EIU Media Relations

Registration Now Underway for the Eastern Illinois Writing Project Fall Institute Day

Teachers, administrators and interested students are invited to attend the Eastern Illinois Writing Project/Teaching with Primary Sources at EIU Fall Institute Day Friday, Oct. 14, on the campus of Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

The Eastern Illinois Writing Project will present the annual institute day, titled “Beyond Pro vs. Con: Motivating Productive Arguments” from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

The 2016 Institute Day will focus on teaching argument across disciplines, including math, science, history, social studies and technical subjects. Teachers from across disciplines and grade levels will share their teaching ideas in multiple breakout sessions, maintaining a teachers-teaching-teachers model to creatively meet the Common Core Standards.

To highlight this interdisciplinary across grade levels, we are also pleased to announce our keynote speakers: Timothy Taylor and Fern Kory.

Taylor is the director of freshman composition at EIU. His teaching and research interests span various fields within rhetoric/composition, including argumentation composition theory and pedagogy, and writing across the curriculum. He is the author of the instructor's manual for "Writing Arguments" (Pearson; 7th, 8th & 9th editions), and he is the co-author of "IDEAS & Aims for College Writing" with Linda Copeland.

Fern Kory is the director of the EIU Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum. She also teaches courses in modern American literature and a variety of courses in literature for children and young adults. She has published book reviews in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, articles in Children's Literature and English Journal, and an essay in the collection Teaching Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises."

Their workshop and discussion will highlight new ways of approaching argument. As Dominic Delli Carpini explains in "Composing a Life’s Work," “Too often, research is defined simply as a search for ‘sources’ and inspired by little more than fulfilling requirements. To develop as a student and a professional, you must go beyond this limited (and limiting) understanding of research and treat it as a sincere desire to learn more about a topic.“ (301) These events will address “Real research” that is motivated by a sincere need to learn more about a topic so as to speak or write credibly about it, and to draw substantive and reasonable conclusions; finding information is a means to that end.” (306) Taylor and Kory will also lead a luncheon discussion and resource share session.

The Institute Day will also include teacher-driven presentations and workshops that allow both attendees and presenters to share effective ideas and confer with one another, emphasizing the belief that the best teachers of teachers are other teachers.

Workshops will include “Reading Nonfiction Closely with Posters,” “Technology and Common Core,” “Editorial Writing and Cartoons: An Effective Way to Introduce Students to Building Arguments for Common Core,” “Actively Learn and the Writing Process,” “Grit, Motivation and Mindset,” and “Google Apps and Common Core.” These workshops will help teachers better meet their students’ literacy needs across the curriculum and grade levels, facilitating ways for students to mix together a variety of sources and amplify their digital writing voices.

The Institute Day will end with a catered luncheon and a post-keynote luncheon conversation. Participants will be asked to bring questions and ideas from the keynote straight into this follow-up conversation. Here we can discuss some of the argument writing tools in more detail, connect more directly to classroom practice, and look at more examples of student work. Participants will help make this session happen, so please come prepared to interact, learn some more, and create your own argument writing resources.

Participants can earn up to five continuing professional development units toward teacher certification renewal. All attendees will receive a certificate of completion.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is now open here. The registration deadline is Oct. 10.

For more information or to inquire about being a presenter at the conference, please contact EIWP Director Robin Murray at rlmurray@eiu.edu.