MRA Adolescent Literacy Summit 2015 

Welcome to the 3rd Manitoba Reading Association Adolescent Literacy Summit.

Group Registration - For schools or school divisions.  To register more than one person at the same time, choose Register Now.  Then register the first person.  Check the ADD button to include additional colleague registration information.  You can  up to 15 people at one time.  Receipt and confirmation will be sent to the first person on the list.

Meals - Lunch is included in your registration fee.  If you have food allergies or dietary concerns, please indicate this when you register.

Refunds - Refunds will not be issued except due to illness. Requests must be submitted in writing no later than March 25, 2015, and include the necessary medical documentation.

Hotel Accomodations:   The following hotels have a block of rooms held for April 9-10 at the teachers’ MTS rate.   Rooms will be held until March 31, 2015.  Please reference Adolescent Literacy Summit when you book.   

Victoria Inn - $129/night    Call 1-204-775-7651   Quote #598331 for discount    

HIlton Inn & Suites - $149/night     Call 1-204-786-0929     Quote "MRA Summit" for discount

Breakout Sessions - There will be a variety of breakout sessions held throughout the day as outlined in the conference program.  These sessions will be on a first come first serve basis for seating. 

Scent Free - We respectfully request that you refrain from wearing perfume/cologne/scented products at the summit.  Thank you for your consideration.

T1 - Critical Media Pedagogy: Transforming Adolescent Literacy Instruction         Keynote Speaker:  Earnest Morell          How can we get adolescents excited about literacy learning while also imparting essential academic skills?  This session explores a socially, culturally and technologically relevant model of literacy education that draws upon digital media and youth popular culture to engage students as civic agents while also developing powerful readers, writers, and users of emergent digital technologies.

T2 - Leap into Literacy          Keynote Speaker:  Kathy Lundy              Kathy will give lesson plans and practical suggestions for stimulating active learning and creating learning opportunities in new ways.  It will show teachers how to encourage students to deal with problems that interest them and how to represent their new understanding in drama and movement, visual arts, and electronic media.

 T3 - Mentoring All Children          Speaker:  Kevin Lamoureaux         Kevin will focus on the effects of poverty and privilege on Manitoba students and focus on the belief that all children need to be engaged, challenged and supported, and that teachers can play a vital role in preventing youth from falling between the cracks.

T4 - Creating Dynamic Large Scale Outcomes Based Assessments to Enhance Instruction          Speakers: Angie Burdett (Frontier School Division)     The English Language Arts Assessment Project Team (ELA-APT) from Frontier School Division will share their rich professional experience of developing and implementin divisional assessments.  This session will provide a unique approach to large scale divisional ELA assessment aimed at closing the achievement gap while remaining true to the holistic nature and ideology of Frontier School Division.

T5 - Grade 8 First Nations ELA Units         Featured Speaker: Irene Huggins & Cheryl Plaisier     This session will involve an overview of the development process used to create community based ELA units and provide an introduction to two of the completed units.

T6 - Living and Learning in a Multi-Literacy World         Speaker: Mark Reimer (Hanover School Division)     Students are literate in so many different ways.  The challenge for teachers is to be aware of the multiple ways of comprehending, thinking and communicating their way to success in their world.  We will explore ideas that address strategies to build a multi-literacy plan for our classes and schools.

T7  - Read Any Good Stuff Lately:  Building a Culture of Literacy in Secondary Classrooms        IRA Speaker: Julianne Scullen     Middle and high school students face a barrage of possible demands on their time each day.  How can we make meaningful reading and literacy activities palatable - something students WANT to do?  With humour and practical ideas, Julianne will make certain participants leave with new ideas, strategies and book titles than just might transform classrooms into places where literacy conversations and activities become the norm.

T8 - Teaching Fairly in an Unfair World          Keynote Speaker: Kathy Lundy              Kathy will help us learn how to look beyond the stereotypes and create active learning opportunities to meet the needs of all kinds of students.

T9 - Reading is Thinking: Building School Infrastructure to Support Reading         Speaker: Shelley Warkentin & teachers     Presenters will describe the Reading is Thinking framework for supporting reading development and show how implementation of Reading is Thinking is unfolding in Manitoba schools.  Presenters will share their implementation stories, successes, challenges, and next steps.

T10 - The Manitoba Writing Project: Writing for Human Rights           Speakers: From the University of Manitoba         The Manitoba Writing Project was designed to immerse participants in writing and in developing curriculum around the teaching of writing with a specific focus on writing for human rights and writing as a human right.  Course facilitators and presenters will share their learning about the connection between writing, creating a writer's identity and human rights.

T11 - Digital Story Telling - How Telling Their Stories Inspired Some Self-Proclaimes "Not Cool Kids" to Pursue     Cool Careers         Speakers: Heather Leask-Armstrong          This session explains how our animation club inspired some self-proclaimed "not cool kids" with stories to tell to pursue futures as doctors, computer scientists, engineers, sound technichans, teachers, and artists.  A librarian and freelance writer with a 'geek' background and continuing interest in technology, Armstrong partners with a technology teacher in her division to run a Saturday animatoin club at her school.  She discusses how digitial multimodal texts allow the student to express themselves, gain confidence, share their experience and become leaders.

