November 4, 2007
Principals
Best High/Middle/Elementary Schools
Any Where, GA
Dear Principals,
I am writing on behalf of your English/Language Arts
teachers asking that you support their requests to attend GCTE’s annual
conference this February 7-9, 2008 at Callaway Gardens. It would be great if
you could pay their registration, food, and lodging, but if that isn’t
possible, please at least give them permission to attend. I realize that most of your in-service
budget and planning are focused on state tests. GCTE’s conference offers many sessions to help teachers
prepare students for testing, but the conference offers much more. You know better than anyone that preparing
students for the tests isn’t enough. We must do more, and our conference will help your teachers do just
that. The following are just a few
of the sessions from last year’s conference to show you the breadth and depth
of training our conference offers:
- Differentiated
Education for the Gifted in the Secondary English Classroom
- From At-Risk
Students to Empowered Teachers: Middle Schoolers Teaching Nonfiction Units
- Georgia
Literature on Our Minds
- High School
Students Build Bridges with Elementary Students: Reading to Elementary Students in After School Programs
- In Search of
Students’ Voice: Expository and
Persuasive Writing
- Integrating AP
Standards in a Pre-AP or Feeder English Class
- Integrating
Technology Using Video Streaming Bridging the Gap to GPS: GeorgiaStandards.org
- Managing
Socioeconomic Differences in Your English Classroom
- Pre-Reading: The Key to Unlocking Prior Knowledge
and Engaging ALL Students
- Reading Across
the Curriculum: A Model Based Upon
Research
- Rebuilding
Bridges Between Literature and Science
- Showing
Ourselves Off: Sharing the Best
Practices of Georgia’s Exemplary English Teachers
- Surviving the
First Years of Teaching: A
Practical Guide
- Troubled
Waters: The Art of Teaching
At-Risk Youth in the Suburban Classroom
- Using Lexiles
to Support Instruction and Improvement in Georgia Schools
- Using
Technology to Improve Writing Performance
- Using WebQuests
in the English Classroom
This year’s conference will have
even more quality sessions. No
matter their experience level, your teachers will improve their content
knowledge and teaching skills at the conference. They will also interact with other great teachers and make
valuable professional contacts that will last for years. But attending the conference does
even more for your teachers. More
than adding to their content knowledge and teaching skills, the conference will
rejuvenate their spirits and fire their teaching passions. Very few in-service programs can do
that. The GCTE conference does it
every year. Alan Perry and the conference committee are putting together a
special event for your teachers. All you have to do is let them come.
Sincerely,
Jim Cope |
