The UAB Red Mountain Writing Project PresentsThe 21st Century Literacies Conference

andThe 2013 Urban Sites Network Conference

S C H E D U L E A T A G L A N C E

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Thursday Pre Conference    Event Time LocationSession on Common Core 9:00-3:00 BJCC Medical Forum Meeting Room  ASession on Civil Rights Movement

9:00-3:00 BJCC Medical Forum Meeting Room  B

Session on Strategic Teaching 9:00-3:00 BJCC Medical Forum Meeting Room  DSession on Urban Literacies 9:00-3:00 BJCC Medical Forum Meeting Room  CReception and Tour 3:30 Birmingham Civil Rights InstituteFriday Conference Activities    Event Time LocationSchool Site Visits 8:00- until Abrams Elementary, Glen Iris Elementary, Davis

Middle School, Shades Valley High School Tour of Historical Birmingham 8:00-until Westin, Civil Rights Institute, 16th Street Baptist, Kelly

Ingram ParkRoundtables with Civil Rights Movers and Shakers

3:00-5:00 Birmingham Ballroom-Sheraton Hotel

Reception: A Refined Tailgating Experience

5:00-7:00 Birmingham Ballroom-Sheraton Hotel

Evening with Emanuel Jal   7:00 The Westin Hotel Ballroom

Open Mic Session 7:30-8:00 Birmingham Ballroom-Sheraton HotelMovie: The Barber of Birmingham

8:30-10:00 Hospitality Suite/ Executive Suite at Sheraton

Saturday Conference Activities    Event Time LocationMorning Literacy Speaker/ Breakfast

7:00-9:00 BJCC East Ballroom

Session A 9:15-10:15 BJCC East Meeting Rooms Brief Break 10:15-10:45 Coffee and Refreshments Provided in open area on

third floor of BJCC East WingSession B 10:45-11:45 BJCC East Meeting Rooms Lunch and Keynote Speaker 12:00-1:30 BJCC East Ballroom Session C 1:45-2:45 BJCC East Meeting Rooms Session D 3:00-4:00 BJCC East Meeting Rooms Brief Break 4:00-4:30 Coffee and Refreshments Provided in open area on

third floor of BJCC East WingPanel Discussion 4:00-5:30 BJCC East BallroomAnnual Town Hall 5:30-6:00 BJCC East Ballroom

K E Y N O T E S P E A K E R S

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Steve ZemelmanFor eight years he directed the Center for City Schools at National-Louis University, and he is a founding director of the Illinois Writing Project. His experiences and research in these areas led to his Heinemann book 13 Steps to Teacher Empowerment, coauthored with Harry Ross. Steve has been a frequent collaborator with Harvey "Smokey" Daniels. They have coauthored seven books and videos with Heinemann, including the new Best Practice, Fourth Edition, and The Best Practice Video Companion; Content-Area Writing; Subjects Matter; Rethinking High School and its companion video; and A Community of Writers. Zemelman and Daniels are known for immediately useful teaching strategies that range from brief, easy-to-use reflections that help students learn right in class to bigger public-writing projects that can make school truly memorable for kids and teachers alike.

Minister Carolyn McKinstryA native of Birmingham, Alabama and lifelong member of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Ms. McKinstry was present on September 15, 1963, when white racists bombed the church. As a teenager, Ms. Mckinstry felt her “calling” by attending the mass meetings and rallies at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. She was among thousands of students hosed by firemen during the 1963 marches. She survived a second bomb explosion that destroyed a large portion of her home in 1964. McKinstry currently serves as President of the Board of Directors of the Sixteenth Street Foundation, Inc. whose mission is the ongoing maintenance of the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church facility.

Judge Helen Shores LeeJudge Lee was educated in the Birmingham Public School System and attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee where she received a B. A. degree in Psychology. She was employed in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham as an Instructor of Clinical Psychology. After six years, she became Director of Clinical Outreach Services with the Jefferson County Department of Health-Western Mental Health Center. Judge Lee decided to attend law school after fourteen years of working in the field of mental health. In 1987, she received her Doctor of Jurisprudence from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University. Judge Lee joined her father, Arthur D. Shores, in his practice. After law school, she practiced for sixteen years until becoming a judge in January 2003. Judge Lee served as a member of the Alabama State Ethics Commission and as its Chairman from 1999-2000 and currently serves as a Trustee for Leadership Birmingham and on the Advisory Board of Cumberland Law School.

R O U N D T A B L E L E A D E R S

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Roundtable Leaders: 1. Eileen WalbertUpon moving to Birmingham, Eileen Walbert found multiple atrocities committed against African Americans by the Klan and the police. She went to a meeting of the Birmingham Council on Human Relations, the only integrated organization in Birmingham. There she found people actively working to end segregation and ultimately became an activist as well.

