The history of American literature and the culture it represents, and the history of racial relations as an integral part of that culture, have coexisted since the literature’s inception at the “Birth of a Nation.” Racial discourse in our literature has continued through successive generations to our own. Writers are the artists who are often best able to illuminate our racial sensitivities, sensibilities, tensions, and incongruities, providing us rich insights. In this course, each class will undertake an examination of a single acknowledged masterpiece in our literature, that takes up racial boundaries, racial violence and racial justice (or the lack thereof) as part of its theme. Works were chosen for both their literary and social value. Through close textual examination of central thematic issues and hopefully, rigorous, invigorating, class discussions, we will examine what these texts offered America at the time they were written, and even more importantly, what they have to say to us today.

The middle grade years, from grades 3-8, are a critical time for students to develop strong comprehension skills. Early reading issues become more problematic as students are expected to learn increasingly challenging content material. While some older students struggle with decoding, many more have difficulty constructing deep meaning from text. How can we close the ever-widening achievement gap? Participants in this workshop will examine Readorium, an automatically adaptive, web-based reading in science program that teaches students the skills and strategies needed to comprehend rich, grade-appropriate nonfiction text. This 90-minute interactive workshop is designed to meet the following objectives. Objective 1: Participants will learn specific methods for helping students become better at reading grade-appropriate Science informational text, as well as effective methods to keep students continually engaged with text as they read. Objective 2: Participants will explore the Readorium Teacher Resource Center where they will learn about useful tools to support Science content instruction as well as simple, but powerful, ways to differentiate instruction based on data so that the needs of all students can be met. Objective 3: Participants will learn about the impact of a strong, blended instructional model.

The Dignity for All Students Act requires all newly certified (December, 2013 and after) educators to undergo a minimum of 6 hours of training by a NYS certified provider. The Peconic Teacher Center is offering a 6-hour workshop for all Consortium teachers who are required to take the training. Ms. Nancy Wicker, a certified DASA trainer, will be conducting the workshop. 4 – 10 p.m. Please bring a light dinner as we will work straight through allowing a short break. Check or money order payment of $115 to the Peconic Teacher Center by Thursday April 18, 2019. To register, please go to www.peconicteachercenter.org and click on the MyLearningPlan link. If new to MLP please click on enroll and create a password and to confirm your attendance submit your fee payable to “Peconic Teacher Center” for $115.00 along with your name, school, personal email, cell #, and address by Thursday, April 18, 2019 and mail to: Peconic Teacher Center, 141 Narrow Lane, Southampton, NY 11968