English Language Arts

WCSD: Grade 2 Writing Fundamentals: Personal Narrative Unit Inservice
Participants will cover the following: Overview and objectives of the personal narrative unit of study; Creating a writing environment-Anchor charts; Immersion: Getting to know the Touchstone/Mentor texts for the personal narrative unit a look at Author's Craft); Interactive Read Aloud - Thinking about the writer behind the words; Model mini-lessons at varying stages of the writing process; The Writing Process as the framework of each unit-Map out a timeline for unit; Conferring: conference questions and using conferences to assess students and plan follow-up mini-lessons; Look at sample student work from unit; Unit extensions, appendices, and home school connections; Assessment: Utilizing the student evaluations and rubrics in writing and fundamentals...focusing on improving the quality of teaching in the areas of writing and reading instruction. STAFF FOR WHOM INSERVICE IS INTENDED: Grade 2 Elementary teachers and Grade 2 Special Education teachers.
Date: Aug 31 11 - Aug 31 11   Hours: 3.00   Registration Fee: $0 
 WCSD: Article of the Week Inservice
Participants will gain knowledge of Kelly Gallagher's work on the literacy teaching strategy of "Article of the Week". Participants will read, view and discuss material to prompt their own implementation of "Article of the Week". Teachers will learn about how to use the reading of short articles to build skill in the areas of background knowledge, author's purpose, intended audience, structure and craft of journalistic writing, as well as other reading comprehension elements. STAFF FOR WHOM INSERVICE IS INTENDED: Intended for all Grade 9-12 English teachers, Special Education teachers teaching English classes. STAFF FOR WHOM INSERVICE IS INTENDED: Intended for all Grade 9-12 English teachers, Special Education teachers teaching English classes.
Date: Sep 26 11 - Oct 3 11   Hours: 2.00   Registration Fee: $0 
 Fifth Grade Summer Institute
What a fifth grade program looks like: creating a consistent model for Wappingers, what students should know at the end of fifth grade, unwrapping the Standards, creating timelines and curriculum maps for ELA, with discussion about literacy in the content area, assessments, benchmarks & standards for achievement, AIS utilization, interventions & classroom management, communicating progress and Report Card indicators.
WCSD: 9th Grade Literacy Lab Inservice
Participants will learn how to use the DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) as a tool of periodic assessment. Types of intervention lessons and reading strategy mini lessons will be covered. Participants will begin to curriculum map support lessons aligned with the 9th Grade core English curriculum.
 
8th Grade Units of Study: Poetry Inservice
Participants will gain knowledge in how to design a poetry unit of study, in relation to the 8th Grade English Language Arts curriculum map. Participants will learn how to evaluate and select poetry for students. Types of poetry, reasons for using poetry, as well as exposure, exploration and experimentation with poetry will be covered. Mini-lessons, lists of suggested titles, authors and websites will be developed.
Date: Jul 19 11 - Jul 19 11   Hours: 2.00   Registration Fee: $0 
 
DIBELS Inservice
Participants will gain knowledge of how to administer the DIBELS assessment. DIBELS is the universal screener for grades K-6, as per the WCSD RtI plan. Participants will learn how the DIBELS measures assess the 5 big ideas in early literacy, identified by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. It will be discussed how to translate DIBELS assessment results into effective reading practices. This inservice is intended for teachers who are new to the DIBELS assessment and for teachers who need a review of its administration, as long as they have not received previous inservice credit.
Date: Jul 12 11 - Jul 12 11   Hours: 2.00   Registration Fee: $0 
Grades 7-9 Honors Vertical Alignment
Participants will gain knowledge in the three aspects of curriculum alignment to be considered by the English department across the grades 7-9 levels: alignment of knowledge and skills to be taught (along with the materials used to teach them), coordination of teaching practices used to deliver instruction, and improvement of assessment practices used to validate student learning and inform instruction. Participants will learn how the grades 9-12 English Honors/AP curriculum has been aligned and how to scaffold from this blueprint. Pathways and activities that best suit the goals of the grades 7-8 Honors program will be identified.
Date: Mar 14 11 - Apr 4 11 
 Hours: 4.00 
 Registration Fee: $0 
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Available on mlp
 
