WES 2010 Speakers & Sessions

Adam Andrews received his BA in Political Economy and Christian Studies from Hillsdale College in 1991. He earned his MA in History from the University of Washington in 1994, and is currently a candidate for the PhD in History. He is writing his doctoral dissertation on the history of early American Presbyterianism. Adam is a Henry Salvatori Fellow of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and a founding board member of Westover Academy, a Classical Christian school in Colville, Washington. He is the assistant director of the American Indoor Air Quality Council, a professional training and certification organization.

Workshops:

Reading Comprehension from Seuss to Socrates, Wednesday 10:20 AM

This lecture demonstrates that everything you need to know about understanding and teaching literature is present in your second grader’s bedtime story. Adam reads a classics children’s story out loud to begin the presentation, and then leads the audience into a discussion of eternal literary themes. Along the way, he shows how you can do the same at home by following five simple steps. You’ll never put the kids to bed the same way again!

The Story of Job: Leadership Education for the Luckiest Man in the World, Wednesday Plenary 8:30 AM

Education is not an object we can acquire; it’s a state of the heart, mind and soul. All great leaders share certain attributes in this area, and Job was one of the greatest! Adam’s unique perspective on Job’s career inspires parents to prepare their own students for leadership. The lecture sends them away with renewed vision for the liberal arts and practical suggestions for applying this vision in the classroom.

Asking the Right Questions “ Teaching Literature with Socratic Discussion, Wednesday 1:30 PM

Adam shows aspiring classroom leaders three ways to lead students naturally and effortlessly into quality discussions of any book. He demonstrates each of these techniques through live discussion of a beloved American classic, and teaches audience members how to try them at home immediately.

Adam Andrews will be presenting at the Community Open House, Speaker Potpourri and Book Signing on Tuesday, July 27 at 7:30 PM

Contains Faith-Based Content

Dr. House has been a Christian college and seminary professor for most of his career. He has also served as a pastor, church planter, and in summer missions work in Indonesia and South Korea. He has served as adjunct faculty at Taylor University and Columbia International University. For several years, he was the Director of the M.A. in Pastoral Ministries, and Director of Mentoring at the Huntington University Graduate School in Indiana. Dr. House has earned a B.A. from Asbury College, an M.Div. from Asbury Theological Seminary, an M.A. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from The University of South Carolina. His M.A. research focused on the History of American Revivalism, and his doctorate was in American Educational History. Other research interests include the History of Christian Liberal Arts Colleges; American Religious History; and American Cultural, Political, and Religious Trends and Issues. He is currently engaged in research, consulting, ministry, and pursuing entrepreneurial ventures. He and his wife Laura homeschooled their three college-aged children, and currently reside in Lynchburg, VA.

Workshops:

The History of American Education: Influencing the Mind and Soul, Tuesday 1:30 PM

A study of the history of American education reveals its vast influence on this nation. One cannot accurately assess American history without an awareness of the development of the nation’s educational system. Education has shaped the mind and the soul of Americans for decades, and in so doing, has influenced our culture historically, politically, spiritually and socially.

There are two basic philosophies of education. One comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It values scripture, the intimate role of a personal God, and places Jesus Christ at the center of the educational process. The other is rooted in the Enlightenment of the 17th & 18th centuries. It reacts against the Christian tradition and its ideals. The two compete in the arena of American education.
This seminar provides a brief overview of the historical and philosophical development of American education. It discusses how the Christian philosophy and the secular humanist philosophy differ in terms of who a student is, what education is, and the purpose of educating a person. At the core of the current religious, political and culture wars, an understanding of the purpose and outcome of these two philosophies is essential to the shaping of our nation’s future.

Andrew Kern, is president and founder of the CiRCE Institute. He graduated from Concordia University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he was mentored by Dr. Gene Edward Veith and was graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts. Shortly afterward, Dr. Veith and Andrew co-authored the best-selling Classical Education, The Movement Sweeping America, now in its second edition. Andrew has been directly involved in the establishment of three classical Christian schools, has trained teachers in over 50 since 1996, has consulted with still more on institutional development and start-up, and has been directing the CiRCE Institute full time since the summer of 2000. Andrew Kern is married to Karen. They are the parents of three boys and two girls: David, Matthew, Katerina, Larissa, and Andrew.

Workshops:

How To Cultivate Wisdom Through Writing, Tuesday Plenary 8:30 AM 

If education is more than training for a trade, if education is, as Kern believes, the cultivation of wisdom and virtue, what practical activities cultivate wisdom and virtue in our scholars? In this talk, Kern argues that no other subject provides more opportunities to do so than writing.

The Five Paths to Writing Greatness, Tuesday 10:20 A

Learn the five paths that every great writer must walk to attain greatness and that every writer or teacher of writing must at least stroll to progress down the path of good writing.

How does Teaching Writing: Structure and Style relate to The Lost Tools of Writing, Thursday 8:30 AM

The Lost Tools of Writing is a bold new writing program that applies the principles of classical rhetoric to contemporary writing. You know Teaching Writing: Structure and Style (TWSS). In this workshop, Andrew Kern, developer of the Lost Tools of Writing, introduces you to classical rhetoric and explains how LTW relates to TWSS“ when to use each and how to tie them together.


