Calendar
Register for February 10 here!!!
Cost is $25 for non-HTWP teachers
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HTWP Annual Conference
Saturday, April 22
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
UT Campus/Sanchez Building
$25.00
On this day, HTWP teachers will share important questions they’ve asked about teaching writing, as well as key findings they’ve uncovered after pursuing inquiry topics. Our teachers have explored questions such as: “How can I build on student strength? How can I increase student engagement? How can I implement powerful genre studies?” Workshop teachers of elementary, middle and high school will inspire, providing practical strategies for teaching, leading, understanding, assessing and managing writing classrooms. Come ready to think with like-minded colleagues who continually ask big questions about our craft!
Register here!
2022-2023
Reunited and it feels so good: Our comeback Saturday!!
Saturday, October 8, 2022
9 am – 12 pm
UT Campus/Sanchez Building
$25.00
It’s been a long time since we’ve had a Saturday together, and this one also marks our 20th Anniversary as a Project! Lots to celebrate and we’re going to do it up HTWP style. Come ready to have some breakfast, drink some coffee and reconnect with dear friends. Then we’ll read some amazing pieces that have come out of the HTWP community, and we’ll have a chance to think together as teachers and writers. We’ll end the day with various working groups to think together about topics of interest, such as maintaining a writing life, working on self-care, solving curricular challenges, etc. This one will be different from any other Saturday we’ve had, and we can’t wait to see your faces.
Note: Please register so we can get a sense of food; if you cancel, please do so at least 48 hours before the event. And since we’ll be reading digitally, you may want to bring a laptop.
Already Strong: Insisting on asset for all writers
Saturday, January 28
9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Perez Elementary 7500 S. Pleasant Valley Road Austin, TX 78744
$25.00
As Donald Graves wrote years ago, “all children can write.” On this day, teachers will share their strategies that help every single student soar in our classrooms, with a particular focus on students who live their lives in many languages. We’ll look at strategies that motivate writers, conferring moves that celebrate and grow writers, authentic publication events that highlight awesome writers, and inquiry units that tap into students’ powerful existing literacies. We’re hoping to have this session at a local elementary school (with loads of expert writing teachers who work with multilingual students) so stay tuned for details!!
Our First Virtual Saturday Workshop!
Saturday, October 2, 2021
10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Register here. Zoom link will be sent out morning of the event!!
Don’t miss this!
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2019-2020
Learning from Mentors: Studying Author’s Craft in Our Writing Classrooms
Thursday, January 23, 2020
UT Campus/Thompson Center
$100
Please note this is a paid event for everyone, even HTWP alumni. Also please note the venue — Thompson Conference Center.
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“I think the major characteristic that connects writers across time and geography is that they love to read, and by reading, they learn to write.” –Katherine Bomer
We can learn so much from the authors we love. How can we make the study of author’s craft a vibrant and important part of our classrooms? How can we help students analyze great writing to revise their own work? How can we respond to our new TEKS, which ask us to teach into author’s craft with every student? On this day, literacy teachers will learn how to help students study author’s craft to enhance writing. We’ll first study the writing processes that authors use, from growing initial ideas to polishing and publishing. Then we’ll look at protocols for reading texts like a writer, sharpening our lenses to read not only for content, but for craft. We’ll also look at ways to coach students as they incorporate new craft moves in their pieces, particularly during revision. Finally, we’ll talk about writing mini-lessons designed to help all students incorporate craft moves, even if everyone is working in a different genre.
You don’t want to miss this fantastic day! Register here!
HTWP Homecoming: Our Annual Conference
Saturday, February 1, 2020
UT Campus/Sanchez Building
9:00 am-1:00 pm
$25.00
As is our tradition, the Annual Conference will feature fantastic presentations from our HTWP Summer Institute fellows! But this year we’re building in time for us to grow closer as a community. So come ready to see old friends and to meet new friends – to sit and think and reconnect for a spell. After some coffee and snacks, we’ll learn from our latest and greatest teacher consultants. This year our 2019 fellows inquired into stellar topics: Writing with multilingual students, writing for social justice agendas, exploring existing literacies with primary students, and much, much more. Don’t miss this day. You know it’s been a really long time since we’ve had coffee on a Saturday, and you don’t want to miss any of this!
Register here!
