COMING SUMMER 2026

Secondary educators will join this 2-day workshop to focus on writing instruction that supports the use of the Teaching and Learning Cycle as a way to empower multilingual writers, not only to produce successful academic writing but also, more importantly, to communicate effectively for a variety of purposes and audiences.  

We want students to know how to leverage writing as a powerful tool to understand the world, express themselves effectively, learn from one another, and argue for things they believe in. This vision requires intentional language-focused instruction and is strengthened when it occurs through authentic writing tasks in the content areas. In this interactive workshop, we will explore a pedagogical approach that apprentices multilingual learners into writing various academic genres.  

Specifically, we will look at examples of this in social studies and consider how this approach develops multilingual learners’ writing skills and their awareness of how language works in written form. This will allow them to become effective and informed writers.  

This workshop is designed for secondary grade educators—social studies, science, ELA— English language development specialists, and instructional coaches 

• Build content area background knowledge with the whole class so that students are equipped to write knowledgeably about the topic  
• Explore the language of mentor texts with students to unpack highly valued ways of  using language in a specific genre  
• Jointly write a text with students based on what was learned from various mentor  texts  
• Support students as they apply their learning about language choices in a target  genre to their independent writing  
• Engage students in a cycle of review, reflection, and revision to increase the  effectiveness of their own writing

Day 1  

• Welcome and Opening  
• Setting the Stage  
• Building the Field  
• Exploring the Language of a Text Type  

Day 2  

• Welcome and Review  
• Exploring the Language of a Text Type (Continued)  • Joint Construction  
• Independent Construction  
• Review, Reflect, Revise  
• Putting It All Together