Jim Swanson, Associate Professor of English, Dakota State University: The Case for Case Studies in Language Arts
Case studies, long a mainstay in the education of lawyers, have in the past few years enjoyed a comeback as a strategy in other disciplines. They can be used to great advantage in teaching language arts and for faculty development. This session will focus on the use and creation of cases to teach language, literature, and writing. We will examine several examples of cases and enact at least one of them to demonstrate the principle and worth of their application to teaching English.
Tim McGee, Assistant Professor of English, Dakota State University: The End of Exposition
For decades expository writing has been the mainstay of composition instruction in American high schools and colleges. English teachers and writing instructors have come to believe that exposition is the normal, basic, most useful sort of writing and have concentrated their efforts accordingly, attempting to teach students to write clear, concise expositions. The historical reasons for this theory and practice are many, but none was ever good--now was exposition ever more basic or useful than argumentation. Now that it is safe for rhetoric to come out of the closet, it is time for writing instructors to quit concentrating on expository writing except in technical writing courses and start teaching argumentation and persuasion as the basic, most valuable sort of writing that all students will need and use, whether they continue their education or go into the work force.
Dodie Bemis, Watertown School District: Putting New Life in the Language Arts Curriculum
This session will be a look into how high schools are revising their language arts programs to better prepare students for the 21st century. Special emphasis will be placed on the tech prep initiative. There will also be time allowed for exchanging ideas.
Kandy Punt: Surviving the Extra-Curricular Load
This roundtable discussion will be of interest primarily to middle and high school teachers. The discussion will include such topics as preparation to coach and direct, scheduling, when to say "NO," and how to avoid stress-related burnout.
Nancy Zuercher, University of South Dakota: Dialogue Journals
Dialogue journals can enhance students' learning in most elementary and secondary classes. This session will provide basic information about working with dialogue journals and a hands-on workshop.
Sharon Olbertson, Beresford High School: More Writing--Less Paperwork
This session will provide ideas on how to get students to do more writing without creating a paperwork nightmare for the teacher. It will include such topics as writing prompts, peer editing, and types of evaluation.
Linda Johnson, General Education Department Chair, Southeast Technical Institute: Portfolios, Peer Response Groups, and Logs in Writing Classes
This presentation will describe the portfolio system in the composition and technical writing classes at Southeast. It will include ways to get started, successes and pitfalls, bibliographies, and rubrics.
Molly Turner-Lammers, Instructor, Dakota State University: Writing Through the Computer
Because of the new thrust of computers in education, teachers can make traditional subjects more challenging and exciting for students. Until recently, the computer has been used to aid writing primarily as a high-tech replacement typewriter. This session will look at specific computer tools that students can use to aid in the process of writing, including tools for research, tools for asynchronous and synchronous class discussion, tools for pre-writing and brainstorming, and tools for editing and revising.
Gretchen Rich, Instructor of English, Huron University: Incorporating Multicultural Awareness into the Writing Classroom
With Nebraska, our neighbor to the south, having been recently mandated to incorporate multiculturalism into the classroom, perhaps it is time for South Dakota to do the same. A successful program to accomplish that goal was started last Fall at HU and continues to be successful (with some resistance on the part of students). Ms. Rich is the instructor of the class and will share her experience and provide some concrete suggestions as to how to make the program a success.
Ruth Oleson, Associate Professor of English, Huron University: The University Honors Program: Crossing the Bridge form High School to the University
A University Honors program can be an inducement to attract academically gifted students to a university. But what do we teach them once they are here? This session will provide some concrete answers, including specific assignments that have proved successful.