KATE: A Conference That Motivates
Let me start off by saying how awesome it was to have been given the opportunity to attend this year's KATE conference- especially with my classmates, who rock! I enjoyed seeing the people of KATE being recognized, and the experience gave me an inside look on an organization filled with camaraderie and fantastic ideas! There was not a moment where I didn't feel inspired and motivated to bring what I was learning into my classroom!
The first breakout session I attended, Get Out of the Way and Let Your Students Read, was very informative in regards to various strategies for the dependent reader. The main idea behind this session, or what I took most from it, was to let your students choose what they are reading. If they enjoy what they are reading, we are more likely going to get through to them what we want- our goals will be more easily accomplished. One key concept to remember when promoting your students' independent reading is that they can "break up" with a book. If they get a few pages in and don't too much care for it, it is not against the rules to put that book back where it came from and find something they do enjoy. Along with that magic pebble, we were given great tools for building our classroom library, my favorite being thriftbooks.com. A few of the presenters expressed that they had 500 to 700 books in their library, and my mouth dropped. WOW. Because they have such a plethora of literature, their students have begun to reach out to them for book suggestions! This session not only had useful advise, but the presenters also referenced Book Love written by Penny Kittle; which is a book we are going to be reading, and their excitement for the book got me excited! There are great things to look forward to in our teaching experiences, and I cannot wait!
Teaching Lit With Grit, the presenter being Jay Asher, was my second breakout session. I appreciated the honesty behind his session, and everything he shared with us. I cannot imagine being the author of a book that brings the kind of negativity he deals with, but he deals with it. Not only does he deal with it, he rebuttals it. He stands firm on the fact that his book has and still is helping many youth through their trials of adolescents. Throughout his session, I took away the idea of courage. We need to provide a safe environment to our students. Every student has a place in our classroom, no matter what. With that being said, we should reaffirm our stance on being a safe place by providing literature that backs this up. By providing relevant and challenging literature to our students, we are helping to guide them through their middle school/high school experience; which, in order to have healthy teachable students, is essential for us to do.
This experience definitely loosened my teacher strings a bit...I mean, yes- prior to this, I still wanted to incorporate literature into my lessons that was relevant to my students; however, the KATE conference, and all it promoted, put a lot of things into perspective for me. Along with allowing your students to pick their reading, you also need to enforce student accountability. By building your library, you make it easier for students to get the literature that they can learn from and relate to; which, in turn, will give you better results in terms of your students' literacy growth. As an effective teacher, I plan to incorporate everything I learned throughout my experience at the KATE conference!
The first breakout session I attended, Get Out of the Way and Let Your Students Read, was very informative in regards to various strategies for the dependent reader. The main idea behind this session, or what I took most from it, was to let your students choose what they are reading. If they enjoy what they are reading, we are more likely going to get through to them what we want- our goals will be more easily accomplished. One key concept to remember when promoting your students' independent reading is that they can "break up" with a book. If they get a few pages in and don't too much care for it, it is not against the rules to put that book back where it came from and find something they do enjoy. Along with that magic pebble, we were given great tools for building our classroom library, my favorite being thriftbooks.com. A few of the presenters expressed that they had 500 to 700 books in their library, and my mouth dropped. WOW. Because they have such a plethora of literature, their students have begun to reach out to them for book suggestions! This session not only had useful advise, but the presenters also referenced Book Love written by Penny Kittle; which is a book we are going to be reading, and their excitement for the book got me excited! There are great things to look forward to in our teaching experiences, and I cannot wait!
Teaching Lit With Grit, the presenter being Jay Asher, was my second breakout session. I appreciated the honesty behind his session, and everything he shared with us. I cannot imagine being the author of a book that brings the kind of negativity he deals with, but he deals with it. Not only does he deal with it, he rebuttals it. He stands firm on the fact that his book has and still is helping many youth through their trials of adolescents. Throughout his session, I took away the idea of courage. We need to provide a safe environment to our students. Every student has a place in our classroom, no matter what. With that being said, we should reaffirm our stance on being a safe place by providing literature that backs this up. By providing relevant and challenging literature to our students, we are helping to guide them through their middle school/high school experience; which, in order to have healthy teachable students, is essential for us to do.
This experience definitely loosened my teacher strings a bit...I mean, yes- prior to this, I still wanted to incorporate literature into my lessons that was relevant to my students; however, the KATE conference, and all it promoted, put a lot of things into perspective for me. Along with allowing your students to pick their reading, you also need to enforce student accountability. By building your library, you make it easier for students to get the literature that they can learn from and relate to; which, in turn, will give you better results in terms of your students' literacy growth. As an effective teacher, I plan to incorporate everything I learned throughout my experience at the KATE conference!
Thanks for your post, Emily! I just shared this on the KATE Facebook page!
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