit as writing prompts, teachers will write a collaborative essay including all four of these elements crucial to developing voice in an essay. Each teacher will then generate a personal list of possible essay topics using these elements. After modeling this procedure, teachers can adapt it to their own classrooms.

Problem Solving, Writing Solution Papers, and "A Modest Proposal" for Each
This learning unit is designed to increase student confidence and encourage new thinking processes in developing problem-solving skills. Empowering students to write effective solution essays is the end product of this teaching/writing experience.

"Using Poetry To TeachDarn Near Anything"
Poetry is everywhere. One value of poetry is that it can reach students when all else fails. Poetry is found in radio jingles, television commercials, rap music, magazines, newspapers, children's books, and a plethora of other places. You just have to open your heart and look. Poetry can be used effectively to teach subjects alongside English. This workshop shows how to incorporate poetry and writing across the curriculum to transform attitudes and help students more fully absorb course content. A variety of examples and exercises will stimulate further means of opening the poetry door to all who teach.

Using Myth, Folklore and Readers' Theater To Stimulate Writing
This demonstration shows how students can learn about mythology, folklore, characterization, and dialogue by creating their own scripts based on myths and folk tales. Students learn to work together to produce scripts from stories, create costumes, rehearse and perform their plays. Students who have been heretofore reluctant writers enjoy putting on performances and are motivated to create imaginative stories. Their performances can be taped to create a visual portfolio.

Word Weaving: Retrieving Memory Shards Through Art and Writing
This presentation uses different art mediums with writing to create a catalyst for retrieving memoirs. From the prewriting generated through the juxtaposition of abstract expression and writing, students may then select pieces to be developed more fully using the writing process. As a result of weaving the text strips with the art strips, the Word Weaving as a finished product can be used for illustrating the student's writing, decorative art to be framed or matted, or a cover for the student's own anthology or chapbook.

Writing as a Dramatic Act: Creative Drama in the K-12 Classroom
Dana Loy, Alcott Middle School, Norman

This demonstration provides an introduction to creative drama. Participants will learn how creative drama can help develop student writing skills through scriptwriting and oral readings. The workshop also will offer suggestions and resources for using creative drama activities.

Back to the Beatniks: A Coffee House Approach to Poetry
Students often are apprehensive about poetry in a teacher-centered classroom because they don't feel qualified to evaluate or write it. However, teachers can reduce student anxieties by introducing poetry as an experience that is interactive, playful, and sometimes rebellious, and often deeply expressive. This presentation offers dynamic, student-centered activities - both individual and collaborative - to make poetry more accessible and enjoyable for younger people. Through discussion, written response, and performance, students will learn to more fully experience and appreciate the reading and writing of poetry.

Developing Multi-Genre Writing from Images
This demonstration offers a variety of focused writing exercises and a method designed to stimulate student writers to produce compelling work. The workshop incorporates the initial prewriting and drafting stages of the writing process. The objective is to empower students to write with voice, specificity, development and energy in a variety of literary genres.

"Having Fun with Parodies!"
Spice up students' writing by using Weird Al and Saturday Night Live in the classroom! Music, television and children's literature are integrated within this unit as motivational tools for writing parodies. Participants will laugh and have fun as they discover how to connect the teen culture to the writing process. Teach your students to become better writers and have a blast at the same time!

Writing from Images/Revising Prose into Effective Poetry
This demonstration offers a variety of focused writing exercises and a method designed to provide students with ideas for easily revising prose into poetry. The workshop incorporates the writing process and includes writing samples from the work of professional writers as well as novice writers. The objectives are to encourage students to use greater specificity in their writing, to include classic literary elements in their work, and to experiment with several revisions/drafts until they ultimately transform their prose to poetry.

Writing Poetry
How to introduce poetry and get students ready to write is the purpose of this workshop. Participants will practice exercises to help discover their own topics, even if they do not know what they are. Then they will write poetry from exercises that can be used immediately in the classroom.

Writing the Short Story
A pre-schooler's mystery provides a springboard for the basics of short story writing. Using this easy, non-threatening opening builds confidence in novice writers and helps them move more easily into stories for older audiences. Developing character and plot, studying resources for writing fiction, reading short stories as models, and finding places to publish will also be covered. Objectives include (1) making students better, more self-reliant writers; (2) improving the quality of feedback students offer each other in writing groups; (3) raising students' holistic and analytical scores on Oklahoma writing and fine arts assessment.