Reflective & Responsive Teaching:
Leadership Through Inquiry and the Art of Staying Unfinished
Saturday, May 2, 2020
UT Campus/Sanchez Building
9:00 am-1:00 pm
$25.00
At times, we all question and wonder: What are the practices that will effectively enrich my students’ growth as readers and writers? Our work as educators is complex. Tensions, paradoxes, and challenges continually inspire us to refine our teaching practices. As J. Serravallo says, “We are lucky to work in a profession where our learning is never ‘done.’ There is always a way to improve one’s game, always a way to come up with new plays, new strategies to outgrow your best self….” We are lucky to have a community for sharing our innovative teaching ideas, a space where we can reflect, grow, and question our work with others. Come celebrate our never-finished work on this day, where veteran literacy educators will generously share topics of inquiry they have forged over one school year, or even over an entire career. Teachers will share inquiry projects they’ve built with students, as well as leadership strategies they’ve created to transform their educational communities. Get ready to be inspired, to wonder and inquire, and to be part of this grassroots commitment to teacher leadership!
Increasing Engagement and Student Strength in our Workshop Classrooms
Saturday, November 16, 2019
UT Campus/Sanchez Building
9:00 am-1:00 pm
$25.00
We know when our teaching is going well: Kids respond with energy and enthusiasm, sometimes even wanting to work after the bell rings! And we know when things are not going well with our teaching, too. How can we get more of those great days? How can we help students feel excited and strong about their work in reading and writing?
On this day, HTWP presenters will share thinking designed to increase engagement, confidence and agency with students. Sessions will include: Exploring existing literacies to create a community of engaged readers and writers; building units that ask students to explore what tools/environments/habits help them feel most engaged as readers and writers; helping students find their own purposes and motivation for workshop; and helping students build stamina to push through the hard parts! Come ready to build a year filled with fantastic days!
Join the Heart of Texas Writing Project community on on Saturday, August 24th as we affirm and reconnect to core ideals in our practices by exploring the why, how and what’s next in teaching writing workshop.
Designed for teachers who are new to workshop as well as those with years of experience, this Saturday will offer us time to learn from and share with teachers in grade-level groups. Advanced breakout sessions will include more in-depth discussion of topics such as existing literacies, mentor texts, notebooks, conferring, mini-lessons, and educator advocacy.
We’ll leave the day with strength and inspiration to support our young writers, our colleagues, and each other through a year of challenge, creativity and growth.
Perfect timing to get a boost of inspiration and ideas!
Planning Units of Study for a Stellar School Year
Saturday, May 4
Writing Workshop teachers often plan a school year with “units” in mind. These units create a common purpose for their classroom writing communities. Isoke Nia has written, “A unit of study in writing … is a line of inquiry – a road of curriculum, a trail of teaching, an excursion of knowing something about writing.” Come learn about the curricular roads HTWP teachers have paved over the past school year! Topics include units grown from Katherine Bomer’s brilliant book on essay, The Journey is Everything, units focused on students’ existing literacies, units developed to grow all writers, and much more! This day will prime you with great ideas for the fall — or even for the last few weeks of school! Don’t miss it!
Heart of Texas Writing Project’s Annual Conference
January 26, 2019
Teacher-consultants from HTWP – including fellows from the 2018 Summer Institute – will share important findings from their writing workshop classrooms. These teachers have posed inquiry questions about their classrooms – questions such as “How can I build on student strength? How can I increase student engagement? How can I implement powerful genre studies?” On this day, these teachers will share their journey, their thinking. Workshop teachers of elementary, middle and high school will both inspire and provide practical strategies for teaching, leading, understanding, assessing and managing writing classrooms. Come ready to think with like-minded colleagues who continually ask big questions about our craft!
Reading: Not just turning the pages!
Tuesday, January 15
Helping students access meaning and increase higher-order thinking DURING their reading time
Thompson Conference Center, UT Campus, Room 3.102, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Do you have students who seem to be reading, but could get more out of their texts? Do you often wonder how to more effectively coach kids during this critical time — when they are actually reading a text? Then this session is for you. On this day, teachers will learn how to think right alongside students as they are reading, offering strategies that produce life-changing growth. Just as we would trot alongside a young child learning to ride a bike, we can work with kids while they are reading, offering skills and strategies students can apply immediately.
During this special Heart of Texas Writing Project event, veteran teacher/trainer Deb Kelt will help teachers learn how to engage readers with powerful metacognitive strategies, such as creating mental images, making inferences, posing high-level questions, synthesizing, and more. Pulling from Randy Bomer’s groundbreaking work and her extensive teaching experience, Deb will share the habits of mind that readers employ during any reading event – habits that are essential parts of the new ELA TEKS, habits students use while reading any genre. Further, teachers will learn how to build lessons around these habits, helping students see their processes and build on ideas, getting the thinking “outside the skin,” as Bomer says. When students externalize their inner-thinking while reading, teachers can coach all students toward important next steps.
