Mid-Atlantic College Reading & Writing Association 25th Annual Conference October 16-17, 2015 in Ocean City, Maryland

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1 You're invited to the Mid-Atlantic College Reading & Writing Association 25th Annual Conference October 16-17, 2015 in Ocean City, Maryland Today's Classrooms, Tomorrow's Students: Changing Mindset Conference topics include Mindset, Online Writing Portfolios, Paraphrasing Skills, and Using Music to Engage Learners. MACRA Conference Information and Registration can be found at: * Early bird Registration- $ (due by September 15th) Dunes Manor Hotel Information: ( 800) Thursday Single/Double $84.00 Friday Single/Double $ Like us on Facebook: Search Mid-Atlantic College Reading Association We Hope to See You At the Shore!

2 Why I Count Down to MACRA Sandy Eckard, NY Rep. I am working on a new book, and I attend about three conferences each year. But, honestly, my very favorite professional development opportunity is MACRA. Why? Many conferences are so large that you spend more time trying to find sessions than you actually attend. Also, you might plan to meet a few colleagues there-but that's sometimes hit and miss with everyone in separate hotels. MACRA, on the other hand, has tradition. We meet at one hotel, with afternoon tea, and we all spend time together, chatting about our work and our students over afternoon tea. One of my good friends, Elizabeth, and I met through MACRA, and we keep in touch all year. So, in addition to all the meaningful sessions, the interesting speakers, and good conversation, MACRA is a place to reconnect with friends that mean something to us all year. I am happy that we have less than two months now to another exciting MACRA! I truly do look forward to seeing you there!

3 Fearing College Katie Lohinski, Harford CC. The largest barrier student success on written assignments is often his/her anxiety of the end result: the grade. This anxiety manifests itself into many self-defeating behaviors such as avoiding difficult tasks, failing to ask for help, and apologizing for "bad writing". Students are searching for reassurance and an understanding that professors will not judge them. Rebecca D. Cox, wrote about the fears community college students experience in her book, The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another. Cox exposes this disconnect between professors and students by using qualitative data from four studies to illuminate what discourages and terrifies students. She also recounts how student behavior and performance both frustrate and anger professors. Cox first explains a student's experience with not understanding how to write an essay. She received an "X" grade; she had to re-write the entire essay. Instead of asking the teacher for help, she completed all of the other assignments except for the essay. Her professor misinterpreted her actions thinking she did not care about the class. Cox also exposes the frustration professors experience when students enter their classes underprepared for college level work. A history professor confessed that he teaches his students how to write essays due to their lack of knowledge. He admitted his upset in having to teach a "basic skill" and his upset in cutting out course content. Throughout her book, Cox explores the reasons why students fail to earn a college degree. This is a must read for those that work at a community college. Failure is Not an Option.. It is a Requirement Jill Smith, Secretary Instructors strive to help students build critical thinking skills and grasp course content in active, collaborative classrooms. However, in addition to using best practice instructional strategies, what does one author say instructors need to do? They need to let students fail. This series of essays center around the question "What is the value of letting students struggle in class?" (Strauss, 2015). This essay challenges the idea that all learning must be scaffolded. It is a shift in the way most instructors teach and the way students are conditioned to learn. Follow the link to see how one instructor used this approach in her own classroom to help her students perform better when faced with challenging coursework and be better prepared for real-life situations.

4 Reference Strauss, V. (2015, May). Teacher: In my class, failure is not an option. It is a requirement. Retrieved from Guided Reading for the igeneration, by Sandy Graff, N.Y. Rep. Over the years that I have attended the MACRA conference, I have brought back to New York many amazing new ideas to engage my students. One idea that grew from the conference that focused on technology has been great for my "igeneration" students, who have grown up holding a mobile device in their hand. When I saw that students were accessing the MP4 guided reading videos that I had created and uploaded to the learning platform, I knew I was on to something. To my surprise, borderline pass/fail students who accessed the video multiple times before taking the final exam showed significant improvement over previous assessments. One of several ways to create a guided reading video is to download a short article thematically linked to coursework. For example, a Washington Post article with its citation from the college databases about the rise in autism prevalence pairs nicely with my course novel Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Insert text boxes down the article's right margin at key points into which you type in annotations using italics in blue to simulate handwritten annotations. In the first box type in preview questions, such as: How is the rate of autism increasing? What do I know about autism? In the other boxes type in annotations to mark key points, such as an example or a reason and underline those points in the text. Save to a PDF file and open it on your screen. Open and activate the free recording feature on the Screencast O'matic website. Begin reading the article aloud and "thinking" aloud. Mention the source reliability as noted in the citation and how the title gives a clue what the article is about. Explain briefly how active reading that you are now modeling helps to understand the article and to summarize it. Read and explain how to figure out what the main idea of the article is as well as the key supporting points. Show how you figure out a word's meaning based on its context. Save the file in MP4 format to upload or share. Nothing goes together like an active reading strategy and an "igen-compatible" format!

5 Adding a New York Times Component to the Reading Program Diane Schellack, NJ Rep. In the last MACRA newsletter, I wrote about how I incorporated a Career Exploration component to the higher reading level at Burlington County College in New Jersey. A number of you reached out to me with questions regarding its implementation. This summer, I am piloting another initiative in my two summer sections. Instead of using a textbook, I was able to secure funding to test an educational program that The New York Times has created. The articles in the program are current and come with lesson suggestions. I plan to use these articles for "Read/ React/ Reflect" activities. The React part will be group discussion, and the Reflect part will involve writing. I intend to incorporate the reading skills from the previously used textbook into the current events articles. This component will only be used in the higher reading level. I will, however, continue to use the Townsend Press vocabulary book with its online access with this higher reading level. I plan to stay with the skill based Townsend Press program for the lower level since our students who place in that level tend to be extremely deficient in their basic skills. I have found Townsend Press to be an excellent and high interest program for addressing these deficiencies. If the pilot goes well, I will be expanding it to all the higher level reading sections at the college this fall. You can read more about the specific program at: If you have any questions about the program, it is best to contact the New York Times directly. The New York Times representative that I have been working with is Christine Patterson, (Education Manager, The New York Times). She has been extremely supportive in this initiative. She can be contacted at: christine.patterson@ineducation.com.