Research, Writing, and Renoir
A picture can get you closer to 1000 words! Have fun as you integrate fine arts into the language arts by collaboratively reproducing a masterpiece, researching the artist, and writing a creative entry from the facts, using the genre of your choice. Learn about art and artists, practice the process of painting and writing, and take part in a team-building exercise that ends with a product to be proud of. Objectives include: (1) making students better, more self-reliant writers; (2) improving the quality of feedback students offer each other in writing groups; (3) raising students' holistic and analytical scores on Oklahoma writing and fine arts assessment.

Viewing Films Actively: Written Responses to Motion Pictures
Make movies count, as students learn to view them actively and critically. Through writing about film, students will increase media literacy while improving writing skills using a medium that many students love.

The Writing Process Top

Generating Ideas - A Method for Using Journals in the Classroom
Research shows that in order to become fluent writers, students need the opportunity to take risks in their writing without worrying about teacher evaluation. The more they experiment in their classroom journals, the more prolific they become as writers. This workshop offers a method for incorporating journals into the weekly curriculum, for generating writing topics, for building community in the classroom as students share their rough drafts, and for helping students create a collection pieces to choose from for further revision in their portfolios.

Going Beyond Clusters and Webs - Pre-Writing
Ever hear your students say, "I don't prewrite," or "Do we have to pre-write'? This workshop will give the teacher more ways to pre-write than clusters and webs. Teachers will experiment with other pre-writing activities-word association, word walls, word pyramids, power writing, mind mapping, to name a few-- and will do a little writing themselves to see how effective these strategies can be.

Learning Styles and the Writing Process
Learning styles differences must be respected and celebrated in the classroom. This demonstration will explore the connection of brain dominance, learning styles, and the writing process. Using learning styles theory, teachers will plan units and lessons that value all styles equally.

Teaching Revising and Editing Skills
Once students have finished their pre-writing and their rough drafts, they often aren't sure of the next steps to take in making improvements in their writing. Using actual examples of student writing, this presentation models a step-by-step method of teaching students revision and editing skills so that they master one objective at a time, building in skills throughout the school year. The objectives are to make the student a better and more self-reliant writer, to improve the quality of feedback students offer each other in writing groups, to raise students' holistic and analytical scores on the Oklahoma Writing Assessment.

Demystifying Elegant Writing: Sentence Variety Techniques for Teachers and Writers
Are you bombarded with bland writing? Bored with blah phrases? This presentation demonstrates how middle and high school teachers can help students improve their sentence variety, complexity, and imagery. Participants will be engaged in several writing adventures involving seven sentence-enhancing elements. You'll leave this presentation with concrete ideas for how to help your students transform their stagnant sentences into rich, flavorful writing.

Unmasking Figurative Language
Students can greatly enrich their writing skills by utilizing figurative language in their prose. Workshop participants will discover how creating masks can help them identify effective metaphors, similes, and other figurative language techniques.

"Metaphorically Speaking"
This presentation provides ideas for helping students understand metaphors through candy, music, and art to maximize their imaginations for good writing.

Grammar Top

More Than Worksheets, An Interactive Approach to Teaching Grammar
Teaching and learning grammar are often as much of a chore for the teacher as for the students. Students and teachers alike, moan, "Why do we have to do this?" and "This is soooo boring!" By implementing a hands-on approach to teaching grammatical concepts and by relating those concepts to the improvement of students' writing, fulfilling the PASS objectives can become more relevant and enjoyable to everyone in the classroom.

"Breaking Grammar Rules: Using a Creative Approach To Get Kids Writing"
Kids should love to write. Sadly, by middle school, that passion to create sometimes fades away-stifled by all of the conventions and rules of grammar and writing. If you were a kid, wouldn't you be excited to go to English class one day and have your teacher say that grammar is taking a vacation and won't be back until tomorrow? Kids need to practice all types of writing-often-and in a non-threatening environment to become proficient. By taking away the constraints of some grammatical standards and introducing some stylistic ways to adapt grammar rules, students can put all their energy into creating rather than worrying about mechanics. This workshop explores ways to get students crafting their own writing, focusing more on creativity and style than on the mechanics of grammar.

Classroom Management Top

"Sanity 101: How To Manage an Active Writing Classroom"
Teachers know students learn differently and writers are unique. We also know that creativity is messy and that a classroom full of individual styles can be chaotic. This presentation gives proven methods for managing workshop-style classrooms using recursive writing processes. It also shows ways to write more and grade less by using one-on-one conferences and portfolio assessment.

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.