T12 - New ELA Curriculum: Thinkng Together About ELA Curriculum Renewal     Speaker: Karen Boyd     This session will provide an opportunity to hear the thinking around and with the Englich Language Arts Curriculum renewal.  It will also provide a time for feedback and questions.

T13 - School Based Literacy Plans     Speaker: Lexlie Dixon      Elmwood High School has been working towards developing a school-wide literacy plan for the past three years.  Facilitated by their literacy committee co-chairs, this workshop will deliver the successes and stumbles of the literacy crew as they strive to learn how to best support the most vulnerable learners to increase their literacy levels.

T13 - ????      Featured Speaker: Ernest Morell          Grade level: All

F1 - Reading in the Wild: Learning From Lifelong Readers     Keynote Speaker: Donalynn Miller     Based on survey data from 900 adult readers and assessments, Donalynn identifies the characteristics fo wild readers and shares methods that support students' dvelopment into lifelong readers.  Reflect on your reading life and discuss the classroom, library, and home conditions that foster wild reading.

F2 - I Can See Muself "Identify and Diversity"          Featured Speaker: Deborah Ellis     Deborah  describes powerful connections students make with literature and celebrates the diverse voices of the characters in her books.

F3 - Reading Apprenticeship in the Manitoba Context: Where Are We Now?         Speakers:  Shelley Warkentin, Shauna Hamm, Leanne Braun, Daniele Dubois-Jacques     Presenters will describe the Reading Apprenticeship instructional framework for academic literacy development and show how implementation of the framework in unfolding in Manitoba.  They will share lessons learned form the 3 year pilot project, plans for provincial implementation, and snapshots form different contexts (school division, school, and classroom).

F4 - Indigenous Graphic Novels     Speaker: David Roberson     The graphic novel is an incredible tool for education.  Not only does it powerfully motivate students to read, the graphic novel can make learning easier and more effective.  David  will discuss how his personal history, growing up detached from culture, led him to write graphic novels, and will use his graphic novels as a case study on how the graphic novel can be used in the classroom.

F5 - Freedom Writers       Speaker: Lyndsey Morris (Frontier School DIvision)        Using the method of the Freedom Writers, created by Erin Gruwell, this presentation will give information about how to empower students to make real life connections with their academic material.  Teachers will be given strategies and tips to continue the learning process outside of the classroom.

F6 - Coaching and Mentoring for Talent Development     Speaker:  Kathy Collis (Winnipeg School Division)     This session will highlight theory, skills, models and frameworks that support talent development and the empowerment of students and colleagues.

F7 - "I Don't Really Read..." How to Trick Non-Readers into Becoming Readers         Speaker: Heather Leask Armstrong     Every librarian has likely heard a student utter those words when tasked to help a student find a book to read for silent reading period or an upcoming book report.  It can be disheartening when you know you have lots of great books that the student will love, but he/she turns down every suggestion no matter how intriguing the cover.  But, if you look at it as a fun and friendly challenge - a test of wills between a book promoter and a book hater - it is possible to win even if you have to be 'tricky' and introduce them to 'reading' stories or non-fiction in a non-traditional way.  Heather will discuss a variety of techniques that have worked in her library and school.

F8 - Reading is the  Inhale and Writing is the Exhale     Featured Speaker: Donalyn Miller          Donalynn will focus on how to develop a fanatical love of reading amongst your students and how to assist them in choosing the best books available to develop this intense love of reading. 

F9 - Passion for Learning        Speaker: CLarence Fisher          This presentation will focus on helping students find their passions and discuss innovative and exciting ways of encouraging students to explore their passions in the classroom.

F10 - Literacy Take Flight: Planning A School's Literacy Journey     Speakers: Cathy Oresnik, Sherry Klassen, & Lisa Boles     This presentation will provide an overview of the path Fort Richmond Collegiate has taken since identifying a focus on literacy as a school goal in 2009.  The main emphasis will be on key resources, influences, beliefs adn practices that have guided us, and lesson learned that can be applied to any school embarking on a similar journey.

F11 - Collaborating for Student Success in High School: Strategies to Support our English as an Adidtional Language (EAL) Communities     Speaker: Val Pierce & Katherine Kristalovish      This session examines various successful collaborative teaching approaches to support EAL students effectively at different stages of English language development.  These educators will share practical strategies to differentiate instruction appropriately in order to support their students' individual academic needs best within high school.  They will also share a collaborative inquiry modes that can support a teacher-initiated inquiry stance.

F12 -  Strengthening Citizenship Skills: Learning About Treaties and the Treaty Relationship          Speaker: Jamie Wilson         The Treaty Education Initiative is focused on supporting the integration of Treaty education across the K-12 curriculum.  Treaty  Education provides an opportunity for us to all grow our understanding of the Treaty relationship and how we can engage the vast 'tapestry' of people in this province to be part of the ongoing Treaty dialogue for 'as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the water flows'.  Out points of convergence will be the beginning of the conversation.

F13 - Using Formative Assessment to Plan Learning     Speaker: Cory Nevil     Cory will focus on how to create tasks that will give you the assessment information needed to plan for your students' learning and work on higher level comprehension skills.     

F14 - Reading for Power         Keynote Speaker: Deborah Ellis           Engaging Readers as a Force for Social Justice - This session will address the power of books to transform the lives of youth from isolation and powerlessness to achieving a sense of belonging to something great and powerful - the human ability to create beauty and justice out of the world.