Literacy Now

The International Reading Association (IRA) is pleased to continue the tradition of offering full-day Institutes before our Annual Conference. This year in New Orleans, Institute Day is May 9 before the IRA Conference begins on May 10. Reading Today Online asked all of the Institute Chairpersons to answer a set of questions designed to give our readers and all prospective attendees a better understanding of the insights and benefits they will gain from attending these day-long programs. A PDF fact sheet covering this Institute is available for presentation to your principal or superintendent along with your registration and travel request.

Institute 08
In Common: An Introduction to Using an Annotated Collection of K–12 Student Writing Samples Aligned with the Common Core
(Session 1620)

Co-Chairs: Diana Leddy and Joanna Hawkins from the Vermont Writing Collaborative

What are the professional urgencies and issues that your Institute is designed to address?

Teachers have long believed that learning to write well in response to reading, and to clearly express an understanding of complex information and ideas in writing, is fundamentally important work for students. However, what this “effective work” can actually look like in the classroom, especially for struggling students, has often eluded us. In the era of Common Core writing standards, developing a shared understanding of some of the ways that strong and effective, content-based writing can look is essential for teachers at all grade levels.

Jointly created by the Vermont Writing Collaborative and Student Achievement Partners, “In Common: Effective Writing for All Students” is a collection of student writing samples, grades K–12, drawn from over 1,600 submissions from 11 Common Core adopting states. The collection includes on-demand writing to unified text based prompts, as well as samples of classroom work in each of the three Common Core writing types. Pieces from across the country were selected and annotated by teams of experienced classroom teachers and literacy leaders in collaboration with lead authors of the Common Core ELA Standards.

In Common is not a set of rubrics and benchmarks, nor is it a prescription for the only way effective, content-based writing can look. Rather, In Common is a collection that was designed to help teachers and students develop a deep and nuanced understanding of the Common Core writing standards and the instructional shifts they require. By using some new protocols, we will look at that student work, not through the lens of scoring, but through the lens of learning about the writing standards and how those standards can relate to content understanding – for students.

What types of literacy professionals is your Institute designed for?

Professional Development Providers, Teacher Educators, Undergraduate or Graduate Students, Classroom Teachers, Administrators, and Curriculum Coordinators.

How will your Institute benefit those professionals, and what will their takeaways be?

In Common, we believe, can be an important first step in the all-important work that schools need to do in generating strong, content-based, Common Core Standards-based student work, across all content areas. The Common Ground protocols provide a useful structure for collaboratively looking at that work to improve instruction.

Participants will leave with a set of protocols and access to a collection of student work samples designed to provide a foundation for analysis and discussions that lead to a deep and nuanced understanding of the Common Core writing standards. Teachers have overwhelmingly found working with In Common useful and even illuminating in terms of understanding both the Common Core writing standards themselves and in generating ideas for instruction.

Are any post-conference follow up activities planned for attendees of your Institute?

Participants will be invited to join an ongoing online discussion about using student samples to improve writing instruction.

What is the sequence of topics and speakers?

The presentation will begin with a short introduction to In Common: Effective Writing for All Students, a Common Core implementation resource for writing instruction. The introduction will include an explanation of how the student writing samples were generated, collected, reviewed and annotated, as well as directions for accessing this free, online resource. Break-out sessions will allow participants to focus on either the elementary or middle/high school pieces. Participants will then explore In Common in small groups, using activities easily transferable to a variety of professional development, classroom, or instructional support settings.

What modes of presentation will be used and what types of audience interaction are planned?

Most of the session will be spent actively analyzing and discussing student work samples with colleagues in small groups. In addition to helping participants to better understand the Common Core Writing samples, all activities will serve as active and engaging models of how to use In Common with adults, older students and younger students. Activities include:

• arranging student pieces which were written to a unified prompt in ascending order and analyzing the differences in order to examine grade level progressions in the standards
• matching Common Core based annotations to specific parts of student pieces
•  identifying evidence of close reading and the mastery of content and concepts in the written pieces
• color-coding pieces to analyze the relationship between the ideas expressed in an informative or argumentative piece

What handouts will be provided and in what form (e.g., hard copy or digital transmission)?

