For Teachers and Coaches and Students
Enrich Your Classroom, Encourage Your Staff
• Perfect for all those called to coach and teach middle school and high school as well as for middle school and high school students – lessons gleaned from the pages of Warriors Forever. This presentation, based on the book, follows legendary coach Alex Saudargas, and his tough-as-nails wife Alice, to whom the book is dedicated. She is a wife, mother, teacher, principal, school board member, and lifelong advocate for all children. He is a coach extraordinaire, truly gifted in a leadership style that inspired hundreds of students and athletes – his story and the story of those he led, including the 1955 and 1956 state basketball championship teams – now captured in Warriors Forever – will carry on their legend and legacy to help bring out the best in all of us today and for generations to come.
Title I & Other Programs
School And District Programs For Students And Teachers
• “How A Book Is Born” — A Reading And Writing Program For Students Of All Ages is a program with entertaining illustrations of how we find, capture, and develop ideas into finished stories. Students will see how artists develop illustrations and how the writing and art are merged to produce a finished product. They see that effective and successful writing is accomplished by rewriting, revising, and editing. The point is graphically reinforced with art elements which they see evolve from rough doodles and early sketches into full color illustrations. I explain the challenges writers and artists face in overcoming initial inertia and emphasize the importance of taking that first step — getting started. Because John shares from his own experiences with his own books, he is able to adapt his programs to the specific needs and interests of each group and to provide personal anecdotes to encourage and motivate the students in their work. The program includes an overview of book production and an explanation that books are only one of many expressions of writers’ work.
““How A Book Is Born” is a guided tour of writing processes common to narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive writing. It is an instructive, motivational tour that explains and illustrates techniques to:
• find, capture, and develop ideas;
John Gile describing elements of his signature program
• organize writing elements;
• overcome writer’s block to complete writing assignments promptly;
• produce writing that is clear, concise, cogent, and compelling;
• enliven and strengthen writing with similes, metaphors, analogies, personification;
• avoid common writing pitfalls that can make writing seem difficult;
• create and merge illustrations;
• benefit from the reading/writing connection;
• use journals to strengthen “whole brain” thinking and writing skills.”
• Author – in – Residence Programs — For Teachers, Parents, and Students — Extended presence maximizes opportunities for working with students in small groups, for addressing the interests, needs, and questions of individual students, and for putting theory into practice by writing a book or books together as classroom projects. It is beneficial both for students who hate writing and for students who love writing. Extended presence also maximizes opportunities to address concerns of teachers and parents and to answer their questions more fully.
• Using Imaginative Literature To Motivate And Empower Students In Reading, Writing, And Thinking Skills is a celebration of the fun and power of writing. Expands on the motivational approaches in Oh, How I Wished I Could Read! and What Is That Thing? Whose Stuff Is This? for helping children read and develop their vocabulary power.
• To Teach Better Writing, Be A Better Writer is packed with practical principles, illustrations, and writing aids to help teachers make the most of their schools’ writing programs and take their students far beyond boring basics. Participants are helped to discover or rediscover the excitement and pleasure of writing in their own lives. This program of enrichment and inspiration for teachers is available as a one hour sampler, a three hour seminar, and a whole day workshop. Private, small group sessions also are available.
• Overcoming The Limitations Of Technology: Education For Reality, Not Virtual Reality explores the critical need to balance high tech with high touch. No matter how many bells and whistles we put on our computers and entertainment systems, no monitor or TV can remotely approach the impact on a child of loving, caring parents and teachers. Today’s children — and adults — need more personal attention and interaction, not less.
• Reading: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters focuses on the power of imaginative literature to change lives and highlights the role of reading and its writing connection in strengthening critical thinking, creativity, and coping skills. It includes a fresh view of the vital role parents and teachers play in helping students develop communication survival skills for the 21st century.
“Children with parents actively involved in their children’s education scored 28 points above average in reading while children with low parental involvement scored 46 points below average in national testing cited by the U.S. Secretary of Education. That 74 point spread is about one third of the average score. Those results remind us that helping children develop reading power and all the powers which flow out of reading is a team effort. Parents have about a third of the responsibility, teachers have about a third of the responsibility, and the children themselves have about a third of the responsibility. Each of us has a vital role to play, a contribution to make.”
— John Gile, World Congress of the International Reading Association
• Rekindling The Fire, Refilling The Cup: First Aid For Teachers And Parents provides tips and tools for growth in understanding and accepting of ourselves and others.
• “I have three brothers I hardly liked till I heard your story” — Keeping The Peace At Home And In School: Brothers and sisters — and friends at school — sometimes don’t get along with each other. Find out the surprising results of one father’s peacemaking efforts crystallized in The First Forest — and how you can benefit from the experience at home and in school.
• Words, Pictures, Fun — And Power: Parents, Teachers, And Children Growing Together fosters a deep appreciation of our life-changing reading and writing powers and provides parents and teachers with tips and tools they can use to help their children develop those powers — and have fun in the process.
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