2. Janice Kelsey In 1963 Janice Kelsey was an 11th grade student who was arrested during the Civil Rights demonstrations. She spent four days in jail moving to three different locations before being released. She also remembers the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church where four girls died.

3. Clifton C. Casey Clifton Casey was born in Birmingham and attended Carver High School. He has participated in equal rights protests in Birmingham and the 1964 March in Washington, DC. On May 2, 1963, he was arrested in Birmingham for marching and spent nine days in a Birmingham jail.

4. S. Rickey Powell Rickey Powell, Jr. was born 1948 in Birmingham, Alabama and is a Broadway and jazz vocalist. He was a participant in the Civil Rights Movement at the young age of fourteen. In 2001 he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he travels today across the nation performing excerpts from his one man show, On My Journey Home.

5. Dr. Geraldine Bell Dr. Geraldine Bell served as a teacher and librarian before going on to teach at Birmingham Southern College and UAB. Today she is a professor and Director of the Learning Resources Center at Miles College in Birmingham. She speaks often at various colleges and universities and is the co-author of Women of Uncommon Valor: Life Stories of Women from Birmingham, Alabama.

6. Dr. Dannetta Thornton OwensDr. Dannetta K. Thornton Owens was a high school teacher of French at Ullman High School in the Birmingham City Schools system. The spring of 1963 was the time she found herself being the teacher of many of the students in the 11th and 12th grades who were active participants in the Civil Rights Movement and involved in the march for equality.

7. John WrightJohn Wright had the opportunity to interview Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., after "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama. He looks forward to sharing samplers of how and where he’s been touched and inspired to write and speak up for justice in his hometown of Birmingham - and in Selma - where he worked three years at a Catholic Mission founded in 1938 to serve African Americans during the inhumane conditions of segregation and Jim Crow laws.

8. Sharon AbramsDuring the Civil Rights Movement, Sharon Abrams was a sheltered child who experienced the Jim Crow Laws of separate and unequal in a racially segregated Alabama town. During 1968, she entered a predominately Caucasian institution facing the scars of separation, progressing onward to become the wife of the first African American dormitory director in the early 70's.

9. Sol Kimerling Sol Kimerling is a Birmingham native and attended Ramsay High School as a teen. After graduation, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and then finished his studies at The University of Alabama. He then served two years in the United States Air Force and was stationed in France. Today he remains active in community work and advocacy. He writes regularly for Weld magazine in Birmingham about civil rights and advocacy for the Jewish community.

C I V I L R I G H T S P A N E L I S T S

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Civil Rights Panelists:1. Attorney Doug Jones Mr. Jones is a 1976 graduate of the University of Alabama and a 1979 graduate of Cumberland School of Law at Samford University. Mr. Jones was the lead federal prosecutor in the successful prosecution of the historic “cold case” involving the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in which two former Ku Klux Klansmen were convicted almost forty years after the crimes were committed. In 2007, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) awarded Mr. Jones the 15th Anniversary Civil Rights Distinguished Service Award. He currently serves on the BCRI Board of Directors and is a member of the Public and Private Leadership Advisory Group of the Birmingham Business Alliance.

2. Ms. Odessa Woolfolk Ms. Woolfolk is a Birmingham native and she graduated from the A. H. Parker High School. She earned a B.A. Degree from Talladega College (Alabama) and a Master’s from Occidental College (California). She is known for her work as an educator, public administrator and civic activist. She was State Chair of the National Conference of Christian and Jews, first African American President of Operation New Birmingham’s Board of Directors and founding member of Leadership Birmingham. She serves today as the Emerita President and Board Chair of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. She was inducted into the Birmingham Gallery of Distinguished Citizens and the Alabama Academy of Honor.

3. Judge U.W. Clemon Judge Clemon, educated in the segregated public schools of Jefferson County, decided to become a civil rights lawyer at age thirteen. His early involvement in the 1962 boycott of Birmingham’s downtown stores and his fight to end the segregation of the Birmingham Public Library earned him the designation of one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s foot soldiers in the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement. In 1974, Judge Clemon became one of the first two blacks to be elected to the Alabama State Senate since Reconstruction. President Jimmy Carter appointed Clemon as Alabama’s first black federal judge in 1980. He served as Chief Judge of the court from 1999-2006, and under his administration, the court adopted a more juror-friendly and representative jury plan, increased minority presence in the workforce of the court, and transitioned to electronic case filing and management.

