Using Indigenous children’s literature as mentor texts, this session explores how educators can foster authentic writing through place-based learning and connections to the land. Participants will discover opportunities to honor Indigenous perspectives, strengthen student voice, and inspire meaningful writing experiences rooted in Michigan’s communities, landscapes, and stories.
In this interactive session, participants will engage with personal, cultural and historical identities through the use of graphic novels (GN) focusing on international genocide. Participants will explore their own identity stories and connect those with GN characters and other session participants using identity maps and culturally responsive teaching strategies.
In this interactive session, conference participants map a familiar, shared, or imagined route; study place-based mentor texts; and draft a narrative vignette. This middle school writing sequence uses routes and public places to teach craft while helping students examine whose stories, languages, movements, and memories are centered in everyday places.
