Take part in this fun session!  Learn about C. Alexander London’s journey from reluctant reader to author. Take in London’s personal experience engaging with kid's interests (from gaming to comics to world record books) as reciprocal to our expectations for kids’ reading lives.

Registration is only $35, and, for students and retirees, $20.

This year, sessions will be divided into THREE time slots, so you can see more of our engaging workshops.

Light breakfast and full lunch provided.

The NJCTE membership year begins April 1, so be sure to join or renew with your conference registration to receive our e-newsletter mailings and print journal in 2013.

By January 30, we should have forms attached for you to send in your registration, and an active PayPal link for those who wish to pay via credit card.

The following is a list of our sessions for the April 6 conference.  While all attempts to ensure that each and every one of these sessions will be offered, last-minute changes may occur.

10:00–10:45: SESSION ONE

A.  Go Beyond Engagement: Pop Culture Fandom, Scriptwriting, and Criticism 

Though in many classrooms high-interest media is still invoked mostly for motivation or to provide “relevancy,” this approach misses vital connections to multiple literacies and even curricular alignments to the Common Core; in contrast, this session will provide strategies for pop-culture-powered reading, writing, and critical thinking.

This workshop also will run in Session 2.

         Peter Gutierrez, NCTE Spokesperson Network/Teachers College Press                      

B. The Joy of SAT, or How I Learned to Love the Test 

Standardized testing is so thoroughly entrenched in our educational world that to fight it is akin to arguing with the wind.  Before you dismiss this session with an “I don’t teach to the test,” consider that we do teach to the tested skills.  In a high-energy session we will examine how teachers can manipulate the format of the sentence completions, improving sentences and identifying sentence errors questions to help both provide targeted instruction and easily measurable assessment.

         Michael Portas, humanities supervisor, Randolph      

C.  Books: Taking Us Beyond Here and Now                                                   (all grades)

This interactive workshop will help teachers find ways to incorporate student choice into reading in meaningful ways, including how to manage and assess independent reading without the dreaded book report. How do we help students become readers? A roundup of the titles capturing reluctant readers' imaginations will be included.

         Jennifer Ansbach                      

D.  Free and Low-Cost Resources for Interactive Teaching w/ Technology.    (all)

Presenters will share and demonstrate “field-tested” free and low-cost resources for making teaching and learning more interactive. They also will describe a web-based program they have developed to support early career teachers.

         Brian Friedlander and Patricia Schall, College of St. Elizabeth

10:50–11:35: SESSION TWO

A.  Go Beyond Engagement: Pop Culture Fandom, Scriptwriting, and Criticism

See SESSION ONE, WORKSHOP A for description.

         Peter Gutierrez, NCTE Spokesperson Network/Teachers College Press

B. The Magic of Pre-Reading: Hooking Students to Love What They Read (MS/HS)

It only takes one book to hook a child to become a lifelong reader. Once children experience that feeling of discovering themselves in a book, they want to repeat that assurance again and again.  Join inspirational speaker Chris de Vinck as he exhorts us to teach children to read so that they can understand their spiritual, intellectual, and physical selves with confidence and grace. This workshop also will run in Session 3.

         Christopher de Vinck, EdD: Supervisor of English, Clifton   

C.  Teaching English in the 21^st Century: An Integrated Approach                        (HS)

In this age of multiple literacies, we need a broader definition of what constitutes knowledge and literacy to empower our students to become active thinkers in dealing with media texts. Therefore we must depart from a 19th century model of literacy to an integrated approach of study. This presentation demonstrates how media literacy units that study the metanarrative in journalism, the loss of individualism in a consumer-based society, and how race and gender are constructed can be integrated into a literature curriculum. Sample projects, essays, articles, and a riveting bibliography will excite you to move in this direction.                                                                                                      

         Patricia Hans, Ridgewood H.S.                   

D. Invention and the Writing Voice

Invention is a rhetorical term for the exploration of arguments. When students sit down to write, it is helpful for them to have a variety of tools at their disposal, even though they may have little idea about how to begin. It is with this in mind that I present the 5-day unit: it helps to add to the tools that students have at their disposal when they start writing a paper. The unit puts students in the practice of looking at subjects in a variety of ways and by doing so helps students find their writing voices. 

         Vera Lentini                                                                   

E. Alexander London on Middle-Grade Literature                         (K-5, MS)

Learn about C. Alexander London’s journey from reluctant reader to author. Take in London’s personal experience engaging with kid's interests (from gaming to comics to world record books) as reciprocal to our expectations for kids’ reading lives.

C. Alexander London, children's author

11:40-12:25: SESSION THREE

A. What Educators Should Know About Brain Development in

Autism Spectrum Disorder                  (all grades)

This workshop will highlight findings from the neurosciences about differences in the sensory systems and brain structure/function in persons with autism. Ways to understand the meaning of behaviors and selected strategies for educational support will be examined.

         Corinne G. Catalano, School Psychologist/Educational Consultant,    Montclair State U.                                                                                

B. The Magic of Pre-Reading: Hooking Students to Love What They Read (MS/HS)

SEE SESSION TWO, WORKSHOP B for description.

         Christopher de Vinck, EdD: Supervisor of English, Clifton 

C. Good Books, Good Teachers Make Reading Happen

What books are young adults reading? How can teachers best  use these books as an intregral part of the curriculum? Why use them? The importance of reaching students through readings that matter to them.

         M. Jerry Weiss, Literacy Advocate Extraordinaire!

D.  Connecting with Literature: Commonplace Books Revisited

This workshop focuses on a contemporary version of commonplace books, once a popular way of connecting with literature that peaked during the Renaissance. Rather than using paper and pen, these modern commonplace books are composed digitally using Evernote, a multi-platform app that enables students to take notes, record audio, collect images, and share observations with their peers.

Trina Chance O'Gorman, Montclair State U

E. Art in the English Classroom! (Just added! Yay!)

    Especially for elementary-middle school grades, this session will be mind-opening.  Wait 'til you see what Mary Ann St. Jacques has done for the NJCTE, and what she can do to vitalize your classroom!