4. Mayor Richard ArringtonDuring the 1963 Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Arrington was a Professor of Biology at the Birmingham campus of Miles College. He was appointed by Miles College President L.H. Pitts to serve as recorder of the monthly meetings of 10 black community leaders who petitioned Birmingham's white corporate community on "The Concerns and Grievances of the City’s Black Community"; an act that led to the establishment of the City's first biracial committee of leaders (CAC). In the fall of 1963 he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma and completed his Ph.D. in Zoology in 1966. In 1971 he was the second African American elected to the city's at-large City Council and in 1979 was elected the first African American Mayor of Birmingham.

P R E - C O N F E R E N C E A C T I V I T I E S

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Thursday Activities

Friday Morning Activities

8:00 Registration begins in the Medical Forum lobby of the BJCC9:00 Arrive at session of choice

Common Core State Standards Session- Medical Forum Meeting Room ADr. Bruce McComiskey and Dr. Tonya Perry, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Content Area Literacy Session- Medical Forum Meeting Room DNatasha Flowers, Kenya Martin-Hall, Carita Venable, UAB Red Mountain Writing Project Teacher Consultants

The Civil Rights Movement Session- Medical Forum Meeting Room BDr. Lois Christensen and Dr. Tondra Loder-Jackson, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Urban Literacies Session- Medical Forum Meeting Room CDr. Jamal Cooks, San Francisco State University   11:30 Break for Lunch (a list of area restaurants is located in the back of your program)12:30 Return to session until 3:00 p.m.3:30 Arrive in lobby of Sheraton for bus pickup5:30 Tour and Reception at Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (a bus will be running between the Sheraton and the reception)

School Site Visits:Subway meal cards will be distributed upon registration for breakfast. Subway is located at 2105 Richard Arrington Jr. Blvd N.

8:00 Arrive in lobby of Sheraton to transport to schools

Elementary SitesJ.S. Abrams Elementary in Birmingham, Alabama Principal: Brenda RumleySeed 2 Grant Participating SchoolFocus: Opinion and Argumentative Writing

Glen Iris Elementary School in Bessemer, AlabamaPrincipal: Dr. Michael WilsonUAB Red Mountain Writing Project grade 4 and 5 summer writing enrichment camp location

Secondary SitesJames A. Davis Middle School in Bessemer, AlabamaPrincipal: Albert SolesSeed 3 Grant Participating SchoolFocus: Argumentative Writing

Shades Valley High School in Irondale, AlabamaPrincipal: Mary Beth BlankenshipFocus: Common Core and Professional Development

2:40 Arrive back at Sheraton Birmingham Hotel3:00 Roundtables begin in the Birmingham Ballroom

Historical Birmingham Tour:

8:00 Arrive at Westin Hotel for Continental Breakfast

9:00 Session featuring Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Rami Khouri

11:30 Luncheon featuring Jose Antonio Vargas

12:45 Meet in Westin lobby to transport to Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

1:00 Arrive at Civil Rights Institute

2:40 Arrive back at Sheraton Birmingham Hotel

3:00 Roundtables begin in the Birmingham Ballroom

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Roundtables (3:00 – 5:00), Birmingham Ballroom – Moderator - Jameka ThomasSounds from Sons of Sunlight QuartetIntroduction of GuestsFirst RotationSecond RotationClosing Remarks

Friday Night Reception and Events (5:00 – 7:30), Birmingham Ballroom – Mistress of Ceremony Tonya Perry Welcome from UAB Provost Linda Lucas and UAB School of Education Dean Debbie VoltzGreetings from UAB RMWP Directors Dr. Tonya Perry and Dr. Bruce McComiskeyGreetings from Mayor William BellMusical Selection by the children of the Ruben Studdard Foundation Refined Tailgating ExperienceIntroduction by Dominique Prince, UAB RMWP FellowMusical Selection by Kenny Williams, SaxophonistKeynote: Minister Carolyn McKinstryRemarks 7:00-8:00 Evening with Emanuel Jal at Westin 7:30 Open Mic Session8:30 Movie: The Barber of Birmingham

Friday Roundtables and Reception

Saturday ActivitiesBreakfast ( 7:00 – 9:00)- East BallroomMistress of Ceremony -  Debbie Simms7:00 -7:55 Breakfast7:55 – 8:00 Introduction of Guests8:00– 8:10 Greetings Dr. Sharon Washington Dr. Judy Buchannan Dr. Lynn Kirkland8:10 – 8:20 Introduction of Contest Winners Cindy Peavy, UAB RMWP Rachel Estreicher, Brookwood Forest Elementary Ariel Rivers, Parkway Christian Academy Ruby Sloan, Shades Cahaba Elementary John Robert Wallace, Shades Cahaba Elementary Elizabeth Yesilevsky, Glen Iris Elementary

8:20 - 8:25 Introduction of Speaker Carita Venable8:25 – 8:55   Keynote Speaker Steve Zemelman8:55 – 9:00 RemarksSessions Begin

