Professional Development offerings
Arts4Learning Literacy Workshop›
Clay as an Instrument of Self-Expression›
Curriculum Alive: Readers Theater ›
Developing Writing Skills through Puppetry›
Honoring the Inner Self: Using Creative Writing to Improve Writing Skills›
Reading and Rhythm: Enhancing Reading Skills Through Drumming›
Teaching to the Kinesthetic Learner›
Using the Power of Storytelling to Develop the Imagination›
Arts4Learning Literacy Workshop
by Kit Bardwell
Arts4Learning offers a wide variety of fun and engaging art activities to assist students in learning literacy skills. Developed by Kit Bardwell at Accessible Arts for the Shawnee Mission English Language Learners, these lesson plans can enhance the learning experience of all students in grades 3-5. Each art discipline is included with theatre games, visual arts challenges, poetry slams, vocabulary jives, and musical compositions. The success of this program in its first year has prompted Young Audiences to provide it to schools metro-wide. During the workshop, teachers will actively engage in each of the activities and will be provided a teacher guide with four lesson plans and a student workbook that is easily reproduced.
Seminar Fee: $750
Clay as an Instrument for Self-Expression
by Myrna Minnis
For many students, clay is their favorite medium and in this hands-on seminar, teachers are introduced to the exciting and no-fail concept of the “Oogly.” The “Oogly” gives students a structure for experiencing their creative spirit and a comfortable medium for self-expression. Participants of the seminar will learn how to help each student create a unique and individualized creation.
Fee: $450
Curriculum Alive: Readers Theater
by Susansyliva Scott
This workshop teachers teachers to enliven subject mater and enhance retention and involvement by guiding students to script an otherwise mundane subject. The students research, write, and give exciting presentations to their peers. Workshop participants learn guidance techniques that help create the script, as well as the use of gesture and sound to enliven the concept introduced. This is a powerful teaching tool that brings basic curriculum alive in dynamic ways. The students increase retention, improve comprehension skills, and reading ability while experiencing team and peer power instilled into learning. The relationship dynamic between teacher and student grows exponentially as they both work together to teach and learn. You, the teacher, leave this workshop with skills to put this method directly into the curriculum. In addition you will have sample Readers Theatre scripts and a book to guide you.
Fee: $450
Developing Writing Skills through Puppetry
Puppetry is a powerful tool for learning because it teaches children through play. Puppetry incorporates visual art, theatre, and music. The use of these arts disciplines forms a foundation around which teachers are able to integrate the curriculum and support a child’s success. Puppetry can be used to develop creative writing and body coordination. Through writing and movement exercises, all students are encouraged to express and formulate their own ideas and emotions. This seminar provides practical, hands-on experience for elementary teachers.
Materials: $4 per participant
Fee: $450
Graphic Story Adventures
with Dianne Gregg & Harlan Brownlee
This seminar uses the visual art and literary genre of graphic novels to ignite students’ imaginations and motivation to read and write. Students use the strategy of visualization and apply their understanding of story elements to comprehend text and create their own stories.
Students create a graphic novel sequel to the fantasy adventure My Father’s Dragon, a 1949 Newberry Honor winner by Ruth Stiles Gannett. As a culminating event, the graphic story sequels are published and shared with younger students in the school.
- NCTE Language Arts Standards
NCTE 3 – Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning, and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features.
NCTE 6 – Students apply knowledge of language structure and conventions, media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.
Fee: $900
Using Creative Writing to Improve Writing Skills
by Susan Clymer
Writing, to be successful, comes from one’s experiences. “You must write about what you care about, what you love, what touches your heart, what concerns you... even what scares you and makes you angry,” advises Ms. Clymer. A goal for this seminar is to help teachers create an environment in their classrooms that honors risk-taking on an inner, personal level. The seminar is active and participatory and presents successful techniques for writing fiction and narrative non-fiction. Techniques for motivating students will be explored along with ideas that continue to challenge young writers.
Fee: $450
Reading and Rhythm: Enhancing Reading Skills Through Drumming
By Bird Fleming
Using the West African drumming technique and style as a method and format, teachers will learn how the flow and pulse of beats within the rhythm patterns help students increase their reading fluidity and speed. This hand drumming involves a concentrated effort of maintaining eye/hand coordination when playing the drums, which enables students to develop a consistent connection between their eyes and their reading assignments. Teachers will see how, through the complex but attainable nature of assembling tones, patterns, and rhythmic phrases, students will learn composition and improve memory retention as well as reading comprehension.
Requirements: African hand drums or comparable percussion instruments required for each participant.
Fee: $450
Teaching to the Kinesthetic Learner
by Harlan Brownlee
This seminar is designed to use creative movement and dance as tools for curriculum integration and introduce teachers to the use of movement to expand their instructional effectiveness. The workshop is a practical, hands-on introduction to the fundamentals of creative movement and the use of movement to teach the core curriculum. The seminar includes a look at the relationship between movement and learning, the basics of creative movement, and creating lesson plans that incorporate movement as a teaching tool. Seminar participants will be able to demonstrate, lead, and facilitate movement activities for the purpose of teaching a lesson about specific curriculum concepts and ideas.
Fee: $450
Upside-Down Fairytales
by Dianne Gregg & Larry Greer
In this seminar, teachers are shown how to instruct students to use the dramatic technique of tableau to examine how character perspective affects the elements of a story. Students are taught to deeply engage in the literacy strategies and skills of story elements and character perspective through reading, writing and drama with The Original Three Little Pigs and its upside-down version The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. Then, students independently transfer these skills to The Cat and His Master as they dramatically re-tell this classic tale from a new character perspective—turning it upside-down.
- NCTE Language Arts Standards
NCTE 3 – Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning, and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features.
NCTE 4 – Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
Fee: $900
Using the Power of Storytelling to Develop the Imagination
by Tracy Milsap
This seminar offers strategies for infusing storytelling and creative dramatics into lesson plans and classroom activities. The exercises involve the senses and offer techniques to involve students as active learners. When students learn to picture setting, imagine character traits, and make connections between story characters’ experiences and their own experiences, listening and comprehension skills intensify and their attention span and retention skills increase.
Fee: $450
with Dianne Gregg & Harlan Brownlee
In this seminar, students compose free-verse poems and choreograph them into Words in Motion! dances. To prepare, students explore free-verse poetry and delve into the nuances of rich vocabulary and learn how prosody enhances the meaning of text. As a culminating event, students showcase their poetry and dances for an audience and reflect on their experience.
- NCTE Language Arts Standards
NCTE 3 – Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning, and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features.
NCTE 6 – Students apply knowledge of language structure and conventions, media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and non-print texts.
Fee: $900
by Harlan Brownlee
Motion is the medium to explore our fluid and changing weather. Learn strategies that relate movements of the body and elements of dance to the dynamic exchanges of heat and pressure that rule weather conditions in the atmosphere, cloud formations, and other weather phenomena. This seminar was developed in association with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Fee: $450
For more information contact:
Megan Crook
816.531.4022 ext. 1009
booknow@kcya.org