4-17-10 Performing How Funky Is Your Chicken at the Zachary Area Reading Council Conference
Friends:
On Saturday, I was the keynote speaker for the Zachary Area Reading Council (ZARC) in Zachary, Louisiana. They are a chapter of the International Reading Association. I spoke and gave two break-out sessions, “Handmade Tales,” and “Story Fest.”
In my “Handmade Tales” workshop, I taught the teachers several make and take tales that they could integrate into their lesson plans and teach the students. They did cut and tell tales, draw and tell tales, fold and tell tales, and I even showed them a little bit of Tangram Tales.
4-17-10 ZARC Handmade Tales workshop participants create a snow blizzard with coffee filter snowflakes
They loved making Bandana Man and I surprised them by giving them the bandanas to keep. 
4-17-10 ZARC Handmade Tales workshop participants make Bandana Man
My second session was “Story Fest: Reading Comprehension through Story Theater.” They did individual, partner and group role playing warm-up exercises. Boy, did they stretch their imaginations and have fun!
4-17-10 ZARC Story Fest workshop participants portray a woman walking her dog in central park
It was fun seeing them move through the task progression into group work.
4-17-10 ZARC Teachers in Story Fest workshop portray a football player kicking a ball through the field goal posts
The culminating activity of the workshop was the creation and performance of a group story theater: “The Turtle Who Would Not Stop Talking.”
It was a great day and I enjoyed working with all those wonderful teachers. Thank you Michelle Cardonella for driving all the way from the North Shore to see me! Thank you to Heather Stone for coordinating the event and my schedule. And a special thank you to Holly Stone-Barker for housing me and arranging a book signing at Jack and Jill that afternoon in Zachary, Louisiana.
Up next: an author visit to Zachary Elementary on Monday, April 19, 2010.
Until next time…
Warmly, Dianne
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But my room was packed to capacity. I received lots of compliments on all my workshops. I also told The Cajun Cornbread Boy at the awards luncheon and afterward, my book, The Cajun Cornbread Boy, sold out. I autographed a lot of books at this wonderful conference! It was a pleasure and an honor to do so.