Lunch (12:00 – 1:30)- East BallroomMistress of Ceremony - Shawnta Owens12:00 – 12:05 Greetings Ms. Joye Alberts Dr. Tanya Baker Dr. Lou Anne Worthington12:05 – 12:15 Community Writers Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated Emerging Young Leaders 50th Anniversary Essay Contest Winners Kenetria Banks Symone Porter Journey Sims Director: Angela Day

12:15 - 12:45 Lunch12:45 – 12:50 Introduction of Speaker Natasha Flowers12:50 – 1:20 Keynote Speaker Judge Helen Shores Lee1:20 – 1: 30 RemarksSessions Resume

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SESSION A 9:15-10:15A.1 What Are the Features of Effective Professional Development in High Needs Schools?: Lessons from NWP SEED 3 SitesEast Meeting Room EJoanne McKay, Lil Brannon, Lucy Arnold Mary Cox, Bryan Crandall, Paula LaubJennifer Dail, Katy Smith, & Meg PetersenSite leaders discuss the successes and challenges of working in high need schools.

A.2 Born Into the Writing ProjectLocal Site DevelopmentEast Meeting Room F Kate Willaredt & Sherrelyn Green"Born into NWP" will focus on the importance of including early childhood educators in the writing project mission. Presenters will share their work accomplished with the Greater Kansas City Writing Project and strategies for recruiting early childhood teachers to your writing project.

A.3 Organizer Smarts: Strategies for Building Support with Colleagues and CommunitySocial Justice East Meeting Room NSteve ZemelmanThis session will discuss one-on-one interviews, cross classroom visits, grant writing, and other strategies for reaching out beyond the classroom, including plenty of participants’ ideas.

A.4 Using the Pen to Talk Back to Educational Inequality: A Letter From a Black Mom to Her SonSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room GDyan WatsonThe rhetoric of school reform hides the facts: students of color continue to be underserved in our education system. They are more likely to be pushed out of school by the curriculum and disciplinary actions. By examining our personal histories, participants will talk back to educational inequalities.

A.5 Writing For Justice: Power, Personal Insight, CompassionSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room OSherry Swain, Richard Graves, & Georgia Edwards Engage with us in a demonstration of how young people (and adults) can produce powerful sentences that include voice, coordination and subordination, diction, and rhythm while writing with evidence and passion. This interactive session focuses on the cumulative sentence, easily learned, powerfully important. It includes connections to the common core.

A.6 Understanding Voice, Understanding Each OtherSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room KNick ChaneseHow can we use creative writing to better understand people unlike us? In this workshop, we will create organic stories and characters and unlock authentic voices that already exist within us. We will learn how this process can benefit students while being integrated into existing curricula.

A.7 Teaching about the Holocaust and Social Justice: Best Practices from Participants in the Memorial Library Summer Seminar in NYCSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room APaige Cole, Lisa Hall, Jennifer Lemberg, & Sandi RobertsonModerator: Dr. Susan SeayIn this panel, teacher-fellows who have participated in the Memorial Library Summer Seminar in New York City will share their best practices for teaching about the Holocaust, social justice, and civil rights.The presenters will demonstrate how we can “start where our students are” and help move them toward taking action in the present day.

A.8 Enacting Social Change Using RSS TechnologyMeeting Room ESusan Peeples, Krystal Watson, Michael WendelParticipants will learn to empower student led inquiry towards civic engagement. Participants will be given tools to use technology as the catalyst to ignite their students in becoming globally conscious citizens by creating RSS feeds to support research. (Participants may bring laptops or iPads.)

A.9 The Ideal Radical: Revisiting Dr. Robert P. Moses' Journey for Advocacy For equity in Civil Rights and Mathematics LiteracyContent Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room HMonique BibbsThe legacy of Dr. Robert Moses spans as a man who has spent the past fifty years trying to keep the promise of American democracy functioning. His integral role in the Civil Rights Movement to operating The Algebra Project identifies him as an icon in American history.

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A.10 The Power of ONECommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room JAstra Cherry, Shelia Ward, & Sioux Roslawski Supported by an NWP SEED Grant, the Gateway Writing Project and school district Communication Arts Coordinator help 3rd-5th grade teachers integrate writing into the district's curriculum and Common Core State Standards expectations. Engaging writing activities and a conversation about the opportunities, challenges, and successes of the experience will be highlighted.

