Beginning the Writing Workshop:  Four day course (days can be split or condensed) introducing teachers to the philosophy and structure of the writing workshop.  Course includes strategies in the management of a writing workshop, the writing process from prewriting to publishing, the craft of writing, using quality literature to teach writing, and assessment.   Instructors will model the workshop in a real class setting.  Teachers will be able to observe, ask questions, and reflect.   This course is perfect for new teachers and teachers wanting to gain new techniques that help students write well. 

Beginning the Writing Workshop at the Secondary Level (grades 6-12):  Four day course introducing teachers at the secondary level to the philosophy and structure of the writing workshop.  This course is angled to the specific needs of teachers and students at the secondary level.

Telling the Stories of Our Lives Through  Narrative Writing:  Children come to us telling stories.  Our job is to teach them to write those stories well.  This workshop will take teachers through a unit of study in writing narrative, beginning with oral story telling, teaching focus, writing with a variety of details, building tension, and satisfying the reader with endings.

Conferencing, the Key to Individualized Instruction:  Meeting with students one on one during the writing time of the workshop is the core of what makes the workshop so successful:  students receive individualized instruction according to their needs.  This course focuses on improving conferencing skills, how to listen to the student writer’s intentions, decide on a teaching point, how to teach that point, and then nudge the students to grow from the instruction given.  This course is available to teachers who have used the writing workshop in their classrooms. 

The Study of Craft and Revision in Writing:  Many teachers were taught the conventional techniques of writing but few the actual skills that make quality writing stand out and shine.  This course will focus on writing well, narrowing the focus, looking at grabber leads, how to stretch scenes, endings, a way with words, structure of text and much more.  It will give students the knowledge to make quality revisions in their work.  As our students become much more savvy in their writing, teachers must also increase their knowledge in writing so we can continually challenge our students to grow. This course is available to teachers who have used the writing workshop in their classrooms.

Nonfiction Writing- It Doesn’t Have to be Boring! Grades 1-3:  This course focuses on nonfiction writing for the less experienced writers showing ways to take the young writers through a genre study helping them to plan, write, and revise “how to” pieces (teaching someone how to do something) and “all about” pieces (presenting information about a topic of interest).

The Pillars of Poetry:  Yes, even poetry can be fun to write and it can enrich the writing of prose.   This genre study of poetry is designed to take the fear out of poetry writing and provide techniques to help kids enjoy writing poetry!  Focuses more on free verse, but will touch on rhyme and other forms of poetry. This course is available to teachers who have used the writing workshop in their classrooms. 

Using Writer’s Notebooks in the Classroom:  Many teachers begin the year with activities to get writing notebooks started.  Once drafting begins, the notebooks are often forgotten or used only for drafting pieces.  This one-day workshop will give teachers ideas for notebook use throughout the year so the notebook can become the tool for writing that is was meant to be.  (For grades 3-8)

Teaching Grammar in Context:  If you're frustrated that the old methods to teach punctuation don’t work, then this workshop is for you!  The focus will be on exploring model texts and using student writing to teach grammar skills.  Students will begin to recognize that punctuation is a tool for making meaning. 

Writing Editorials and Feature Articles:  This workshop is for intermediate and secondary teachers that want to help their students write meaningfully and with voice in informational writing.  The focus will move from immersing students in these two genres with model texts to techniques in craft that will help them write well.

(For intermediate and secondary teachers)

Advanced Kindergarten Workshop:  Working with Kindergarteners in Nonfiction Informational Writing and Poetry:  Kindergarten teachers always ask, “When will there be a workshop just for us??”  Well, here it is.  This workshop will give practical ideas to teach informational writing and poetry to kindergarten writers in a way that is fun for all involved.

Writing in Response to Reading :  Students are asked to write about the reading they have done, but the work is often dull or just a summary of the selection read.  How then, can we get students to think critically about what they read and then communicate that thinking in a meaningful way?  This workshop is designed to help teachers gain strategies in the classroom that will help students formalize their thinking and write in real world genres such as book reviews and literary essays. (For Grades 3-8 teachers)

 Advanced Writing Workshop:  You have your writing workshop in place.  You have certain genres you teach during the year.  What do you teach when you aren’t doing a genre study?  This class will focus on lines of thinking that will provide students with the opportunity to write in any genre and give teachers ideas for fostering independence in student writing. (For elementary and secondary.  Will split groups)

Preparing Students for High Stakes Writing Tests (Grades 3-8): This one day workshop provides teachers with focused lessons to prepare students for the ISTEP + writing test.  Examples of top scoring student writings from previous ISTEP tests (available on the IDOE website) will be used to provide teachers with the groundwork for a focused writing study.  Students will gain the confidence and understanding of what is expected to do well on this kind of writing test.

Assessing Student Writers: How to Individualize Instruction:  Assessing student writers is possibly the most challenging work we do as teachers of writing. Yet we must assess well to be able to design our instruction to meet individual and whole class needs.  This workshop will present characteristics (or traits) of writing that a lifelong writer needs to write well.  Student writing samples along with conferences with those students will provide teachers with practice in assessing student writers.