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=Welcome to the Read/Share Wiki= toc ENG 315 - Spring 2011 Central Michigan University Dr. Amy Ford and Dr. Troy Hicks

Purpose of the Project
This project will allow our community of writing teachers at CMU to explore a variety of professional literature through interactive media. In addition, you will
 * Examine an issue important to teaching writing and to you
 * Begin or continue assembling your own library of resources that will sustain your professional development as you enter the field
 * Expand your repertoire of familiar genres of texts by composing an instructional presentation
 * Practice co-planning and collaborating with colleagues
 * Experiment with digital writing tools for presentation and publication
 * Participate in a professional community

Project Description
Working in groups, you will read a book from among a realm of choices that highlight a facet of writing workshop or address a critical issue around teaching writing in middle and elementary schools. Together, you will compose an instructional presentation that you will publish on the web.

Your 15-minute instructional presentation should be tailored to an audience of colleagues. It should
 * Build upon related course material by connecting with your classmates’ prior knowledge
 * Offer new knowledge by explaining relevant and important concepts from the book
 * Extend that knowledge by demonstrating the book’s potential for practical application in the classroom

Your presentation should include a digital visual aid because as a podcast, it will serve as a professional resource for pre-service teachers in all three classes of English 315 and be archived for your future use.

Composing Your Presentation
To help you prepare, I will confer with your group for 15 minutes immediately after class the week prior to your scheduled presentation. Consider this conference an opportunity to rehearse a co-planning session you might have with your host teacher. You should come prepared with ideas for your presentation, having read and discussed the book, and answered in writing the following questions, which are designed to prompt your planning. All members of your group should read the entire book, rather than dividing the book into sections for jigsaw reading.
 * 1) Based on your reading of the book, what is essential for your colleagues to know about your topic?
 * 2) What do your colleagues already know about your topic?
 * 3) How will you remind your colleagues what they already know about this topic?
 * 4) How will you explain what they need to know about your topic?
 * 5) How will you demonstrate the practical application of this knowledge?
 * 6) How will you make your presentation interactive?
 * 7) What visual aids/materials will you need to prepare for your presentation?

After the conference, you will have one week to draft, revise, edit, and rehearse your presentation and prepare your visual aids.

Publishing Your Presentation
Your presentation will be published and archived on our ReadShare wiki as a professional resource for your colleagues in CMU’s Spring, 2011 English 315 courses. You will record your presentation with a digital video camera and upload it to YouTube, embedding the video and your visual aids in the wiki. Video tutorials will be provided to guide you through using the technology.

Participating in a Professional Community
Publishing your presentations on a wiki space creates an archive of professional resources you may use throughout the course. For instance, you may consult the podcasts to
 * Solve instructional problems of practice you encounter in the field
 * Generate ideas for minilessons
 * Ground your rationale for instructional decision-making in powerful literature in the field
 * Learn more about writing instruction across grade- and developmental-levels
 * Expand your repertoire of genres of text with which you are familiar and can include in your curriculum
 * Compare approaches to writing instruction
 * Engage in inquiry around topics of interest

The interactive nature of the wiki space allows us to comment on each others’ presentations. Use the comments feature to describe how you utilized particular podcasts to enhance your learning and/or that of your students. As part of you participation grade, you should comment on at least two presentations by colleagues in other classes.

Assessing Your Presentation
To be most effective for your audience and purpose, your presentation should
 * Clearly portray what is essential to know about a topic by using transitions, visual aids, gestures, and a speaking voice that highlights these essential points
 * Be organized around what you want your audience to learn about the topic. (This may not align with the organizational scheme of the book, so avoid dividing your presentation into sections or chapters governed by the book.)
 * Demonstrate the practical application of the presentation in an engaging and thought-provoking way, such as by modeling or sharing a minilesson, role-playing a conference, or responding to student work as depicted in or inspired by the book
 * Show attention to detail in terms of visual aids and language choice. (This requires editing the visual aids and rehearsing the presentation.)

Considering these criteria, you will assess the strengths and weaknesses of your own presentation after viewing it on the wiki and post your reflection as a comment.

Additional Wiki Links

 * The Read/Share Book List
 * The Read/Share Presentation Archive
 * Digital Tools for the Read/Share Presentations