Bootcamp at the Beach - The G.O.A.T. workshop for ELAR teachers and Instructional Coaches - Available to book for your district, campus, team, or region!

This incredible conference is BACK ON, LIVE, and IN PERSON!!! REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN! Here are some of the confirmed sessions for this year’s conference!Melanie Mayer:  The author of Miles to Go: What I Learned While I Was Teaching; and Two Roads Diverged and I Took Both: Meaningful Writing Instruction in an Age of Testing.Can This Marriage Be Saved? The Art and Science of Writing InstructionIs the ability to write well an art or a science? Can great writing be taught? Can all students experience the joy, community, and confidence that comes from sharing writing aloud in class? YES!  In this session participants model quick, easy, and engaging writing instruction from the ground up.  Includes grammar and revision activities; scaffolded writing instruction; response and analysis; and using mentor texts to experiment with voice, genre, and style!  Grades 6-12.Scaffolding for Success: The College-Ready SolutionThis session focuses on scaffolding assignments in areas in which students are personally invested with the skills and habits they need to be successful in college.  Includes active reading strategies; writing, research and documentation skills; academic behaviors; and more. A must for HS ELA! Grades 9-12.Gretchen Bernabei:  The author of many books for teachers, including Grammar Keepers, Crunchtime, Text Structures from Poetry, Fun-Size Academic Writing for Serious Learners, The Story of My Thinking: Expository Writing Activities for 13 Teaching Situations, and more.Jumpstarting for the New STAAR: Painless Strategies that Prepare Students to Write About Anything They Read! STAAR is changing.  Beginning at grade 3, students now will need to write about the reading. Join us for this brand new extended session exploring strategies that will enable students to continually grow, build their academic muscles, and blow the roof off that test.  Grades 3-12 Maureen Ucles: The author of !Andale Ya! Let’s Go! – a Spanish/English curriculum guide for dual language/bilingual classrooms, Maureen is a highly sought-after presenter for bilingual ed teachers and those just needing strategies for differentiation. She will be presenting in Spanish and English to empower teachers to address the needs of our ESL population. Exploring Sentence Structures in English and SpanishDescubriendo las estructuras de las oraciones en la aula bilingüeCome explore and practice (in English and Spanish) different ways to create, code, study sentence types en en inglés y español. Grades 2-8 Exploring Text Structures in English and SpanishDescubriendo estructuras del texto en dos idiomasCome explore, read, and analyze different text structures en inglés y español. Grades 2-8 Keynote speaker DR. JILL SILER, Former Superintendent at Gunter ISD and current Deputy Executive Director for Professional Learning at TASA; and author of best-selling book Thrive Through the Five: Practical Truths to Powerfully Lead Through Challenging Times. Nursery Rhymes in the Middle: Lessons from Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes, with Stacy Lewis, Trail of BreadcrumbsIf you thought nursery rhymes were just for kindergarten, this session is for you! Nursery rhymes can be used for teaching reading, writing, grammar, and revision. Revisit your favorites from childhood while journeying through these lessons from Text Structures from Nursery Rhymes by Gretchen Bernabei, Kayla Shook, and Jayne Hover.  Grades 3-12 Reading Lenses 101, with Jennifer Martin, Trail of BreadcrumbsIs authentic reading engagement really possible? Absolutely! Using the “reading lenses” strategy with a rich selection, teachers will learn how to boost their students’ interaction with texts, and immediately facilitate rigorous analysis, giving students the confidence and skills to take control of their learning.  Tremendously helpful for students, this session also helps teachers better understand and explain the “thinking” behind their own lenses.  Grades 3-12 Unlock Your Students’ Superpowers with Graphic Novels! With Trevor Green, Port Aransas ISDThe graphic novel itself can be a superpower, as this fun session demonstrates! Learn how to use this genre to unlock your students’ creativity, control classroom pacing, cause the most reluctant readers to volunteer to read, and enable students to understand literary terms – all with a visual aspect that facilitates greater engagement and retention. Lesson plans are suddenly filled with hard-to-get-to TEKS, as teachers are able to pick and choose what to teach using this wonderful resource.  