2008 Annual Fall Conference
2008 Tucson TAWL Fall Conference Saturday, November 1, 2008 Pueblo Gardens Elementary School 2210 E. 33rd St. Tucson, