My KATE Conference Experience

What did the KATE Conference mean to me?  I have been inspired and I feel like it was an impactful experience.  I learned so much from the breakout sessions.  My favorite session was titled "Selfie Culture: Make it Work."  I was unsure about going to this one at first because I did not know if it would be beneficial to me as a teacher.  I was so wrong.  Stacy Chestnut and Alexis Fisher incorporated numerous activities I can use to get to know my students.  One activity I would like to do with my sixth graders would be the "Five Core Values" we got to do.  They had us first write our five values and then put a circle around it.  The next circle is where we had to write names that help us protect those values.  The circle after that are people that do not always help us with our values but we continue to have around.  The last circle are the names of people we probably should not have in our lives.  I like this activity because I feel like middle school is a good time for students to look at the type of friendships they have.

Another session that I am happy that I went to because it was not at all what I expected was the "Pod Save Us All."  I never really thought about podcasts being a tool for teaching.  The one that I could use with middle school students would be Storycorp or Poetry Now.  I feel like Storycorp would work with middle school students because it would be a good way to show how to create a story.  I think that the stories on this website are meaningful and students may empathize.  I liked the podcasts for Poetry Now because the authors of the poem read them.  Students would be able to understand the flow of the poem.

The next session I want to talk about is the "Get Out of the Way and Let Your Students Read."  I remember reading Penny Kittle's book Book Love during Literature for Adolescents.  Although I enjoyed the book and Kittle's discussion on how to get students to read more, I did not really know how to incorporate the strategies in the classroom.  This session showed me how teachers are able to use strategies effectively and how to incorporate your own spin on the strategies.  My favorite technique was how the teachers check on how students are doing with their readings.  I found it encouraging that the teachers presenting were getting some of the same results that Kittle was experiencing!  I now know that I will be able to incorporate a few of these strategies into my own classroom.

I liked being with a group of English educators who are passionate about their profession.  They were all welcoming and I was thankful for it because I was a little nervous going into the conference the first day.

One presentation I with I went to was the "Hatred of Poetry" session.  I heard so many amazing things from the other teaching interns about it.  One session that I thought would be different was  the "Including Diversity in the Middle and High School Curriculum."  I appreciated that they gave more titles of diverse novels that I could incorporate into a middle school classroom but I wish that there was more discussion about how to teach it.  The session never really got past discussing the novels.

Overall I am so happy that I attended the KATE Conference.  I want to try my best to return next year and learn even more!