8th Grade Units of Study
Participants will gain knowledge in the use of reading and writing units of study as examples of skill-based instruction for each quarter of the year, as designated on the 8th Grade English Units of Study curriculum map. Participants will learn how writing benchmark tasks exemplify the descriptors for each score point on a genre-specific rubric and how these benchmarks are intended for use with both writing instruction and writing assessment. When scoring pieces of writing, teachers will gain practice in using the benchmarks as their primary guide when scoring pieces of writing.
Date: Apr 4 11 - Apr 25 11 
 Hours: 6.00 
 Registration Fee: $0 
Instructor: Dana Brown
Available on mlp
 
Mount Saint Mary College will be hosting its 18th Annual Conference on Literacy on April 9th from 8:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.  Suzy Kline, author of the Horrible Harry series, will be the keynote speaker.  There will be numerous workshops to sign up for including "Content Area Strategies that Work".  One of our own, Kristen Marino (SR), will be giving a workshop on Peer Coaching.  You may sign up for the conference on mlp. 
 
Wachusett Regional School District Website
 
Upcoming opportunities on www.mylearningplan.com
 
Last year, we were interviewed about the literature we use in our teaching in the Wappingers Central School District.  Attached is a flyer for the Hudson Valley Writing Project"s Saturday Seminar on February 5th.  Mary Sawyer will be sharing the results of this research in an opening workshop, and I look forward to viewing the results.  I am also looking forward to the workshop on "Using Cancelled Checks to Help Students Write Collaborative Fiction", which is geared towards interdisciplinary work between math, english and social studies teachers. 
 
The HVWP Saturday Seminars are free to teachers and the community thanks to the support of the National Writing Project, Ulster County BOCES Instructional Services, and the School of Education at SUNY New Paltz.  You may receive inservice credit by applying on mlp. 
 
7th Grade Writing Pieces and Rubric Assessments
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Participants will gain knowledge in the use of writing benchmarks as examples of student writing for each type of writing in the 7th Grade English Units of Study curriculum map. Participants will learn how writing benchmarks exemplify the descriptors for each score point on a genre-specific rubric and how these benchmarks are intended for use with both writing instruction and writing assessment. When scoring pieces of writing, teachers will gain practice in using the benchmarks as their primary guide when scoring pieces of writing.
Date: Jan 10"11 - Feb 7"11   Hours: 4.00 
Skills-Based Curriculum Inservice (Junior High)
Instructor:  Cassie Horton
Are you interested in learning new and sharing old lessons that focus on a skills-based approach to teaching? This five-week course will provide support to ELA middle school staff as the program changes to reflect skills rather than works of literature. Learn ways skills can be reinforced using the texts you love to teach! Each class involves ideas about how to focus on skills, sharing best practices, and instruction on how to build future lessons and collaboration.
Date: Oct 13"10 - Nov 17"10   Hours: 5.00   
 
JOIN HVWP for TEACHING LITERACY IN THE CONTENT AREAS, our first Saturday Seminar of the school year!  In this three-hour conference, HVWP presenters will explore literacy instruction in the fields of history, science and math, sharing recent research and innovative teaching strategies.
 
HVWP Flyer

The opening session, WHAT DOES LITERACY LOOK LIKE IN THE CONTENT AREAS?: Meeting the Needs of Adolescent Students will introduce participants to an influential article that explores the nature of literacy in different disciplines and suggests ways of developing disciplinary-specific literacy instruction. Following will be two teaching workshops--LIVING TRENCH WARFARE: Using Experiential Techniques to Help Students Connect to the Past and CREATING CURIOSITY: Questioning in the Science Classroom--that will explore methods for supporting students’ content area literacy, critical thinking and affective learning.

The OCTOBER 2nd seminar will take place at the Ulster BOCES Conference Center in New Paltz, beginning at 8:45 am. Coffee and bagels will be available and Inquiring Minds Booksellers will display educational books related to the theme of the day.