A.11 (Re)Negotiating College Readiness: Building Bridges Between K-12 and First-Year Writing Teachers and StudentsCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room DIntisar Hamidullah, Meaghan Rand, Sally Griffin, Megan Keaton, Steve Fulton, & Carrie Sippy Participants will inquire into the idea of “College Readiness” alongside First Year Writing Teachers and K-12 TCs from the UNC Charlotte Writing Project. UNC Charlotte TCs’ classes are paired with K-12 TCs’ classes; together they are challenging the common sense notions of college readiness by exploring each other’s literate practices. A.12 Textual, Tech-tual, and Textured Lineages: Exploring a Multi-literate Journey in the 21st Century ClassroomSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room CJulie Roneson, Kelley Gordon-Minott, & Shaun MitchellAlfred Tatum encourages educators to support the textual lineages of all youth, especially those who are often marginalized by American schools. This workshop shares how several teachers sojourned through their own literacy histories to find better ways to encourage students to recognize the rich and textured lives they already live as readers, writers, and thinkers.

A.13 Living into Social Justice: Nurturing Families and Communities Through Text SetsSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room ILinda Golson Bradley This session will engage participants in examining text sets that foster social justice through introducing innovative ideas for including high quality literature in classroom and community contexts. The participants will work with hands on activities to explore and examine diversity issues that impact children, families, and schools.

A.14 Paying the Syntax: Reading and Writing ExercisesCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room BBenjamin BatesWorking with excerpts from mentor texts, workbooks, and student drafts, participants will explore relationships between sentence structure, reading comprehension and revision strategies, and consider the question, “What do students need to know to succeed in freshman composition?”

SESSION B 10:45-11:45B.1 What Did Brown v. Board of Education do for them? Exploring the Personal Experiences of Students That Desegregated Birmingham City SchoolsSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room FDr. Fanchon Muhammad This presentation is an analysis of the personal experiences of students who desegregated Birmingham City Schools. Information will be presented based on personal interviews conducted with five former students as a part of an extensive research study on the Desegregation of Birmingham schools from 1963-1969.

B.2 Developing Content Area Coaches In A High-Needs SchoolLocal Site DevelopmentEast Meeting Room DJennifer Dail, Michelle Goodsite, & Rob Montgomery Forming partnerships between schools and local sites presents challenges and opportunities. This session will explore those within the context of a year-long partnership focused on training and developing content area coaches with a local Title I high school.

B.3 Building Community in the Classroom through WritingSocial Justice East Meeting Room NSteve ZemelmanModerator: Kris FischerThis session will include writing activities that build students’ mutual support and understanding as well as exploring academic topics.

B.4 Breaking Free: Public School Teachers Defying Imposed Boundaries to Do What's Best For Their StudentsSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room CShanedra Nowell & Sherry BeenIn this session, participants will explore stories and writings from two teacher research studies where both early childhood and high school teachers searched for autonomy within the current climate of increased testing, teacher attrition, mistrust of teachers, and resistance to popular technologies. Participants will write and reflect on their own teaching.

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B.5 The Modern Day Slave Trade: Potential Uses of Powerful Literary Pieces in Understanding and Promoting Social Acceptance in the 21st Century Classroom CommunitySocial JusticeMeeting Room GJennifer SummerlinParticipants will explore a variety of personal accounts, documentaries, and personal narratives in combination with powerful pieces of children’s and adolescent literature to understand several forms of the modern day slavery and how this slave trade must end with us. Participants will build knowledge on specific ways to implement these powerful literary pieces to promote authentic opportunities for classroom reading, writing, conversation, and the potential for future social activism.

B.6 A Place for Young Adult Literature: A Beginning Teacher's PerspectiveCritical LiteracyEast Meeting Room HTerry Harbison, Calvin Woodruff, Anne Kreider, Laura Ashley Missildine, & Tia RutledgeThis workshop will focus on the pre-service teachers’ perspective on Young Adult Literature and its presence in middle and high school classrooms. This group of UAB graduate students will each present a group of young adult books and discuss their importance in the classroom.

B.7 Classroom Technology Tools from Padlet to PodcastingTechnologyEast Meeting Room IDavid AbbottThis session will explore a variety of tools include Tripline, Padlet, Diigo, and StoryBird. Podcasting will be discussed in the classroom as well.

B.8 Teach them well, and let them lead the way": Using Critical Lenses to Teach Secondary English and HistoryLiteracyEast Meeting Room ODarlene Russell, Carolina James, Melissa Gonzalez, Brady Kaitlyn, & Nanci RiveraThis workshop will focus on teaching English and history through critical lenses in secondary classrooms and college remedial reading courses. Participants will engage in collaborative activities and writing using different critical lenses. The presenters are pre-service and in-service English teachers who work in various educational settings. Participants will receive handouts.