Teachers attending this workshop will leave with a repertoire of strategies for teaching reading, allowing students to dig deeper into their choice silent reading books, book club books, or whole class texts. These strategies empower kids, and these strategies can bring important joy to our classrooms. When kids understand text, they learn to love text!
Questions we will explore together:
*What habits of mind do readers employ to comprehend text? How can we study these habits as teachers, so we can construct powerful lessons?
*As teachers who embrace student choice and culturally sustaining texts, how can we create lessons that help each reader? How do we teach a classroom of students when everyone is reading a different book?
*How can we tap into students’ assets, building bridges toward powerful reading habits?
*How can we use purposeful talk to increase reading engagement and comprehension?
*How can we help all students grow as critical thinkers, ready to participate in a democratic society?
For teachers grades 3-12, though everyone is welcome!
Free parking in the Thompson Center Parking lot (near the LBJ Library)
Cost: $75.00
SEATING IS LIMITED
Please register today!!!
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals:
Finding hope and forging change through our practices, voices, communities
Saturday, October 20
Saturdays focusing on leadership have been some of our most powerful and popular days — you don’t want to miss this one. This year we’ll look at teacher activism with a variety of sessions, ranging from how to best advocate for authentic literacy practices in our communities and schools, how to combat censorship in our classrooms, how to make our lessons culturally sustaining for all students, how to maintain hope during a stressful teaching life, and how to use our own writing to speak back and bring change. Bring yourself and bring other teachers who are committed to working for a better world!
Integrity, Professionalism and Leadership: Staying Strong Through a Teaching Journey
Saturday, April 21, 2018
9:00 – 1:00 pm UT Campus/Sanchez Building
$25.00
Teaching in a system with high-stakes testing, canned curriculum and deficit philosophies can sometimes seem overwhelming. Together we can protect and reclaim the work we all hold dear. Teachers in this workshop will share practices that help them, even during their most difficult days. Topics include: starting and sustaining a teacher study group; using inquiry to grow your craft; building community with fellow teachers and colleagues; maintaining a writing life during the busy school year. Please come and spread the word to your friends and colleagues.
Audience for All! The Power of Publication in a Multilingual Writing Classroom
Saturday, February 24, 2018
When we help students identify authentic audiences for their writing, they grow their writing in important ways. Students who publish outside of the classroom exhibit new motivation and purpose throughout the writing process. On this day, experienced teachers of multilingual learners will share their experiences with process writing that leads to meaningful publication opportunities. Sessions will encourage participants to plan for authentic audiences and create publication forums for all writers – and especially our multilingual writers. Teachers of all grade levels are encouraged to come.
Units of Study in the Writing Workshop
Saturday, October 28, 2017
9:00 am-1:00 pm UT Campus/Sanchez Building
$25.00
Writing Workshop teachers often plan a school year with “units” in mind. These units create a common purpose for their classroom writing communities. Many teachers use genre studies for their units, but that’s not the only possibility for a rich school year. Isoke Nia has written, “A unit of study in writing … is a line of inquiry – a road of curriculum, a trail of teaching, an excursion of knowing something about writing.” This day will explore the different units of study teachers can implement. For example, some teachers create units where students
focus on deep revision. A unit of study can focus on students’ existing literacies. Helping kids grow stronger with their writing stamina could make a powerful unit of study. Come learn about the variety of units HTWP teachers have planned for a vibrant school year!
Starting a Writer’s Workshop: Common Problems, Practical Solutions
Saturday, September 23, 2017
9:00am-1:00pm UT Campus/Sanchez Building
$25.00
How can you effectively launch a writing workshop in your classroom? On this day, excellent writing teachers from area schools will show you how. This mini-conference will include the basics of workshop structures, as well as breakout sessions on troubleshooting key components of writing workshop. Writing teachers will share experiences, organizational strategies, rituals and routines, as well as essential ideas and lessons for getting the writing workshop up and running well. Participants will also have opportunities to plan for their own classrooms, with consultation from HTWP teacher leaders and participating teachers. This day will be valuable for K-12 teachers who want to create autonomous and authentic writing experiences for their students. Don’t miss it!
Proceeds may be used in general support of the College of Education.