Sample packets of student work (in hard copy) will be used during the institute. In addition, participants will be shown how to access the full collection of student work (K–12) and protocols for professional development digitally.

Does your Institute lend itself to team attendance by teachers and administrators from the same school or district? If so, what how will the various attendee perspectives be addressed?

The Institute will provide teams of teachers and administrators from the same district the opportunity to develop a shared understanding of the Common Core Writing Standards as well as a model and materials for leading school or district wide professional development activities.

Registration Information: This preconference Institute will be held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 9, 2014, before the International Reading Association 59th Annual Conference begins on Saturday, May 10, 2014 (and runs through Monday, May 12, 2014). Register online at www.iraconference.org for this or another Institute and/or to register for the annual conference. Call 888-294-9167 or 415-979-2278 to find out how to register by phone, fax, or mail. To learn more about conference events in New Orleans, visit the annual conference website and the online itinerary planner (iPlanner).

 

The popular Teaching Edge series is returning to IRA’s 59th Annual Conference. The four speakers at our Teaching Edge series are sure to inform and delight attendees, making a memorable experience for the fourth year in a row.

Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey

Douglas Fisher is a professor at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He has participated in previous Teaching Edge events for IRA and co-authored, with Nancy Frey and Diane Lapp, the bestseller Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading.

Nancy Frey is a professor of literacy in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. In 2008 she won the Early Career Achievement Award from the National Reading Conference. She is also a special educator and reading specialist in California.

Kelly Gallagher

Kelly Gallagher also returns to our Teaching Edge series. He is a teacher with over 27 years’ experience and author of Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts and Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It. He is the former co-director of the South Basin Writing Project at California State University.

Debbie Diller

Debbie Diller makes her Teaching Edge debut after leading a popular session at IRA 2013. Diller is a Title I reading specialist, literacy coach, and national education consultant with over 35 years of experience. She has published numerous books and her articles have been published in The Reading Teacher and The State of Reading.

With a lineup of speakers like this, Teaching Edge is certain to be another hit. The IRA 59th Annual Conference will be held May 9–12, 2014, in New Orleans. Register online, by phone, by fax, or by mail. For more information, visit www.iraconference.org.

Chelsea Miller is the strategic communications intern at the International Reading Association.

We have made it even easier to register for the International Reading Association 59th Annual Conference in New Orleans online and to find the forms to print and mail or fax! Simply visit www.iraconference.org and click on “Registration is Now Open!” to begin your registration process. In this article, we share tips on how to complete your registration and housing process quickly and efficiently.

Before You Register

First, review the Annual Conference website at www.iraconference.org and take a look at the iPlanner (itinerary planner), which offers detailed descriptions for the more than 300 sessions and events being offered in New Orleans between May 10 and 12 and the 11 full-day Institutes scheduled on May 9.

Be Prepared

To make your registration process faster, it is helpful to have these items handy:

• If you are an IRA member, or have created an account with IRA to purchase books, etc., have your IRA logins and passwords ready. (If you don’t remember them, there is an option to have your password sent to you at the beginning of the online registration process.)
• Students should have their student I.D. numbers and institutional affiliation accessible to receive the student discount.
• If you’re bringing a guest, it is useful to have this guest’s full name and phone number.
• Of course, have your credit card nearby for payment.

An Important Note

We have created an online registration process that seamlessly guides you through the steps of registration and housing. Please do not use your Internet browser’s “back” and “forward” buttons as you register. Instead, use the orange buttons found at the top and bottom of the registration webpages.

Log In to Save Time

The first page of online registration gives you three options:

• “Log In” (for IRA members and people with accounts who know their name and password)
• “Create an Account” (which allows you to create an account from scratch)
• “Forgot Password?” (which sends a password reset form to your e-mail address)

If you have created an account before, the system will not allow you to create a new account using an e-mail address that you have used to create an account in the past. So, if you know you have an account, it’s best to use the “Forgot Password?” option instead of the “Create an Account” option.

On this page you will also see links to print the registration forms to fax them to 415-293-4399 or mail them to:

IRA Registration
c/o Convention Management Resources
33 New Montgomery, Suite 1100
San Francisco, CA 94105

 

Starting to Register

The next page of online registration gives you several options. You can choose to “Register Now” or “Book Hotel.” You will be able to switch between the two options during the process, or to register for one section and login later to finish the other.

