Teaching Teenagers to Write:

Note: The conference is now over, but this site will remain available for some time.  News of follow-up activities--a listserv, possibly a publication, and maybe even a follow-up conference--will be posted as such information becomes available.

          The National Council of Teachers of English, the Orange County Council of Teachers of English, the Central Florida Writing Project, and conference chair Tom Thompson invite anyone who teaches writing or uses writing in the classroom to gather in Orlando this summer--when school is out and there's time to think again--to exchange ideas and talk about ways to teach and use writing more effectively.

Keynote speaker Kathleen Blake Yancey, author of Reflection in the Writing Classroom, will open Friday's sessions with her thoughts on what it means to be a reflective teacher; keynoters Peter Elbow, author of Writing without Teachers, and Edward White, author of Teaching and Assessing Writing, will close the day with a dialogue about the state of assessment, now and in the future.  Between the keynote sessions, and again on Saturday morning, nine concurrent sessions with presenters from over 20 states (and even overseas) will offer participants a variety of ideas about translating current composition theory into practice in today's real-life classrooms. Too many books and articles on composition theory are published by researchers who have never taught in a secondary-school setting, so theories that sound great on paper don't always work when they meet the realities of the classroom; this conference offers researchers and practitioners an opportunity to come together to discuss those classroom realities. At the closing plenary session, participants can talk with keynote speakers, featured speakers, and other conference participants about issues they find most interesting or controversial.

Follow these links to . . .
. . . find out more about the conference.
. . . see a listing of featured speakers and their presentations.
. . . see a complete listing of presentations and descriptions.
. . . see the whole conference at a glance.
. . . see information on registration, lodging, and transportation.
. . . send a message to the conference chair.

See you in Orlando! (Tom Thompson, conference chair)