For a detailed description of the seminar, please see the attached flyer or visit the HVWP website at www.newpaltz.edu/hvwp

REGISTRATION:
Teachers wishing to document inservice hours through MyLearningPlan.com should register in advance at the Ulster BOCES website: www.ulsterboces.org.  
Students and community members are welcome to attend and need not register online.

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ALSO OF NOTE!

On THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28th,  HVWP presenters Janine Guadagno, Bonnie Kaplan and Dawn Vandervloed will present
CONTENT LEARNING THROUGH MULTIMEDIA COMPOSING, a three-hour workshop that will demonstrate how to using media to take virtual field trips and document and assess learning. Participants will practice the art of creating digital stories and take home a digital tale about glaciation in Minnewaska State Park.

Register at the TEACHING THE HUDSON VALLEY WEBSITE:  www.teachingthehudsonvalley.org or call 845.229.9116, ext. 35
 
Instructor:  Amy Buckingham
Participants will learn a variety of reading and writing topics. The focus for learning will revolve around Lucy Calkins work. The reading topics will include: understanding and applying the new structure of mini-lessons, highlighting procedures for launching the workshop, as well as aligning strategy lessons with Calkins Units of Study. The writing topics will include: studying the power of think-aloud and modeling, highlighting procedures for launching the workshop, as well as aligning the six-traits and district writing expectations with Calkins Units of Study. Classroom teachers who are involved in this professional development training will be encouraged to participate in a visitation of a classroom within district to see a reading and writing workshop model in action. Classroom teachers who are involved in this professional development training will also be expected to apply the lessons into their own classroom teaching.
Date: Sep 17"10 - Dec 17"10 
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Participants will gain knowledge of how to create a test preparation unit for the new 3-hour Comprehensive Regents Examination by utilizing preassessment testing information. Test preparation materials will be introduced and reviewed. Past practice in teaching literary terms will be compared to the demands of the new test format to ensure student success.
Date: Jan 18"11 - Jan 18"11 
 
Past experiences:
WCSD Junior High AIS
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Participants will learn how to provide a comprehensive Academic Intervention Services program for students who are experiencing difficulties in reading and writing. Participants will learn how to provide remediation to students on a small group and individualized basis, while connecting to the core classroom skills being addressed. Instructional techniques that depend upon students" capabilities, learning styles and interests will be reviewed, as well as to implement these techniques most effectively on the middle level.
 
WCSD New Regents Exam for English
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Participants will receive instruction on the format of the new 3-hour comprehensive Regents examination by comparing and contrasting its format with the previous years exams. Participants will also learn about test strategies to implement with students to further their success with the new format, and will learn how to create a test preparation unit of study. Participants will also receive instruction on how to integrate Regents test preparation into the earlier high school and junior high school grades in the form of curriculum mapping, as well as learn how to apply results of previous student achievement data to further current instruction.
 
WCSD 7th Grade English Learning Community
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Participants will gain knowledge in the Reading and Writing workshop models and how to use these models to facilitate the teaching of the District"s Scope and Sequence by categorizing its skills across the year, how to identify literature best used to teach specific skills, and how to create mini-lessons to explicitly teach reading and writing skills. Participants will also be taken through a process of rethinking the final exam concept and gain knowledge of alternative assessments that begin to reach across the content areas.
 
WCSD 8th Grade English Learning Community
Instructor:  Dana Brown
Participants will gain knowledge in the Reading and Writing workshop models and how to use these models to facilitate the teaching of the District"s Scope and Sequence by categorizing its skills across the year, how to identify literature best used to teach specific skills, and how to create mini-lessons to explicitly teach reading and writing skills. Participants will also be taken through a process of rethinking the final exam concept and gain knowledge of alternative assessments that begin to reach across the content areas.
 
WCSD Fourth Grade Summer Institute
Instructor:  Jeanne Tribuzzi
What a fourth grade program looks like: creating a consistent model for Wappingers, what kids should know at the end of fourth grade, unwrapping the Standards, creating Timelines and curriculum maps for ELA, with discussion about literacy in the content area, assessments, benchmarks & standards for achievement, AIS utilization, interventions & classroom management, communicating progress and Report Card indicators.