23rd Annual Literacy Conference for K-12 Teachers Attracts +500 Educators

The UCI Writing Project hosted its Annual Literacy Conference for K-12 Teachers on December 7 at the UCI Student Center. The 2017 theme was "Creating Strategic, Curious, and Collaborative Readers, Writers, and Critical Thinkers." Over 500 educators from Southern California attended for a day of keynote presentations, breakout sessions, reconnecting, and networking. Conference attendees included teachers affiliated with the California Writing Project sites at UC Santa Barbara, Cal State LA, and Cal State San Marcos and partners in the UCI Writing Project's $11,000,000 Investment in Innovations grant project.

The conference opened with a welcome from Dean of the School of Education Richard Arum and from conference host Professor Carol Booth Olson, Director of the UCI Writing Project.

Morning keynotes, The Best Reading Intervention is a Good Book and The Best Writing Intervention is Writing Practice, were delivered by Literacy Consultant Stephanie Harvey.

Participants then had a choice among five workshop offerings:

• Reflections in the Writer's Workshop: Writers Self-Evaluate by Looking Back, Looking Forward, Looking Inward, and Looking Outward, delivered by Associate Professor Brian Kissell 
• Patterns of Power: Inviting Young Writers into the Conventions of Languages, Grades K-5, delivered by Author Jeff Anderson
• Battling the Beast: Revising Revision Attitudes to Help Writers See Revision as Opportunity, Not Punishment, Grades 5-12, delivered by Professor Debbie Dean
• Creating a Culture of Literacy: How to Engage and Motivate Readers and Writers: Sample Assignments, Projects, and Approaches to Teaching Traditional ELA Tasks in Innovative Ways, Grades 6-12, delivered by Head of Upper School Barry Gilmore and Literacy Consultant/Author ReLeah Cossett Lent
• Negotiating Voices in Academic Arguments: Summary, Synthesis, and Citation, Grades 7-12, delivered by Professor Jennifer Fletcher

Following a hosted lunch, Stephanie Harvey presented the afternoon keynote address, The Curious Classroom: Teaching with Student-Directed Inquiry.

Afternoon workshop choices included the following:

• The Author's Chair: Giving Agency and Authority Back to the Author in Writer's Workshop, Grades K-5, delivered by Associate Professor Brian Kissell
• Thunder and Lightning: Writing Strategies that Reverberate (Mentor Texts, Writer's Notebooks, Revision Decisions, and more), Grades 4-12, delivered by Author Jeff Anderson and Professor Debbie Dean
• Deep Learning Through Disciplinary Literacy: Disciplinary Tools that Deepen Students' Reading, Writing, Thinking, and Doing, Grades K-5, delivered by Literary Consultant/Author ReLeah Cossett Lent
• Digging In: Methods to Produce Better Reading/Analysis of Texts and Energize Students' Text-Based Academic Writing about Texts, Grades 6-12, delivered by Head of Upper School Barry Gilmore
• Teaching Students to Reason from Evidence, Grades 7-12, delivered by Professor Jennifer Fletcher

Since 1995, more than 12,000 educators have attended the UCI Writing Project's Literacy Conferences. In addition, over 1,000 teachers from 90 local school districts and 14 colleges and universities have participated in the UCIWP Summer Institutes for Teachers, and 35,000+ young people have participated in the  UCIWP Summer Youth Program.

Conference Program