Recommended sessions for
GRADES 9-12
DAY ONE
9:00-10:30 a.m.
Keynote
Be the spark for every writer
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Rekindle your enthusiasm for teaching writing during this powerful keynote led by Kristina Smekens. With a focus on whole-class mini-lessons, Kristina will provide instructional techniques to teach essential writing skills explicitly and effectively at all levels.
Kristina will share practical strategies and writing practices that ignite your motivation to teach writing and fuel your students’ confidence in attempting it. Leave feeling equipped, energized, and excited to start a new school year, ready to implement effective writing instruction.
10:45-11:45 a.m.
Introduce the 6 Traits to students
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Discover engaging techniques to introduce the 6 Traits to your students using mentor texts, song lyrics, and visual icons. By establishing a shared understanding of these essential elements at the beginning of the year, you can create a strong foundation for writing instruction that will benefit students throughout the year.
Elevate narrative writing for test success
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Focus on the must-have elements of narrative writing: a problem and a solution. Learn effective techniques to help students integrate these components into every story—even one they must compose based on texts provided.
Deepen math understanding through writing
Grades 2-12, ML Levels 3-5
Weave writing practices into math instruction to enhance critical thinking and analysis. Learn innovative mini-lessons that focus on articulating thought processes rather than merely solving problems, empowering students to strengthen their writing skills and deepen their understanding of mathematical concepts.
Improve thinking to impact written responses
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Boost students’ written responses through the power of inference. Follow a straightforward 5-step process to clarify this essential skill. Help your students answer text-dependent questions and support their ideas with strong evidence.
Utilize the perfect pair– Canva & Google
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Unlock the potential of Canva and Google in your classroom. Create dynamic, visually engaging materials in Canva and integrate them effortlessly into Google apps. Discover how this perfect pairing can support your teaching with free, easy-to-use templates and ready-to-implement resources.
12:00-1:00 p.m.
Kick-start your writing with 6 key lessons
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Learn the essential lessons to teach writers at the beginning of the year to launch a daily writing time that blends instruction, practice, and feedback. Discover how to boost student engagement, tackle obstacles, and nurture independent writers with routines that keep the momentum going.
Align conventions within writing units
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Examine the reasons why students who succeed in workbooks and quizzes struggle to apply conventions in their own writing. Learn how to integrate grammar instruction into writing units to improve students’ application of conventions in their own authentic, first-draft writing.
Determine note-worthy text details
Grades 4-12, ML Levels 3-5
Teach students to annotate their thinking in ways that go beyond the basics of colored highlighters and graphic organizers. Discover strategies for helping students determine which details are important, empowering them to become more active and engaged readers.
Target short constructed-response writing
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Discover the key components of effective short constructed responses, including inferential thinking and the use of textual evidence. Learn practical lesson ideas that cater to writers who will face state assessments, helping them develop the necessary writing skills to excel in this important format.
Implement AI in dyslexia interventions
Grades 2-12, ML Levels 3-5
Discover how AI can empower both teachers and students in navigating the challenges of dyslexia. This essential session features a student’s candid story, highlighting the transformative role AI has played in her educational journey and offering actionable strategies for educators.
2:00-3:00 p.m.
Provide focused & efficient writer feedback
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Students grow as writers when they are given feedback that is prompt, purposeful, precise, and personal. Discover ways to improve the efficiency and efficacy of your writer conferences. Learn a 4-step process to offer targeted guidance, track progress, and foster meaningful teacher-student interactions.
Factor in 4 principles when planning units in grades 3-12
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Honor 4 instructional shifts when designing effective writing units for grades 3-12. Discover ways to teach new writing skills at a manageable pace, design meaningful writing tasks, and prepare students for an end-of-unit assessment that reveals their authentic and independent writing abilities.
Develop ideas for stronger writing
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Implement effective strategies that target the essential trait of ideas. Discover how to teach students to develop topics, add rich details, and incorporate compelling evidence. With a focus on ideas, increase not only the length of their writing but improve the overall quality, too.
Master evidence-based responses
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Help students overcome evidence-based response errors with targeted strategies. Explore common pitfalls like insufficient support and irrelevant information, while learning to adapt to modern testing formats. Leave with lesson ideas to help students provide strong textual evidence across diverse question types.
Develop a flexible writing rubric for grades 3-12
Grades 2-12, ML Levels 3-5
Incorporate a single, kid-friendly 6-Traits rubric that adapts to any type of writing and grows with your students. Learn when to score for individual traits, assign value, and convert scores to grades using an online rubric calculator—complete with personalized feedback for each student.
3:15-4:15 p.m.
Scaffold a yearlong writing curriculum
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Craft engaging mini-units targeting persuasive/argumentative, informative, and narrative writing. Create a cumulative spiral of skills to give students ample opportunities to practice and perfect each writing mode.
Target teamwork & communication in collaborative writing projects
Grades 4-12, ML Levels 3-5
Redefine “group work” to emphasize the process over the product with tasks that make members dependent on one another. Unlock the potential of collaborative writing activities to empower all students, including ML and hesitant writers.