B.9 Restorying Our Community: An Electronic Classroom ApproachTechnologyEast Meeting Room KJoycelyn HardenIn this session teachers will explore how establishing a literary blog created a summer electronic classroom, kept students engaged and helped to build a community of writers/learners. Participants will explore how blogging and other electronic discussions assisted students in creating and producing related projects. B.10 Beyond Alignment and Compliance with the Common Core State StandardsCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room JSusan YoungThis interactive session allows participants to examine how key standards can be addressed through lesson design that motivates students to become self-directed learners. Teachers will learn how to use daily techniques that increase meaningful student talk, foster thoughtful literacy, and use techniques that lead to powerful learning experiences for every child. B.11 Teaching Conscious ConsumerismContent Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room LLori UngemahHow conscious are teenagers of their consumption? This workshop will share our freshman City Seminar curriculum on conscious consumption. City Seminar links three courses: Reading & Writing, Quantitative Reasoning, and Critical Issue to deepen students’ study. This presentation will focus on strategies to write in and across content areas.

B.12 Digital Writing in the Common CoreTechnologyEast Meeting Room BRachel BearTeachers need to demand that the implementation of the Common Core Standards includes a focus on teaching media and digital literacies. In this session we will look at examples of media rich work that meets reading and writing standards in the Common Core and think together about intellectually rigorous work in digital environments.

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B.13 Deep Inquiry, Important QuestionsCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room AMegan Birch & Meg PetersenWe will demonstrate how we integrate writing, reading and thinking in ways which address the Common Core. We will describe the work of our courses, centered on the question: “What is race and how does it matter?” and model a process aimed at expanding our thinking about a common topic.

SESSION C 1:45-2:45C.1 A Talk with Judge Helen Shores LeeBirmingham HistoryEast Meeting Room N Helen Shores LeeModerator: Rhea LathanShe will give a further discussion of her firsthand account of growing up with her father, Arthur Shores, a prominent Civil Rights attorney, during the 60s in the Jim Crow South, a frequent target of the Ku Klux Klan.

C.2 Looking Through the LensesLocal Site DevelopmentEast Meeting Room CRebecca Kaminski, Dawn Hawkins, & Lisa HansenThe director and co-director of the Upstate Writing Project led a Common Core Standard and Multicultural Education Summer Institute during July 2012. This workshop will articulate the collaborative process of planning of the Upstate Writing Project and Armstrong Elementary. Participants will be provided with data and feedback from Armstrong Elementary as a participating school. C.3 Reading, Writing, and Conflict ResolutionSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room ILoucrecia CollinsThis workshop will coalesce the strands of reading, writing, and conflict resolution to assist teachers in creating bully free classrooms. C.4 Writing the Experience: Gender and Sexual Identity in Visual and Rhetorical Literacies as Agents of ChangeSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room FJulie Dalley & Dayna ArcurioThis workshop explores how we recognize visual and rhetorical literacies that mark marginalized communities in the writing world. Gender, sex, and the transgender experience will be analyzed as they happen in digital and print mediums. Participants will interact in a session that identifies common themes and rhetorical goals of these specific marginalized communities.

C.5 Teacher Empathy: Walking in the Other's ShoesSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room ELauren SkyariaThis presentation will ask participants to enter the world of their students. Teacher empathy may be the most important trait a teacher can bring to the classroom. Through various activities, participants will explore their empathy and get a glimpse at how struggling students feel in the classroom.

C.6 Environmental Racism: Challenges of Educating Students in Polluted CommunitiesSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room GDexter Forbes & Maurice RandolphIn this workshop we wil educate participants about activism against environmental racism to improve learning outcomes and literacy. C.7 History Beyond the Bluest Eye: Connecting to Write the Research PaperContent Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room J Jeanette ToomerThis workshop focuses on investigating the historical background of a fictional text to develop a research paper based on this text to world connection. Using The Bluest Eye which makes several allusions to the world of segregation and racism in the 1940s, students develop and write a research paper. C.8 Minding the Gap: Free technology for the ClassroomTechnologyEast Meeting Room KBen DavisThis session will explore free technologies for the classroom.Blogs and other technology will be discussed. C.9 National Student Poet Alliance for Young Artists & WritersThe Scholastic Art & Writing Award WinnerCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room DLuisa BanchoffModerator: Robin BynumLuisa will share her poetry and reflect on how her teachers have inspired and supported her throughout her development, and what influences her to write. Luisa will discuss what influences her writing.

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C.10 Implementing Differentiation in the Secondary School ClassroomCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room OJasmine Clisby, Katie Mullinax, Katie Tibbett, Tiffany Ellis, Denise Ingram, Laura Ashley MissildineThis session will not only reveal the many aspects and layers of the differentiation process, but it will also provide participants with real-world application strategies and examples for the secondary school classroom.