Grades 3-8. The Coming In and the Going Out: Engaging Bell Ringers and Exit Tickets, with Lorrie Payne and Tara Cummings (Region 15)How you start and end a lesson has everything to do with how engaged your students are and how much they remember. Purposeful and intentional planning for engaging bell ringers and exit tickets is an integral part of lesson planning.  In this session teachers model a variety of meaningful activities that can easily be incorporated into their own lesson plans! Grades 6-12. “Let’s Ratiocinate! Taking Grammar Instruction from Good to Great”Participants will participate in and learn the art of Ratiocination and how to use it as a direct teach for editing and revising papers.  Students who experience Ratiocination come to a better understanding of grammar; and are more able – and willing – to revise their writing! Grades 3-12. Books Alive! With Ellie Jimerson and Tracy Williams, George West ISDWatch books come to life when you combine historical literature, reading activities, and field trips! Discover how combining Social Studies and ELA can lead to more engaging lessons in both subjects. Includes a book list for two current topics (Immigration and Holocaust); a sample choice board with required activities; an outline of field trips that accompany each topic; and even the grant application used to fund the project. Grades 4-8. Jayne Hover “Fables: Quick, Easy, Impactful Lessons for the Classroom – and for Life!”  Fables are more than cute, little stories with life lessons. They also are full of potential for classroom instruction! Join us as we use fables to answer questions about Author’s Choice, respond to short answer questions, and compare fables to other texts and events in our lives. You will walk away with ideas for lessons that have a great impact in a short amount of time. Who knew you could do so much with fables? Grades 2-12. Joan Tolle and Sharon Brown (The Pencil Ladies)   Fluency Requires Thinking While Reading? Who Knew?Participants will model reading strategies that transform struggling students at all levels into excited, active readers.  Strategies include Reading Salad (from Tanny McGregor), Mystery Solving, and Backpack/Wallet (for inferencing) that promote student thinking while reading. (Audience volunteers will be used.)  Grades 3-12. Joan Tolle and Sharon Brown (The Pencil Ladies) "But I Don't Need to Proofread; This IS My Final Draft"All too often students turn in a draft and think they are “finished.” In this session, presenters will share and teachers will model a mnemonic device of eight proofreading tactics that strengthen student writing.  This alternative to formulaic writing is one students and teachers alike can embrace! It also holds students accountable for their own proofreading. Grades 3-12 Nicole Morales  Conquering Comprehension of Literary Texts (K-5)Stories connect us in so many ways and are vital to heart of a literacy program. Let’s explore a multisensory approach to help students understand the structure of literary texts so they can move to the deeper level of comprehension our TEKS are requiring.Navigating Non-Fiction Texts (K-5)Support your students’ need to navigate the most challenging genre type.  Equipping readers to better understand the structure of text and read analytically is critical to their success both within their school career and beyond.  Let’s explore how this genre has evolved and what our new TEKS are requiring of students to demonstrate their understanding. HOUSING: The Place Hotel in Port Aransas is once again serving as our conference hotel. (www.theplaceporta.com), 445 W. Cotter Ave in Port Aransas (right off ferry, across from marina). Our welcome reception/party/gift bag distribution will take place here on Sunday, Nov. 7th. Please reference this conference when reserving rooms to get the great conference rate! If you need to be on the first floor, tell them (there’s no elevator). Our overflow hotel is the Holiday Inn Express in Port Aransas. All conference sessions will take place at Port Aransas ISD and across the street at FBC Port Aransas. The beach is calling and you must go! Don’t delay - register today!!