Andrew Kern will be presenting at the Community Open House, Speaker Potpourri and Book Signing on
Tuesday, July 27 at 7:30 PM

Contains Faith-Based Content

Jennifer Kimbrell began college as an English major, but switched to Nursing when she realized that no one was going to pay her to read good books. She never even considered teaching until she and her husband Charles were providentially compelled to homeschool their children. Nine years ago she discovered IEW. After teaching it to her children for a short time, she began to share it with friends.  Soon came teaching roles as a co-op member, a paid co-op instructor, and finally, a free-lance instructor. Now teaching three levels of IEW to middle and high school students, she is continually motivated by the transformation of her students’ writing. Currently homeschooling her last child, Jennifer also teaches Sunday School, sings in the church choir, and reads good books.

Workshops:

The Division Essay (Tuesday 1:30 PM)

High school students who have mastered the structure of the five-paragraph essay are ready to move on to some of the models taught in college freshman composition courses. One of the most useful is the Division essay, a model that can be used for a wide range of subjects, such as the branches of government, parts of a cell, or literary analysis. The Process essay, a near relative of the Division essay, will also be discussed.

IEW Classroom Management (Thursday 8:30 AM)

Although the IEW method works splendidly for individual instruction, IEW classes do offer some advantages over one-on-one teaching. A predetermined group plan reduces the temptation to linger too long on a particular skill.  In addition, class synergism can dramatically boost progress. Learn organization and implementation strategies that make IEW classes effective for students, comprehensible for parents, manageable for teachers, and rewarding for all. Originally tailored for homeschool classes, the ideas are adaptable for any classroom.

Julie Walker (Moderator) & Panel

Panel Discussion on Starting a Flourishing Tutoring Business, Tuesday 3:30 PM

Jill Pike is a registered nurse with eighteen years of teaching experience as a home educator. As an Accomplished Instructor with Excellence in Writing, she moderates the IEW Families support group and writes lesson plans to accompany the Student Writing Intensive series. In addition to teaching high school level science and writing classes in her community, she works with her own early elementary students to help them learn to read, write and spell. Having graduated three of their children, Jill and her husband Greg continue to educate five girls at home in Huntington, Indiana.

Workshops:

Primary Writing: From Printing to Composition, Monday 4:30 PM
It is amazing what primary children need to accomplish in a short period of time. This workshop will explore the activities which ensure students are successful from letter stroke to composition. Letter formation and letter stories will be explained along with games to ensure letter shapes and sounds stick. Methods of copy work and dictation will be explored along with how to gently introduce young students to the stylistic techniques. Finally, ideas will be presented for developing the elements conducive to writing in a primary classroom.

Primary Reading and Spelling, Tuesday 10:20 AM
Andrew Pudewa has talked about Anna Ingham and her inspiration to many who love children and want to teach them to read, write and spell effectively. This workshop will explore the Blended Sound-Sight method and explain how educators can use her principles in the classroom and at home to teach reading and spelling.

Primary Story Reading and Writing , Tuesday 3:20 PM
Young children love stories and poetry. How can we make the most of this precious time? This workshop will explore the story sequence chart and use it as a springboard for reading comprehension, vocabulary development and story writing with style. Poetry and poetry integration will also be explored.

Andrew Pudewa is the director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and a homeschooling father of seven. Presenting throughout North America, he addresses issues relating to teaching, writing, thinking, spelling, and music with clarity, insight, practical experience, and humor. His seminars for parents, students and teachers have helped transform many a reluctant writer and have equipped educators with powerful tools to dramatically improve students’ skills.
Although he is a graduate of the Talent Education Institute in Japan and holds a Certificate of Child Brain Development from The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his best endorsement is from a young Alaskan boy who called him “the funny man with the wonderful words.” He and his beautiful, heroic wife Robin currently teach live in Tulsa, OK.

Workshops:

Monday Plenary 2:30 What are we really doing here?

Monday 4:30 PM TWSS 1: Units 1 & 2

Tuesday 10:20 AM TWSS 2: Dress ups & Unit 3

Tuesday1:30 PM TWSS 3: Sentence Openers & Unit 4

Tuesday 3:30 PM Response to Literature

Wednesday 10:20 AM TWSS 4: Advanced Dress-ups, Unit 5, Decorations

Wednesday 1:30 PM TWSS 5: Unit 6 &7

Wednesday 3:30 PM Fairy Tales and the Moral Imagination

Thursday 8:30 AMTWSS 5: Unit 6 &7

Thursday 10:20 AM with Dr. Webster Where do we go from here?