For the example in this article, let’s begin by clicking on “Register Now.”

Conference Choices

On this page, you select your conference attendance, whether it is the Conference & Exhibits (full conference) or just a single day.

If you only want to attend for two days, choose the “Conference & Exhibits” option. (There isn’t a two-day option since choosing two individual days would actually cost more money than the full conference!)

This page also allows you to select one of our 11 full-day, preconference Institutes on May 9. There is a separate fee for Institutes, beyond the cost of registration.

 

When finished selecting, click the orange “Next Page” button at the bottom of the screen.

Author Luncheons

The next page allows you to register for one or more of our three Author Luncheons. Speakers include Judy Moody series author Megan McDonald (Saturday), Ball Don’t Lie and We Were Here author Matt de la Peña (Sunday), and Magic Treehouse series author Mary Pope Osborne (Monday). While the luncheons cost an additional fee beyond registration, savvy conference-goers know that they are a great way to enjoy a quality, sit-down lunch and time to network with colleagues.

When finished selecting, click on the “Next Page” button at the bottom of the page.

Guest Registration

You are invited to bring a guest to the luncheons based on the registrants conference purchase. This next page will guide you through adding this guest to one or more luncheons. When finished selecting, click on the “Next Page” button.

 

All About You

On the next page, we want to get to know you! Fill out this questionnaire, making sure to complete the questions with asterisks next to them. Click on the “Next Page” button at the bottom of the page to continue.

The next page gives you the option of paying now (orange “Check Out” button) or selecting your hotel (orange “Book Hotel” button). 

 

For this example, let’s make our hotel reservations.

Book Housing

Our hotel pages allows you to choose from 29 hotels. You can use the “Sort By” option on the left to list them by hotel name, proximity to convention center, and price.

Once you click an orange “Reserve” button, the next page asks you to input your contact information. Most of the information will automatically appear based on the account you entered at the beginning of this process.

When finished, click the orange “Confirm Registration” button at the bottom of the page.

 

At this point, you will be returned to the overview page, now showing your conference registration as well as your hotel reservation.

 

This page gives you three options: “Edit Your Registration” (if you need to change your conference attendance choices), “Edit Your Reservation” (if you need to change your hotel choices), and “Check Out.”

For this example, let’s go ahead and check out.

Check Out

When you click on the orange “Check Out” button, you will be taken to a payment page. Simply fill out the information and click on the box to accept Terms and Conditions so  the “Submit Payment” button appears at the bottom of the page.

 

You Did It!

The next page you see is an overview page with a barcode that you can print and bring to registration in New Orleans! This page includes information about your conference registration, hotel, and other helpful links. A duplicate of this page will be e-mailed to you as well (from the address IRAReg@cmrus.com). Refer to this e-mail confirmation in case you need to go back to your conference registration or hotel reservation to make changes. 

 

BONUS: Be sure to visit www.iraconference.org/promotions to see all current special promotions, including special discounts and giveaways!

Sara Long is an editor/content manager at the International Reading Association. 

The IRA Board of Directors has appointed IRA Past President Carrice Cummins to serve as Vice President for the remainder of the year, filling in for IRA Vice President Maryann Manning who died suddenly last September. Cummins’ tenure in this interim role will conclude on the last day of the IRA New Orleans Conference, May 12, 2014, when current IRA President Maureen McLaughlin hands over the gavel to IRA President Elect Jill Lewis.

Cummins’ appointment will not affect the current election cycle, which is due to commence later this month. Voting members of IRA will elect next year’s Vice President, who will take office on the last day of the New Orleans Conference, May 12, 2014, along with the other newly elected members of the Board. The Board will postpone, until a future time, any decision on filling the vacancy that will arise when Cummins’ interim appointment is concluded.

Maryann Manning’s sudden and untimely death was a shock to all of her colleagues on the IRA Board. In selecting Carrice Cummins to serve out the year in her stead, the Board secures the participation and services of someone uniquely situated to join in the Board’s ongoing deliberations. Carrice began her presidential term around the same time that Marcie Craig Post, IRA’s Executive Director, took office. Many of the critical strategic initiatives which the Association is currently immersed in were commenced during Carrice’s presidency, making her selection for the pro tem role a logical choice.