Crack the compare-contrast code
Grades 4-12, ML Levels 3-5
Gain strategies for organizing ideas, finding evidence, and crafting insightful comparisons between two different texts. Transform your students into comparative thinking champions who can produce well-developed, evidence-backed extended responses that stand out.
Use AI to strengthen study skills
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Empower students to make the most of AI to enhance their study routines. Learn from students’ real-world experiences using ChatGPT, Magic School Student, and other AI tools. Explore classroom strategies to integrate AI, making learning more engaging, effective, and future-ready.
DAY TWO
9:00-10:00 a.m.
Propel students from basic persuasives to sophisticated arguments
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Explore the nuances between persuasive and argumentative writing. Learn lesson ideas relevant for both genres, including how to infer reasons from texts and support them with strong evidence.
Teach convention skills in 3 steps
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Transform grammar instruction by focusing on 1 skill in 3 phases of instruction: 1) Notice and name it, 2) Try it, 3) Apply it. Experience a structured path to mastery of grade-level grammar skills through the gradual release of responsibility.
Create a reading & writing calendar for test prep
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Develop a comprehensive reading and writing calendar to prepare students for read-write tests given in the spring. Align composition and comprehension strategies across both semesters, ensuring seamless integration of writing about reading practice and instruction. This session builds on the mini-unit spiral calendar for a cohesive approach.
10:15-11:15 a.m.
Foster perseverance & resilience with writing
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Foster resilience in young writers by providing mini-lessons that acknowledge the challenges of learning how to write. Encourage perseverance and independent decision-making through writing tasks that empower students to overcome obstacles and develop strong writer habits.
Blend text evidence & explanations
Grades 4-12, ML Levels 3-5
Challenge students to combine author evidence and individual explanations when responding to text-based prompts. Discover engaging strategies to perfect paraphrasing, cite direct quotes, and rework sentence structures to transform details gathered from the text into unique expressions.
Make mini-lesson magic
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Experience the transformative impact of a 4-step mini-lesson that delivers focused, Tier 1 writing instruction in just 15 minutes. Build on ideas from the keynote and observe video lessons that maximize student engagement and kick-start the gradual release of responsibility.
Synthesize ideas before writing
Grades 4-12, ML Levels 3-5
Empower students to refine their synthesis skills by teaching them how to extract, organize, and combine details from various sources. Equip them to present their findings cohesively, demonstrating both understanding and analytical ability in their writing practices.
Supercharge your Canva skills with simple hacks
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Boost your Canva skills with effective hacks. Learn to navigate Canva’s features, from easy animations to collaborative tools that streamline your workflow. This session is designed for those ready to enhance their design game, creating engaging materials that captivate students and enrich learning.
11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Demonstrate comprehension via succinct summary writing
Grades 2-12, ML Levels 3-5
Learn how to guide students through a scaffold of comprehensive summary writing strategies. This session will feature authentic student examples and interactive activities to demonstrate 10 different summary-writing products.
Craft engaging beginnings & powerful endings
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Discover strategies for writing captivating openings and strong conclusions at every level. Analyze student work to uncover successful examples and gain practical tools for writing beginnings and endings that complement a strong middle in all modes and genres.
Dissect author moves within literary analyses
Grades 6-12, ML Levels 4-5
Explore the art of analyzing a text through the author’s lens in ways that go beyond identifying plot elements and literary devices. Learn concrete strategies for guiding students to investigate an author’s craft, literary techniques, and structural choices, uncovering the underlying intentions and purpose behind the work.
Modernize classroom collaboration from Post-Its to Padlet
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Upgrade your classroom collaboration by swapping Post-Its for Padlet. Explore how this digital tool supports real-time idea sharing, AI audio features in 40+ languages, and media moderation. Learn to set it up and create engaging, interactive lessons that boost student participation.
1:30-2:30 p.m.
Revitalize the writing process
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Streamline the steps of the traditional writing process to accommodate one-sitting first drafts. Explore a fresh perspective on peer and self-revision techniques that better reflect today’s real-world writing situations.
Target essential skills in informative writing
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Unlock key writing strategies to enhance informative tasks. Master how to help students gather and organize information from sources, develop a clear topic/thesis, and present captivating facts and expert quotes, making every informative writing unit dynamic and effective.
Decode & design writing prompts
Grades 3-12, ML Levels 3-5
Dive deep into the academic vocabulary and structures that form the backbone of effective writing prompts. Learn how to help students decode any prompt with ease and gain the knowledge to craft engaging writing prompts in response to your own texts.
Enhance teaching & learning with AI tools
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Discover innovative strategies to harness AI technology in your classroom. Explore AI detectors, practical applications, and student-friendly chatbots. Leave with actionable insights and creative ideas to enhance teaching and learning in today’s AI-driven landscape.
2:45-3:15 p.m.
Closing keynote with Kristina
Grades K-12, ML All Levels
Get ready to head out with a new enthusiasm for teaching writing! Kristina will encourage and motivate during this closing keynote.
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