Andrew Pudewa will be presenting at the Community Open House, Speaker Potpourri and Book Signing on Tuesday, July 27 at 7:30 PM

Maureen Richards, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S Army Reserve, has taught writing since she began instructing as adjunct faculty for the United States Army Command and General Staff College. Tragically, she noticed that senior officers, with bachelor’s and frequently master’s degrees, would rather attack a live machine gun nest than write a paper. Seeking assistance, she attended graduate school where she stumbled upon Dorothy Sayers’ The Lost Tools of Learning and Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book and realized that clear communication was as much a thinking problem as it was a writing problem. After earning a Masters of Education from Aquinas College, she refined the above principles when she taught 11th grade English and 12th grade rhetoric, with incredible results. By the 4th year, four students earned nearly $250,000 in scholarships in a single essay and interview competition. A few years later, circumstances found her teaching a 5/6th and 7/8th literature and composition in a small K-8 classical Christian school where she discovered that good thinking and writing tools employed at the rhetoric level also worked at the logic level. Her young students’ essays eloquently address the “Ultimate Questions/Subjects of Life and their poetry consciously employs the poetic elements. Maureen is married to Jay, and they have three grown children and two grandchildren.

Workshops:

The Ultimate Questions (5-12th grades) † Monday, 4:30 PM

All authors address the “Ultimate Questions/Subjects of life. Teachers need to help students develop tools to discover what an author is saying about Man, Nature, and God and evaluate the Truth claims made. By screening literature through the “Ultimate Questions, teachers empower logic and rhetoric level writers to reveal an author’s claims through a strategy known as claim/quote/explanation. Amazingly, this writing strategy unconsciously leaves the classroom and follows students into the movie theater too!

Literature as Models for Writing Poetry (5-12th grades) Wednesday, 3:30 PM

What makes poetry great is a difficult concept for students to grasp, until they must compose their own poetry. Poetry writing creates appreciation and poetic competence. By using literature, already read in the classroom, students can easily create long, metered, and rhymed poetry that is imaginative, delightful, engaging. Although currently used primarily with 5/6th graders, the method could be used for Advanced Placement classes to review literature while simultaneously refining or reviewing the elements of poetry.

Contains Faith-Based Content

Best-selling novelist Lee Roddy’s credits include 43 wholesome novels for young readers, 10 adult novels, and 12 nonfiction books with sales in millions of copies. He currently has 30 books in print and is writing new stories. A book reviewer wrote, Lee Roddy is the grand-master of exciting books for young readers. Lee has taught fiction across the USA. His newest book is The Novel Writers Guide to Success published by the Institute for Excellence in Writing. It will be released at the Writing Educators Symposium in July. The author and his wife, Cicely, live in California. They have a grown son, daughter and two grandsons.

Workshops:

From Story Writers to Novelists, Tuesday 10:20 AM

Are your students ready to advance from short story writing to novelettes or entire novels? This session teaches how to create stories with appealing characters, unique situations and emotional conflicts that soar to a dramatic ending. Instruction also alerts teachers about the revolution from traditional to innovative electronic publishing. These offer new opportunities for advanced writers. Success depends on writing good stories. The author’s new book, The Novel Writers Guide to Success will be available.

Teaching Story Writing to Elementary Children, Wednesday 1:30 PM

This session will help you teach students how to write a complete story instead of incidents. Most young writers produce incomplete or minor fragments of an event instead of a real story with a beginning, middle and ending. Using my simple three-point method, students will learn to structure a story with the necessary elements in their proper place under each of the three anchor points. These hold the narrative together and move it forward to completion.

Lee Roddy will be presenting at the Community Open House, Speaker Potpourri and Book Signing on Tuesday, July 27 at 7:30 PM

For the past thirteen years, Janet Spitler has been instructing students from 5th to 12th grades, home-school moms, and private school teachers in the IEW methodology. After her children graduated high school, she began teaching at a classical Christian school. Recently she accepted the full-time position of Classroom Consultant to private and public schools for IEW. Janet and her husband Greg reside in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Workshops:

Debunking the Egalitarian Myth, Wednesday10:20 AM

Every teacher is keenly aware that in language acquisition students are gifted with varying aptitudes and that they arrive in the classroom with varying language experiences. Discover how to release the butterflies without stomping on the caterpillars.

Galloping through Grading, Wednesday 3:30 PM

Gain the tools you need to grade effectively and efficiently. Create a rubric that provides clear, concrete expectations and learn how to move the external, required expectations to internal, natural actions. The importance of indictors, filtering, and editing will be discussed.

Using TWSS Effectively with LD Students, Thursday 8:30 AM

Educators and parents can learn to recognize indicators of learning disabilities and then tackle the disabilities without fear. Using TWSS as an indispensable therapy with which to begin, discover how the program cooperates beautifully with other effective therapies. As a result, use accommodations that actually treat your student’s disability while avoiding those that leave him or her shackled for life. Workshop requirements: a sense of humor and a plentiful amount of hope.

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 4:30 PM

Using examples of children’s compositions from grades 3 to 5, this discussion demonstrates how to encourage creative writing, how to individualize 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.

Teaching English Language Learners, Tuesday 1:30 PM

Descriptions, Dialogues & Flashbacks, Wednesday 10:20 PM

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 1:30 PM

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.

Dr. James B. Webster will be presenting at the Community Open House, Speaker Potpourri and Book Signing on Tuesday, July 27 at 7:30 PM