Literacy Presentations
Each topic described embeds current pedagogical research and offers the most up-to-date application through authentic opportunities. Drawing on nearly 27 years of teacher-leader experience and 20 years of presentation expertise, each session answers the questions:
What do we want our students to know?
Why do we want our students to know it?
How can it be learned it different ways?
All presentations are designed for middle school and high school educators; for a full day seminar or a half-day workshop based on your needs (presentations can be expanded with prior arrangement). Presentations are created for teacher participation and learning, meant to support the classroom teacher and their individual discipline.
How to Create, Develop, Implement and Assess a Choice Reading Program
Most teachers begin a choice reading program with one goal – to cultivate a love of reading. These teachers have conjured up images of students sitting on bean bag chairs, thoroughly engrossed in a book of their choice. But, without proper structure, a choice reading program is, unfortunately, doomed to fail. Join Peg as she guides you in creating a choice reading program designed for your students and developing differentiated and scaffolded opportunities meant to include all readers. In addition, Peg will illustrate how to plan an implementation that is sustainable and finally, she will share various assessment tools intended to encourage reading, not evaluate the reader.
How to Increase the Rigor Vigor of Your Writing Tasks
For many students, writing is an almost “mysterious” task where it seems, some students are just naturally gifted writers. This presentation will take the “mystery” out of the writing process to empower all students of all abilities toward writing success Peg will define rigor and explain why all teachers want to employ writing VIGOR instead of rigor. She will explain authentic writing and how to write for an authentic audience. In addition, Peg will demonstrate how to give students opportunities that move beyond the basic writing format and focus on writing goals that demonstrate how to think critically, creatively and credibly. Finally, Peg will demonstrate writing scaffolding tools meant to engage all writers in a culturally responsive and respectful way.
Using Choice to Motivate and Engage the Adolescent Reader
For many students, disciplinary reading has been a mysterious concept that they have never quite mastered. Usually textbooks readings are assigned beyond their lexile level. As a result, students become frustrated, sometimes affecting their classroom behavior. Peg will demonstrate how to apply before reading, during reading and after reading cross curricular strategies meant to scaffold reading. Next, she will model a comprehensive disciplinary lesson utilizing literacy strategies and supplemental resources. Finally, Peg will illustrate how to use Accountable Talk to help motivate and engage students toward their own success. (Based on Peg’s book: Lessons Learned from the Special Educational Classroom: Creating Opportunities for All Students to Listen, Learn, and Lead)
How to Create, Develop, Implement, Sustain and Assess a Socratic Seminar
The Socratic Seminar is an iconic method of teaching inquiry while using textual based evidence. However, the art of inquiry often gets lost since the teacher is usually the one asking the questions. In this presentation, Peg will offer background on the significance of teaching inquiry and how to assist students in developing confidence within questioning. In addition, Peg will demonstrate how to give students the opportunity to learn how to ask questions and the chance to improve inference skills grounded in the text. Finally, Peg will show that by embedding inquiry into your content area, students are more likely to make connections and become critical readers.
Research, Resources, Skills and Strategies
In today’s complex and data-driven classrooms, it is imperative, now more than ever, teachers utilize all the tools at their disposal. As a result, teachers must apply research, resources, skills and strategies to create 21st century learning opportunities. Peg will offer examples of researched articles linked to cross-curricular resources connected to specific skills related to content-area strategies demonstrating how to seamlessly embed research, resources, skills and strategies into various disciplines. Progress monitoring tools will be provided illustrating the connected outcome. As a result, participants will be able to create lessons based in research and grounded in skill using formative assessments.
How to Design a Note-Taking Lesson for Student Success
It is often assumed that students know how to take notes; yet, that is not often the case. Many have “learned” their own way of taking notes; however, are they capturing the information that is really necessary or busily writing what they think they need to know? Peg will demonstrate how to create four stations of note-taking practice: annotation, concept mapping, magnet summaries, and Cornell notes. See how students rotate among these stations and, based on the text, determine which station had the most potential energy. (Based on Peg’s article and interview in Cult of Pedagogy: Power Lesson: Note-taking Stations)
How to Embed The Seven Essential Literacy Skills Into Your Content Area
All learning is based on the mastery of essential literary skills, and in this interactive presentation, educators will discover tools they need to embed literacy into all subjects. Comprehension is based on skill-building strategies that encourage purpose and engagement; as a result, educators can effectively teach those literacy skills to support developing students as they learn to read, write, and think critically. In this presentation, Peg will offer an overview of the seven essential literacy skills where educators will discover how to: expand their teaching methods to include literacy skills, introduce literacy into daily lesson planning, embed reading comprehension into any subject area, and scaffold instruction using literacy strategies to boost subject-area comprehension. (Based on Peg’s book, Clearing the Path for Developing Learners: Essential Literacy Skills to Support Achievement in Every Content Area.)
How to APPLY a SPECIFIC Essential Literacy Skills In Your Classroom
While every classroom teacher may not be a certified reading teacher; we know that every teacher is, indeed, a teacher of literacy in their classroom. We also know that essential literacy skills are the foundational competencies that students require to build lives of learning. In this full-day workshop, Peg will demonstrate how to choose one of the essential skills based on your state’s standards, and how to customize it for your classroom: from creating and designing a lesson plan, complete with strategies including graphic organizers, worksheets, and charts, to writing a vigorous learning intention and scaffolded success criteria, and finally, applying assessment methods for all student abilities.(Based on Peg’s book, Clearing the Path for Developing Learners: Essential Literacy Skills to Support Achievement in Every Content Area.)