Friday night, March 5th, brought English/Language Arts teachers from the state of Colorado together for the CLAS annual conference. While this year's conference had the usual offerings of sessions covering a range of literacy and literary topics, writing and writing instruction had the spotlight. The opening session -- more than a keynote and just short of a workshop -- by Penny Kittle set the tone for what turned out to be one of the best conferences I have ever attended. She is truly gifted -- as a writer, teacher, and literacy leader.
I will continue to share some of my reflections about the conference -- because it seems right now like one of those events to savor and ponder -- but the key thoughts that stand out right as bullet points for me: choice (readings, writings) for students, and teacher as model. We should all be literacy apprentices. It seems to me that the apprenticeship model works in both reading and writing workshop as well as for modeling effective reading instruction in interventions. To paraphrase Ghandi, be the reader/writer you want them to become.
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