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December 28, 2005
ANDOVER, Mass.—Lawrence public school teachers are invited to attend a professional development conference entitled “Inspiring Writing” on Saturday, January 7 that will feature 15 workshops and a keynote speech by critically acclaimed novelist and poet Julia Alvarez '67, whose books include In the Time of the Butterflies and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
The conference will be held at the Arlington Education Complex in Lawrence and will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Alvarez is scheduled to give her keynote address at 10 a.m. Admission is free for Lawrence public school teachers, but space is limited. To register, call Sarah Gonzalez at 978-975-5905 x741.
The conference will focus on how teachers can use the works of famous authors to inspire student writing in the classroom. Different workshops will be geared toward students in different grade levels and will focus on different types of writing.
For example, a workshop entitled “What Makes a Memoir” will use mentor texts to help middle school students identify and apply the elements of memoir to their own writing. Another workshop entitled “Prose Writing” will use passages from one of Alvarez’s novel to develop writing exercises appropriate for high school students around the themes of identity, immigration and cultural loss.
The conference was organized by Lawrence teachers who are members of the Andover Bread Loaf (ABL) program, a private, non-profit organization that works with U.S. and international private and public school teachers to enhance the teaching and learning of writing and to help catalyze educational renewal in classrooms, schools, school systems, and communities. Founded in 1987, ABL is based on the Phillips Academy campus in Andover, Mass.
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