C.11 Writing For Change: Digital Collaboration Beyond Classroom WallsTechnologyEast Meeting Room EJanet Ilko & Christine KaneIn this session participants will explore how educators in a graduate program at University of San Diego were mentored by culturally and linguistically diverse middle school students to produce digital stories. Educators had the opportunity to learn from young digital writers how to tell a life story. C.12 Facing the Challenge of Argumentative WritingContent Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room HLinda Blocker, Candace Grace, Carole Tull, Shawnta Owens, Crystal Lassiter, Sharonica Neeley, Meredith Cox- Johnson, &Tonia Johnson- HicksAs part of the SEED 3 Grant, James A. Davis Middle School Language Arts teachers faced the challenge of adapting to the Language Arts Common Core Standards into writing. These teachers will share the experience, successes, and challenges of teaching urban middle school students the art of argument. C.13 Raising Voices Silenced by History: The Tulsa Race "Riot"Social JusticeEast Meeting Room ALinda ChristensenThis workshop will engage participants in the use of primary source documents to revisit the history of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, construct historical fiction about the historical period, and develop a framework for classroom inquiry into the implications of “omissions” from traditional textbooks.

SESSION D 3:00-4:00D.1 The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword: Writing Activities with Issues of Social JusticeSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room DJeremiah Clabough, Susan Seay, & Nefertari YancieThe presentation examines how students can assume the role of a historical figure and write about issues of to social justice. The presenters will model examples of writing activities and provide a CD for participants with information covered in the presentation. D.2 The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing Court CasesBirmingham HistoryEast Meeting Room NDoug JonesAttorney Jones will discuss the recent court cases surrounding the 1963 bombings. He will show photos and videos from both the bombing and the cases that he tried in 2001 and 2002. D.3 Reading the World through Journal Writing: A Framework to Create Critical Thinking an Empower StudentsSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room CStephanie Rollag & Mary MoellerThis session describes a unique, multi-genre, multi-media response system used in daily journals to engage students in social justice writing. Through sharing student examples, providing classroom resources, and writing, we will explore the possibilities of journal writing, technology, and the English Language Arts Standards connecting to empower students.

D.4 Ubuntu Matters! Emphasizing Community in Writing Activity SystemsSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room JBryan RipleyUbuntu, a Bantu word, is a philosophical worldview believed to have originated in South Africa. It translates, “I am what I am because of who we all are.” Ubuntu should be emphasized in 21st century writing classrooms because every writer needs to belong to a larger community. D.5 The Effects of Child Poverty on Academic Performance and Achievement/Incarceration of the Parents & How it Affects the Child's EducationSocial JusticeEast Meeting Room GDarius Nettles, & Sharon HearnsModerator: Theodore FosterStudents analyze social problems in African American areas.

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D.6 Critical Literacy: Multiple Perspectives-Teaching Students to Look At Literacy Through A Critical LensCritical LiteracyEast Meeting Room BBianca Nightengale-Lee & Nyree ClaytonThis presentation looks at a historical event and pushes students to consider the multiple perspectives within it; this helps students see the past in more well-rounded and honest way. Therefore enabling them to make connections to the present, propelling them to become better global citizens, and 21st century thinkers. D.7 Get Connected Through WritingTechnologyEast Meeting Room HCarletta HurtInterested in programs that provide your students with a chance to improve their writing and using a medium that interests them? Connect, Communicate, and Collect information on engagement opportunities with students that are online or use online tools to assist your students in creating writing that matters.

D.8 Developing Young Writers: Reflections on Experiences Writing With Young ChildrenContent Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room IAdriane SheffiedWriting with young children takes planning, flexibility and creativity. This workshop will revisit one teacher’s experience writing with rising kindergartners at a public school in Nashville, TN and their efforts to write an alphabet book about the country of Liberia. This workshop will include extension activities for classroom use. D.9 Responding to Automated Essay Scoring As A Teacher, WriterTechnologyEast Meeting Room LStephen StaysniakOnce confined to graduate-level tests like GMAT, Automated Essay Scoring (AES) is now used by PARC and SMARTER Balance to develop performance-tasks in language arts. Participants will be introduced to AES and learn to respond in ways that maintain the humanistic, exploratory nature of writing in the face of algorithmic assessment. D.10 Historical Thinking, Historical Writing Content Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room KStan PesickIn this workshop we will explore the use of the Literacy Design Collaborative's curriculum planning and sharing tool as a way to support teacher-to-teacher conversation about historical thinking, reading and writing.

D.11 Content Literacy in the Digital AgeCommon Core LiteracyEast Meeting Room FMandee JablonskiIn this session, participants will explore a variety of technologies and resources to bring content area literacy to life. We will examine high-engagement resources, text, and digital content in order to enhance literacy across the curriculum. D.12 Making As LearningTechnologyEast Meeting Room OPaul OhAre you into “Do It Yourself”? Building and tinkering? Are your students? If so, come to this session where you'll create and build alongside colleagues, then reflect upon literacy learning implications for you and your students. We'll also provide resources to help you get started making in your own educational setting.

