Thursday, 7:15 p.m.

I found one session this afternoon: "Talking Writer to Writer: Rediscovering the power of conferring".
The idea was to show teachers how to do small conferences with writers, single writers or groups of 3 or 4 typically. They showed us some interesting videos of conferences. The sad part for me was that I know I could never do such a thing. My students would never behave well enough to permit me to confer with a small group. Even silent reading is a battle to keep them reasonably quiet. I might be able to so some of this with my honors class.
The most interesting video was a poet named Sarah Kay. I'm embarrassed to say I'd never heard of her but this evening I discovered a treasure trove of YouTube videos of her reciting her poems. I think I might be able to use some of them. On that same YouTube page I discovered a poetry video by that rapper woman named Hill; I forget her first name.
During the presentation I sat next to a woman who teaches young people aged 17-22 basic literacy skills in downtown Boston. She has no technology and little financial support as best I could tell. I have it easy compared to her.

I decided that my first session tomorrow will be "Then the power keg explodes: why do students resist literacy?" It's by three college professors. I generally don't like the sessions by college folk as they don't realize the problems of a high school teacher, but it sounds like this group might be different.