Now at full strength, the IRA Board, in tandem with the Executive Director and staff, continues to address strategic priorities while the important day-to-day work, including planning an outstanding conference for New Orleans, proceeds apace.

The International Reading Association’s “Invent Your Future” International Literacy Day theme inspired many teachers around the world to create projects to motivate their students to read and to dream. We are excited to announce the three winners of the “Invent Your Future” contest, who will receive Sony Xperia tablets.

Second Grade Scholars Say “Reading Rocks”

When Hope Valley Elementary School teacher Elisha Cliette discussed the many places and adventures literacy could lead her “second grade scholars,” International Literacy Day morphed into International Literacy Week. The events in this North Carolina school included “Invent Your Future Day,” where students dressed up to show what career they wanted to have when they grew up and “Get Lost in a Book Day,” where students dressed up as a character in one of their favorite books. Then they held “Read to Me Day,” where their principal and assistant principal read aloud to them followed by “Partner Reading Day,” where the students were assigned different partners to read with throughout the day. They finished the week with a “Reading Rocks, Dance Party!” Cliette played some of their favorite songs, and they danced along with their favorite book in hand!

Marching on Washington to Celebrate Literacy

In September 2013, The Sheridan School’s third year celebrating International Literacy Day, the sixth grade students collaborated with teachers Noel Sheppard and Susie Baker-Lapp (sixth grade teachers), Emilie Greene and Ilva Olinto (art teachers), and Vicki Masson (world language teacher) to create an assembly based on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. The students in this Washington, DC school reenacted the march, focusing on the importance of literacy for the future, 21st century literacies, and literacy is a tool to help us invent our own futures.

Students created march placards and chants to inspire the marchers, and speakers made clear the meaning of literacy. Also, each sixth grade student was responsible for a “family-style” group of students from across the school. The silhouette of a kindergarten student was traced around on black paper, and then each group brainstormed all the ways in which literacy facilitates inventing the future—all the careers and qualities, benefits and advantages of a future informed by literacy. Approximately 180 children worked in 26 groups, each led by a sixth grade student, and then shared their ideas at the end of the assembly. The visions were many and varied, including “go to Belgium,” “be a dermatologist,” “become a doctor,” “wisdom,” “hope,” “teacher,” “scientist,” “build buildings,” “Lego creator,” “make skateboards,” and “be an author.” After the presentations, the silhouettes were arranged on a wall of the lunch room, with samples of the placards above, as a reminder of the assembly and as a protest installation.

Breaking News in Massachusetts

To celebrate International Literacy Day at Horace Mann Middle School in Franklin, Massachussetts, Reading Specialist Erin O’Leary and 8th Grade ELA teacher Mary Cotillo invited students to invent their future by pondering, envisioning, and writing headlines featuring their future accomplishments.

They began by researching headlines from history and sharing positive examples with their students. They introduced the idea to students on the morning video news on the Friday before International Literacy Day on September 9. Cotillo reminded students of the project via Instagram and offered extra credit.

At lunch on Friday the teachers placed models and headline writing templates on the tables (so teachers didn’t have to pass out anything). Due date flyers posted on the cafeteria doors were coupled with strategically placed extra templates as students exited the building, and the teachers decorated the area around the collection boxes in the lobby with balloons and streamers. When only a few headlines trickled in, they circulated among tables shouting, "Write your headlines! Grab a friend! I have extras! I have markers! GO! GO! GO!!"

By the end of the day, they had about seventy headlines which they proudly displayed in the HMMS lobby. Other teachers in their building put their own spin on the idea of helping students invent their futures. One eighth grade social studies teacher showed an inspirational YouTube video about high school students who are changing the world with their ideas. A seventh-grade social studies teacher read a UN article talking about literacy's role in preventing poverty. His seventh grade counterpart and the administrators tweeting their headlines.

 

 

To learn more about International Literacy Day or to view our event kit with lesson and activity ideas, visit our International Literacy Day webpage.

Sara Long is an editor/content manager at the International Reading Association.