Although we are taking a break this fall from our annual Teach Rhymes With Beach Conference, in its place I am offering various options, traveling to your own district, campus, or region - including Bootcamp at the Beach - the G.O.A.T. workshop for ELAR teachers and Instructional Coaches.

What I love about this workshop is that it prepares and inspires new and veteran teachers to start the year off with engaging, powerful, meaningful instruction that sets the pace and tone for a year of incredible learning.

You can book this ELAR training for your entire team, for one or two days!

On Day One, I’ll give teachers a peek into the first few weeks of my own classroom; as well as strategies, activities, and mentor texts that move students in an out of lessons quickly, with lots of skills practice. Engage students bell to bell with short texts, grammar bursts, and meaningful vocabulary instruction. Learn how students can read something and write about it every single day - with no increase on the teacher’s grading load at all! Engage your most reluctant learners in revision activities; and watch as they master the skills required on STAAR - using short texts and students’ own writing!

On Day Two, teachers will create a semester outline of scaffolded writing instruction, including responsive, expository, persuasive, and documented - from pre-writing activities to finished products. Teachers will learn how to select, connect, imitate, and analyze texts in various genres. And for the first time, get personalized lesson planning assistance, as I will take a look at your own requirements and lessons, answer your most pressing questions, and makes suggestions!

Prior to the workshop, I’ll reach out to learn what literature and questions you most want some help with, so I can plan a meaningful PD for everyone.

If you are on the fence, check out these comments from last year’s Teach Rhymes With Beach:

“I CAN’T WAIT TO GET BACK AND TEACH!”

“Uh, they want me to drive my car onto a boat.  Is this legit?”

“I love that you had this dream and you just did it.”

“Best conference I’ve ever been to in thirty-five years of teaching.”

“I can honestly say I learned something in every single session I attended that I can use immediately in my own classroom.”

“I love how everyone shares everything – presentations, materials, ideas. Everyone is just so helpful!”

“I want to share all this not only with my ELA department, but with my whole school. All content areas can benefit from these ideas!”

“My favorite session was ALL of them.”

“Thank you for doing this.  You are the best hostess ever. We will be back.”

“Gretchen and Melanie? Same conference. Dream team for teachers. I wish I could bring my whole department.”

 

Those are just a few things teachers said to me during Teach Rhymes With Beach 2022 last October. 

I was blown away by each and every presentation I got to sit in on, even if it was just for a few minutes.

Here are just a few of my own favorite takeaways from last fall:

With all students, but especially our special needs students, say “FIRST this… then this…,” not “IF this… then this.”  It seems like a little thing, but when you say, “If,” you are inadvertently giving them a choice.  (Randy Mayer)

Argument writing and persuasive writing are not the same thing. Persuasive writing ends in a call to action.  The author may purposely leave out facts. Think TV commercials and salesmen! The purpose of argument is to defend a position with facts.   (Shona Rose)

Something as simple as “Humpty Dumpty” can be taken to various stages of rigor with all levels of students, when you start considering context: the background, politics, purpose, author’s experiences, and more. (Lorrie Payne and Tara Cummings)

Teach phonics to the littles with what they are already reading in class, so they understand phonics is WHY they can read it. Phonics is their tool for reading, not a separate fun exercise you do in stations before or after you read the actual book.  Do the fun exercise – but then do it with the words in the book! (Tara Salisbury)

Everything you read is a mentor text. (Me – lol)

Can you imagine using Escape Rooms to assess students? Best study groups (teams) ever!  Students will WANT to learn the material, to get the clues, to solve the Escape room and win! Much more incentive than just studying for a paper assessment. (Trevor Green and Jackie Wooldridge)

Use the structures and purposes from the STAAR 2.0 released Extended Constructed Response Sample Questions and have students write short kernel essays about their own lives using these structures. It’s fun, engaging, and easy for them to understand later how to apply what they already know how to do to any topic! (Gretchen Bernabei)

My new Facebook page is called Melanie Mayer Inspire. And that’s why I have this conference every year: To inspire, support, encourage, and equip teachers.  Yet I have no doubt I am the one most inspired, by teachers everywhere, every day.

Email me for more information, and to check availability and get a quote today!