Tools and Strategies for Examining Informational Text Conference

Reading and Writing to Meet the Standards 

Friday, January 23, 2015, 8AM to 4PM

Presented by:

 

Calling all K-12 Educators and Literacy Leaders

Informational text is a hot topic in public schools across the nation. Previously, literacy instruction mainly focused on narrative text. In this time of standards-based instruction, new emphasis has been placed on informational text.

• Why is there a new lens on informational text in education today?
• How do you define informational text?
• Why is it critical for students to be immersed in informational text?
• How does the CCSS address informational text analysis?
• How should you teach informational text in your classroom?

This conference will answer these questions and challenge you to build practical solutions to these questions as you develop your teaching strategies and curriculum.

Register Now! 

Keynote Speaker: Nell K. Duke, Ed. D.

University of Michigan

"Informational Text Unpacked"

 In this presentation, Duke will unpack the broad term "informational text" to identify the purposes and features of different types of informational text. She will then provide examples of project-based units and instructional practices teachers can use to address specific types of informational text. She will present an overall structure teachers can use to design their own project-based units and lessons involving informational text to increase informational reading and writing skills and address the CCSS.

 

Conference Agenda

8:00-8:30 Welcome and Morning Beverages

8:30-10:00 Keynote Speaker: Nell K. Duke, Ed. D. (for bio click here.)

10:15-11:30 Breakout 1 (Choose one)

• Using Visualizing Strategies to Determine the Main Idea
• Using Multiple Texts to Bring Precision to Our Comprehension of a Topic 
• Morphological Awareness: Learning parts of the meaning helps us learn meaningful parts 
• Unleashing the Power of Informative Writing Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) in Middle and Secondary Grades

11:45-12:30 Morning Interactive Application of Learning Session facilitated by CLOI

12:30-1:15 Lunch (provided)

1:15-2:30 Breakout 2 (Choose one)

• Study Skills: From Textbook to Test
• What Does It Mean to “Know” a Word? Semantic Knowledge and Reading Instruction 
• Using Multiple Texts to Teach Content and Literacy in Secondary Classrooms
• Unleashing the Power of Informative Writing Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) in Elementary Grades

2:30-3:00 Afternoon Snack Break

3:00-3:30 Afternoon Interactive Application of Learning Session facilitated by CLOI

3:30-4:00 Questions and answers & Conference questionnaires

Interactive Application of Learning

Purpose: Provide an opportunity to create a job-embedded tool that can be used immediately in your classroom.

Task: Create a lesson or tool that examines 2 informational texts on the same topic using the knowledge you gain from the Keynote and Breakout Sessions.

Rationale: By applying knowledge immediately it increases your level of  information retention. In addition, these tools will be available to all attendees via an online course platform, allowing you to learn from one another.

Breakout Sessions

Morning Breakouts:

Using Visualizing Strategies to Determine the Main Idea, presented by Lisa Brooks & Shadi Tayarani
How do we help students find the big idea in an informational passage?  This session will give participants an overview of the Nancibell® Visualizing and Verbalizing® Program for Reading Comprehension, which helps students develop concept imagery – the ability to form mental images from oral or written language. The instructors will model how to apply visualizing strategies to extract main points from informational paragraphs. Audience: all grade levels

Using Multiple Texts to Bring Precision to Our Comprehension of a Topic, presented by Shira M. Cohen-Goldberg
Our students are growing up in an information age, when the internet can provide multiple sources of data on a topic in mere milliseconds. How do we help students to understand and process information on a topic, especially if multiple sources are available? How do we help students to assess which sources of information will support their schema on a topic and which will not? Cohen-Goldberg will facilitate an exploration of these questions, informed by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) new emphasis on using multiple sources of information to explore a topic. Audience: K-5

Morphological Awareness: Learning parts of the meaning helps us learn meaningful parts, presented by Eleni Steadman
Morphological skills support various aspects of literacy skills. Understanding word parts leads to increased word identification, automaticity and fluency with connected text, reading comprehension, and spelling.  When students understand how words are built, using base words with affixes, they quickly and accurately connect meaning to the words and become independent at understanding new words.  The CCSS require students to decode familiar and unfamiliar multisyllabic words both in and out of context in order to acquire meaning.  This session will focus on identifying these words in grade level text and teaching routines to help students increase their morphological skills. Audience: 3-12

Unleashing the Power of Informative Writing Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) in Middle/Secondary Grades, presented by Sandra Jones
SRSD is based on decades of empirical research that show how effectively it raises the writing achievement and motivation of diverse students. Participants will become familiar with the six stages of SRSD, framed on a gradual release model, that are used to teach informative writing. Self-regulation strategies including goal-setting, self-instructions, self-assessment, and self-monitoring are essential to student success and will be examined. Common Core aligned examples of mnemonics, rubrics and graphic organizers that enhance the instruction of informative writing in the middle and secondary grades will be shared. Audience: 6-12
 

Afternoon Breakouts:

Study Skills: From Textbook to Test, presented by Lisa Brooks & Shadi Tayarani
How do we help students to study content area information effectively? This session will provide direct instruction in managing information: how to differentiate a topic from a main idea and the main idea from details.  The instructors will demonstrate active note-taking strategies for textbooks, as well as a framework for studying for classroom tests. Audience: 4-12

Using Multiple Texts to Teach Content and Literacy in Secondary Classrooms, presented by Jenny Jacobs
All too often in middle and high school content-area classes, we fall into the habit of relying heavily on single textbooks, single novels, or a series of labs/problem sets that all resemble one another. In this session, AdLit PD and Consulting coach Jenny Jacobs will illustrate the power of using multiple and varied texts, in the form of "text sets," in content-area classes to teach content and literacy skills simultaneously. This session will exhibit several different (inter)disciplinary sets geared toward different content areas as well as walk participants through guiding principles for crafting text sets. Finally, clear connections will be made to how the use of text sets promotes CCSS for text comparisons and analysis. Audience: 6-12

What Does It Mean to “Know” a Word? Semantic Knowledge & Reading Instruction, presented by Stephanie Gottwald
What is the difference between ‘running late’ and ‘running numbers’? What about a ‘run in your tights’ or a ‘run on the bank’? When it comes to reading, these differences in meaning can cause difficulties for even the most competent readers. Vocabulary knowledge has been identified as a vital contributor for the development of proficient reading comprehension and a reliable early predictor of reading difficulties. A structured and comprehensive approach to vocabulary instruction is vital for the identification and remediation of struggling learners. In this workshop, we will explore the link between semantic knowledge and literacy from the multiple perspectives of assessment and instruction. This workshop will also offer explicit examples of classroom practice to enrich vocabulary instruction and facilitate the development of reading fluency and comprehension. Audience: all grade levels

Unleashing the Power of Informative Writing Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) in Elementary Grades, presented by Sandra Jones
SRSD is based on decades of empirical research that show how effectively it raises the writing achievement and motivation of diverse students. Participants will become familiar with the six stages of SRSD, framed on a gradual release model, that are used to teach informative writing. Self-regulation strategies including goal-setting, self-instructions, self-assessment, and self-monitoring are essential to student success and will be examined. Common Core aligned examples of mnemonics, rubrics and graphic organizers that enhance the instruction of informative writing in the elementary grades will be shared. Audience: K-5