Room Session 1 9:00-10:00

Altadena En garde! Draw your most powerful weapons, Writers! Brooke Eller Use image-inspired writing to engage imaginations and help students attack the text with a parry of the pen.

Panorama City

Go Fund Yourself: Audience Awareness Across Genres Eric Kufs Students often send professors email messages that disregard the formal conventions of letter writing and yet their academic essays seem overly conscious of conforming to a rigid formula, often producing less than compelling writing. How can we teach our young writers to consider their audience? Have them ask others for money!

Tujunga EL, LTEL, ELD, ME, EI,-Say What? Jancy Amaya According to Merriam Webster’s Twitter account, the word “Culture” was trending as the new school year began. This session will focus on strategies to ELevate culturally responsive practices in the classroom.

Van Nuys Strike! A History of Unions and Bias in American Newsprint Jacob Ferrin Using a discussion of American strikes in the late 1800’s, we will look at methods to teach students how to analyze, interpret, and write biased newspaper articles using primary sources.

La Crescenta

Whose Shoes Are You Wearing? Using Character Perspective to Evoke Empathy in Writing Gabrielle O’Leary Do your students struggle to understanding another’s perspective? Are you looking to integrate social emotional learning into your curriculum? Together we will explore how pairing a mentor text with writing can support students in their understanding of character motivation.

Room Session 2 10:10-11:10

Altadena Adventures in Eco-Activism: The Craft Moves of Environmental Stewards Xochitl Gilkeson In studying how writers construct appeals for environmental stewardship in local communities, we will learn the craft moves of mentor texts that offer place-based calls to action. Using blog entries from the Latino Outdoors and Communities for a Better Environment websites as genre models, this session will explore the learning possibilities related to connecting student writing with conservation mentor texts.

Panorama City

Ending Student Writer Welfare: From Teacher Agent to Student Agency Tom Alfera Using common sense strategies to eliminate the “five-paragraph essay” and Student-Writer Welfare. Leave this session with actionable tools and engaging methods for getting students past the constraints of the “five-paragraph essay.”

Tujunga Ideas for Implementing the ELA/ELD Framework: Practical Ideas Pamela Holguin-Brown Did you know that California has an ELA/ELD Framework that was recently adopted? Come to this session to find out about what the framework is and the practical ideas it has for ELD Designated and Integrated instruction for your classroom.

Van Nuys Response Without Reproach: Constructing Persuasive Writing with Mentor Texts and Multimodal Instruction Brendan Oster Current sociopolitical divisiveness in the United States requires more thoughtful and conciliatory approaches in persuasive writing assignments. In this workshop, we will explore methods to introduce context, incorporate concepts, and develop effective language to reconcile divergent perspectives. The exercise is an interdisciplinary strategy, intended to inform students entering an increasingly polarized society.

La Crescenta

The Important Thing About Mentor Texts Amanda Meiser Using Margaret Wise Brown’s The Important Book, teachers will help students be specific about their word choices when writing to show their knowledge about any subject area.

Session 3 11:20-12:20

Altadena I Speak! We Speak! We all Speak! Alison Mailes An arts-integrated advocacy lesson that will play with words, movement, music and drama to examine the cost of progress while fostering students to be a voice for change.

Panorama City Making Ideas POP! Christopher Perrigue Three different prewriting strategies you can use to gather and organize your ideas before drafting.

Tujunga Improving Students’ Analytical Writing the ISAW Way Matt Brown and Robin Lilly Many educators have gained access to ISAW’s proven effective writing instruction strategies using an improvement model of writing instruction as well as the the Analytical Writing Improvement Continuum developed by California teachers. This workshop will introduce participants to the ISAW principles. Together we will examine how to write strong academic prompts as well as how to construct collaborative learning opportunities that are interest-powered and peer-supported.

Van Nuys Finding Your Voice: Only you can tell your own stories! Marylee Peña The biggest challenge when asking our students to write is helping them feel like they have something to say. Using poems as mentor texts teachers can show students how to find their voices through imitation writing.

La Crescenta Eyes Like Emeralds: Using Mentor Texts To Teach Students How To Craft Compelling Characters Jennifer Woolf The best characters are complicated and so much fun to create. Using mentor texts, we'll examine how to bring villains to life.

“Writing,tome,issimplythinkingthroughmyfingers.”~IsaacAsimov“Writingmeanssharing.It’spartofthehumanconditiontowanttosharethings–thoughts,ideas,opinions.”PauloCoelho“Writingisajourneyofdiscoverybecauseuntilyoustart,youneverknowwhatwillhappen,andyoucanbesurprisedbywhatyoudo–expecttheunexpected!”~MiniGrey