•  www.englishteacherswelcomed.blogspot.com

• Creating Pathways: Engaging in Professional Conversations that Prepare Teachers for Literacy Instruction in the 21st Century
• 2008FCTE
• Creating Pathways
• Web2.o FCTE Presentation
• Media Literacies in Tech-Starved Classrooms 
• Advocacy

• Reading at Risk
• The Silent Epidemic
• Writing Next

The following is a list of notes and observations from the 98^th Annual National Council of Teachers of English Convention held November 2008 in San Antonio, Texas. They begin with notes from the opening night ceremony and move to the close of the event. For more information, check out the NCTE Ning group at www.ning.com.  Enjoy!

• Thursday night’s kickoff with GROVER!
• Gary Knell – President and CEO of Sesame Workshop
• Muppet Diplomacy
• Teaching Literacy in a Digital Age w/Grover
• Flat and Crowded by Thomas Freidman
• Facts about average 10-year olds:
• 6 ½ hours media each day
• 45% own cell phones; 55% by 2012
• 80% own game playing system
• 6.5 average age kids begin playing video games, less than 2 hours every day; television in own room
• Kaiser Family Foundation, source
• How to get ahead of ‘change’ and not play catch up to it?
• Tells story that chronicles the creation of Sesame Street and social evolution taking place in America.
• The Beginning – 1960’s
• Head Start, VISTA, NPR, PBS, Job Copr began during game time
• Advertising Jingles – teach kids to bridge gap
• Sesame Street was banned in Mississippi one year because it showed interracial groups getting along.
• Tackling Illiteracy
• Podcast for Sesame Street’s word on the street – Chris Brown & Elmo
• The Electric Company – smash ups
• Cites study showing that Reading First, which cost $6 billion had no affect on children’s reading
• Will begin daily in September 2009, M-F (MLK Day & 1/23/09)
• Work into Fall classes – Note to self.
• The Curriculum
• Decoding, vocabulary, comprehension of connected text, motivation
• Pow! Wham!
• D is for Digital
• Getting over the slump
• In 140 countries
• Germans, Brazilians, Mexicans asked for shows
• In every country. Sesame Street Workshop is the largest informal educator of children in the world.
• Friday’s Keynote speaker
• Marc Prensky
• See PDF of powerpoint presented during his Keynote:  http://api.ning.com/files/RNnQea9gLPkIGn*I41xVqCWJUqB99QBvVQHmDNvz1HJEqbvdj10abYiX*FJ7LPcHkQHQ*ybqD*WAo7M8MfedBfONwAdv8sRe/Prensky0811fNCTE2008SanAntonio.pdf
• www.marcprensky.com
• Credentials
• Shift happens
• The chronicle of higher education headline:
• Email is for old people.
• 10 reasons not to include technology (only able to catch 4 from slide)
• I don’t have time
• The kids will cheat
• What is it
• Not academic enough
• Session: Presenter -- Jane Feber (Nationally recognized teacher from Florida)
• Podcasts
• Voice Thread
• Audacity
• Podbean.com
• Tuxbox.com
• Business cards by books/characters
• Session: Presenter -- Dr. Carroll (not the one at FSU)
• Scaffolding
• Vygotsky  - Zone of Proximal Deveoplment
• Hero Theme
• Schema Steps (examples)
• Focus Questions: What are the qualities of a hero?

·         Prime Students (Books, Music, Krypton)

·         Prime the text(s) – Planning/Greensheet

·         Read – choral reading

·         Extend the reading and writing

·         Closure – Anchor Chart

o        Capture students thoughts on paper in color of paper, etc. kryptonite

• Business Meeting
• Resolution from Florida’s Council was presented and approved at NCTE’s board meeting. The resolution speaks against scripted curriculums. See www.ncte.org and recently passed resolutions for more details.
• Request desk copies of Donald Graves’ works for writing class proposed for graduate English education program.
• Writing must be taught as other crafts in studio/workshop conditions.
• The Reading/Writing Companion
• Affiliate Meeting
• Go into schools to recruit
• National Day on Writing, October 20, 2009 * Natioanl Gallery of Writing
• SLATE Spokesperson Training
• How do you get through? Craft message in a non combative way, in language they understand through story telling… Be sure to talk about what you know. Defer if you have no idea and point them in right direction.
• Ask yourself what topics are you most knowledge to speak about then create a standard response to education naysayers and combatants.
•  
• Free write on story to talk about issue.
• Audience
• You have expert knowledge to share, this is a tool
• Learning something new is always a challenge but needed
• You’re both learners
• Technology’s evolution means few experts
• Active participant in strengthening students’ eagerness to come to school
• Florida teachers (including yours truly) are organizing a Florida Teacher Day on the Hill in Tallahassee. This year, those who can, are asked to join Florida Education Association’s Lobby Day on the Capitol which is March 18^th. Next year, we will plan and begin our own!!!
• Affiliate Sponsored Session
• Writing Over Reading by Deborah Brandt, UW @ Madison
• Henry Leonard – Information economy
• Reading has been promoted through universalizing literacy campaigns. Writing has not. Mass writing less (if at all) protected by government and law than reading. And when so, due primarily to readers right to read. Writing linked with commercial enterprise and wealth production. Teaching and learning about writing on the job. Work writing provides writers a sense of ownership that is not their own since their writing is owned by the company. “Authors” can be created due to marketplace urged however these authors may not be what’s held as ‘traditional writers’ – shifts.
• Patrick Shannon, Penn State
• Larger Social Resolutons – BOGSAAT (Bunch of guys sitting around a table)
• No one best method
• Inventor of dynamite funds Noble Prize – Irony
• Technocracy – tech and democracy
• Ask how new technology effects our lives? If it interferes with “a must” to our daily lives then we shouldn’t include it.
• Adams Smith – 1776 Must regulate capitalism
• Ralph Nadar – Fascist government for big business
• Government priorities must change
• Increases in false positives for black students
• International research in science findings?
• IES – Institute for Educational Sciences
• Ellen Brinkley – Working Together Taking a Stand
• Advocacy Websites
• Change.gov
• Epicreform.org
• Teacheractivistgroups.org
• Fairtest.org
• Teachermarch.org
• Session
• Role play to teach argument
• Advantages of online
• Extended time
• Images and video
• They learn:
• Construct persona
• Rhetorical/appeals
• ID and refute counterargument
• Revise one’s position
• Learn to formulate and share alternate arguments.
• Test out the validity of different argument.
• Find common ground to develop solution.
• House is an example of collaborative vs. competitive arguments.