D.13 Imagine That: How to turn an idea into a bookContent Area LiteracyEast Meeting Room ACedric Threatt Author and writer Cedric Threatt will share ideas for books by looking at life around you and using your imagination.

CIVIL RIGHTS PANELModerator: Dr. Jeremy Claybough

4:00 Introduction of Guests Jaeden Henderson, Spiritual Ms. Odessa Woolfolk Mayor Richard Arrington Judge U. W. Clemon Attorney Doug Jones 5:00 Questions from the Audience

ANNUAL TOWN HALLModerators: Past National Writing Project USN Leadership Team

5:30-6:00 Questions and Remarks of the Day and Application to Urban Education

14 UAB Red Mountain Writing Project 21st Century Literacies Conference USN Conference 2013 Birmingham, Alabama

SESSIONS BY STRAND:Technology:A.8B.7B.9B.12C.8C.12D.7D.9D.12

Common Core Literacy:A.10A.11A.14B.10B.13C.10D.11

Birmingham History:C.1D.2

Content Area Literacy:A.9B.8B.11C.7C.9C.11C.13D.8D.10D.13

Local Site Development:A.1A.2B.2C.2

Critical Literacy:B.6D.6

Social Justice:A.3A.4A.5A.6A.7A.12A.13B.1B.3B.4B.5C.3C.4C.5C.6C.14D.1D.3D.4

D.5

STI Code for the 2013 Urban Sites Network

Conference:UABRIC0140

L O C A L R E S T A U R A N T S & A T T R A C T I O N S

UAB Red Mountain Writing Project 21st Century Literacies Conference USN Conference 2013 Birmingham, Alabama 15

Local Restaurants AttractionsSurin West Thai and Sushi1918 11th Ave SBirmingham, AL 35205(205) 324-1928

Bottega Restaurant and Café Italian, Mediterranean2240 Highland Ave SBirmingham, AL 35205(205) 933-2001

Highlands Bar & GrillSouthern/Soul, Seafood, European2011 11th Ave SBirmingham, AL 35205(205) 939-1400

Al's Deli & GrillSandwiches/Subs, Mediterranean 1629 10th Ave SBirmingham,AL35205(205) 939-4278

Fish MarketSeafood612 22nd St SBirmingham,AL35233(205) 322-3330

Original Pancake HouseBreakfast, Brunch1931 11th Ave SBirmingham,AL35205(205) 933-8837

Dreamland Bar-B-Que1427 14th Ave SBirmingham,AL35205(205) 933-2133

Mellow MushroomPizza1200 20th St SBirmingham, AL 35205 (205) 212-9420

Newk's Express Cafe Sandwiches/Subs, Soups611 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd SBirmingham, AL 35233 (205) 323-0992

Jim 'N Nick'sBar-b-que1908 11th Ave SBirmingham, AL 35205(205) 326-0270

New China TownChinese1020 20th St SBirmingham,AL35205 (205) 251-2373

Taziki's Mediterranean CafeMediterranean301 18th St SBirmingham,AL35233(205) 731-9001

Roly PolySandwiches/Subs, Salads2009 15th Ave SBirmingham,AL35205 (205) 933-1933

Purple Onion Deli & GrillSandwiches/Subs, Mediterranean1717 10th Ave SBirmingham,AL35205 (205) 933-2424

Jimmy John'sSandwiches/Subs1919 11th Ave SBirmingham,AL35205 (205) 933-2425

Sweet TeaSouthern/Soul, Greek, American2205 3rd Avenue SBirmingham,AL35233 (205) 745-3990

CultureBirmingham Museum of Art2000 8th Ave N Birmingham, AL 35203(205) 254-2565www.artsbma.org

Carver Theater/ Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame1631 4th Ave N Birmingham, AL 35203(205) 254-2731www.jazzhall.com

Alabama Theater1817 3rd Ave N Birmingham, AL 35203(205) 252-2262Alabamatheatre.com

Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center2100 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd N. Birmingham, AL 35203www.bjcc.org

Live MusicOna’s Music Room4/25 Chris Moore Project 8:30 p.m.4/26 Good Doctor 10 p.m.4/27 Ona Watson w/ Champagne 10 p.m.2801 2nd Ave S Birmingham, AL 35233(205) 320-7006www.onasmusicroom.com  

Jazz Underground4/25 The Endangered 7:30 p.m.2012 Magnolia Ave S, Birmingham, AL 35205(205) 202-3640jazzunderground5points.com

Workplay 4/25 Parachute w/ Andy Grammer 8 p.m.4/26 Seryn 8 p.m.500 23rd St. SouthBirmingham, AL 35233www.workplay.com

M A P S

16 UAB Red Mountain Writing Project 21st Century Literacies Conference USN Conference 2013 Birmingham, Alabama

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