James B. Webster, Ph.D.
Dr. James B. Webster will be speaking on classroom management, advanced TESOL, and metaphorical and allegorical writing.
“My education seemed as diverse as my later teaching career. I schooled until grade nine in a one-room multi-graded rural school, took senior high by correspondence at home, the BA mainly by extension & summer courses & Ph.D. at the University of London in England. I began teaching at the northern terminal of the road network in Canada in a log school of 55 students – grades one to ten – including thirteen beginners, most of whom could not speak English. I retired from guiding graduates through their Ph.D. dissertations at an “ivy league” Canadian university. My career was guided by the precept that good writing forges the golden key to success in many fields, including a dramatic improvement in reading skills, and rather surprisingly, in behaviour. Finally, writing becomes the major & often only outlet, in most education systems, for creative expression. When the spark of creativity is ignited, it sets a child alight. That makes teaching a joy!”
Workshops:
Using Fairy Tale Models, Monday 3:30pm
Using examples of children’s compositions from grades 3 to 5, this discussion demonstrates how to encourage creative writing, how to individualise it within the confines of one assignment & how age & grade level are of little concern within Blended Structure & Style. Some do’s & don’t of classroom management will be touched upon, if time permits.
Descriptions, Dialogues & Flashbacks, Tuesday 1:30pm
Following my usual procedure, I give a diagram with short notes, followed by a model composition. There are three ways to write a descriptive paragraph & after this lesson was taught all of my students had to follow one of the models. No more random descriptions. Following a definition of a dialogue set, rules of structure, style & mechanics come before a model. The flashback paragraph follows a similar pattern, first a very few rules & then the models. It is only advanced because it is new. Writers of any level, grades four to university can do it.
Advanced Decorations, Metaphorical & Allegorical Writing, Wednesday 3:30pm
To enhance writing & include elements of imagery required in High School, the category of decorations has been doubled & divided into two, Structural & Stylistic. In metaphorical writing we help children expand & elaborate a metaphor into a full paragraph. Almost all levels can do this because it is primarily description. In allegories the metaphor is stretched to three paragraphs. I have only attempted it at the high school level.