2019 Invitational Summer Institute
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma

Pre-Institute Days: June 5 & 19
Institute: July 8-19
9:00 A.M.-4:00 P.M.
Willard Hall, OSU Campus

Apply online by March 10!

Overview

The Invitational Summer Institute is a professional development program where teachers of all subjects and all grade levels, Pre-K to university, come together to explore best practices, write and respond to others' writing, and read and discuss current research. Educators leave the Summer Institute with a wealth of ideas generated by sharing with other dedicated educators, strategies and activities for instruction and assessment, a renewed energy for teaching, a sense of confidence in their own writing abilities, and a connection to a larger collegial group.

Teachers invited to the Summer Institute will:

• Develop teaching strategies that fit their styles & meet the needs of their students
• Read & discuss research on the teaching of writing & how it may be applied to subjects across the curriculum
• Work in groups and share writing
• Present a demonstration
• Develop professional leadership roles as researchers, practitioners, writers, and inservice providers

Benefits

The benefits of attending the Summer Institute are:

• Graduate credit
• PD points
• Published OSUWP summer anthology
• Training in writing in the content areas: strategies for ELL instruction, technology integration, and achievement gap reduction
• Free PD for schools sending teams of two teachers
• Joining a professional community of writers and teacher leaders
• Training as a professional development workshop facilitator for "teachers teaching teachers"

Dr. Lindy Johnson
William & Mary

Dr. Lindy L. Johnson is an Assistant Professor of English Education at William & Mary and Director of the Eastern Virginia Writing Project. Her research draws on sociocultural theories of mediated action to examine the increasingly multimodal nature of digital technologies, and the emerging social practices and activities that arise from these technologies. Lindy is particularly interested in examining how digital storytelling and multimodal literacies can encourage adolescents toward civic engagement and other activist projects. Prior to pursuing her Ph.D. in Language and Literacy from The University of Georgia, Lindy taught high school English in Boston Public Schools. Her research has been published in the English Education, Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, and English Teaching: Practice & Critique, and Theory into Practice.

Dr. Raúl A. Mora
Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana

Dr. Raúl Alberto Mora is an Associate Professor of English Education and Literacy Studies at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín. At UPB, he teaches undergraduate and graduate seminars on teaching methods, literacy, and qualitative research, and helped create the MA in Learning and Teaching Processes in Second Languages, program that he coordinated between August 2013 and June 2016. His current research explores second language literacies in urban spaces and gaming communities in Medellín, the pedagogical implementation of alternative literacies in second-language education, the use of transmedial discourse in sociocultural studies, and critical frameworks for English Language Teaching in Colombia, topics he develops with his research team at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP). Dr. Mora holds a B.A. in Modern Language Education from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, an M.A. in Teacher Education (as a Fulbright Scholar), and a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

No doubt – teaching is both a challenging and rewarding career! Educators have to learn to juggle the many facets of teaching and managing a classroom!

Join Inspiration for Instruction on Saturday, March 2, for this focus session where they will discuss solutions to common problems and chronic stresses. Sessions will be specialized for elementary and secondary (middle and high) school teachers.

THRIVE is designed to focus on the needs of:

• university students preparing to teach
• first-year and second-year teachers
• alternative and emergency certified teachers

All educators are welcome to attend! Register for free today.

You've probably had your students write in response to a photograph or a painting. This is known as ekphrastic writing, and it has existed since the time of the ancient Greeks. Modern ekphrastic poetry has mainly shifted away from vivid description of the art piece to an interpretation, confrontation, or conversation.

Rattle is a long-running journal that has a monthly writing challenge in response to visual art. Rattle features a new piece (art, photography, collage, etc.) each month and invites poets to write in response. Two winners—one chosen by the artist and the other by Rattle’s editor—receive online publication and $50 each month.

The February image, a photograph of a glove, is below.

Write the World's February competition is a book review. The prompt follows:

How do we decide what to read? Sometimes a book beckons us with a clever title or flashy cover, but more often we read on recommendation—a personal endorsement from a friend or family member . . . or a stranger who touts their “must reads” in a book review. This month, plant your favorite pages in the hands of hungry readers by telling us what book has captured your heart and why.  
  
Writing Form: Criticism (aka admiration) 
Subject Areas: Criticism, Journalism, Literature/English
Length: 600–1,000 words  
  
Competition Opens: February 4, 2019 
Final Entries Due: February 19, 2019

The New York Times Learning Network has amassed a list of 70-plus places to publish teenage writing. Some of the contests are open not only to students in the United States but also the entire world! Categories include:

• annual contests
• across genres
• academic research
• current events and culture
• essays
• fiction
• journalism
• letters
• playwriting
• poetry
• science writing

You can also find additional contests, including those only available for Oklahoma students, on the State Department of Education's ELA writing contests page.

Each year, the Oklahoma Educational Publishers Association (OEPA) sponsors a caravan for newly adopted educational material.  Publishers travel to various cities to present their materials approved by the State Textbook Committee. Local school district committee members and teachers are welcome to attend.  This caravan allows educators to view most of the adopted materials all in one day.

This year OEPA has scheduled five days: February 12, 13, 19, 20, and 21. The presentations are from 8:30 a.m. - 2:55 p.m. Ten publishers will be representing English Language Arts, English Learners, Remedial Reading, and Handwriting.

In order to coordinate scheduling and room size, you can RSVP on this Google Survey.  Attendance is still allowed without an RSVP, but if you know you will attend, OEPA would appreciate advance notice.

If you have specific questions regarding this caravan, you may contact either Thompson School Book Depository at 800-456-2828 or Archway at 888-820-4100.

Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute (OSAI) alumnus Eric Heisserer ('87 Orchestra), wrote the adapted screenplay for Bird Box, a popular movie currently streaming exclusively on Netflix. Learn more about Heisserer's writing process in this short interview.

His screenplay for the film Arrival earned him a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 89th Academy Awards in 2016.

Your students can still apply to attend the 2019 OSAI in creative writing. Auditions in Edmond and Tulsa have already passed, but the following dates and locations are still available:

• Lawton: Thursday, February 7, 2019 * Eisenhower High School
• McAlester: Wednesday, February 6, 2019 * McAlester High School
• Oklahoma City: Saturday, February 9, 2019 & Sunday, February 10, 2019 * Oklahoma City Community College, Visual and Performing Arts Center