Pathway to Progress: Empowering Educators for Today’s Classrooms

Limerick, villanelle, pantoum, sestina. Some forms of poetry come with rules about the subject or theme (odes, elegy) and some come with strict rules about the number of lines, stanzas, rhyme, refrain etc. Choosing a poetic form to explore can be a ‘way in’ for students to begin to understand how important it is to choose words with care. This workshop will look at certain forms in order to ‘have a go’ at producing original poetry that follows well established rules. The aim is for students to develop a more disciplined approach to writing through imitation or pastiche before branching out and developing their own style of writing.

Until being faced with writing challenges during a recent MA in Creative Writing, I had forgotten just how terrifying writing for someone else to evaluate can be. This workshop will hopefully make the process a little less daunting for students through useful and enjoyable strategies designed to prompt thoughtful written responses. The strategies will remain simple with the aim of reducing the pressure students may feel to produce obscure or totally original content. The purpose is to think about how best to use language to convey what is thought, felt and imagined in clearly expressed and carefully structured compositions.

It is perhaps apposite to remember that authors do not usually write in order for students and teachers to unpack their words. The wonderful writer Claire Keegan articulated this in a recent interview: “I can’t explain my work. I just write stories. I’ve never thought about a theme. I never once have. I just think about the text.” As all English teachers are asked time and time again “but how do we know that’s what the author meant? How do we know that word was chosen on purpose?” Of course these questions are valid but nevertheless our job remains: to deliver lessons that help students to “think about the text” in a clear and focused manner through engaging active reading strategies. We need to take time to encourage the skills needed across the curriculum and for future assessments. This workshop will concentrate on how to enable students to understand explicit and implicit meaning and attitudes, select and evaluate what is relevant to specific purposes and how effects are created through authorial choice (whether intentional or not!).  

Target audience: Secondary English

Helping, sharing and comforting behaviors are observed in children in the first two years of life. What happens afterwards? This session will explore how developing attentional and behavior control capabilities, as well as social development, come into play in modulating prosocial behavior.  Prosocial behavior is present all around us, in and outside the classroom, and gaining a better understanding of what comes into play can help educators feel comfortable implementing social and emotional regulation strategies for their students.

Target audience: Teachers and educators PreK-12th grade, including teachers focused on special support needs.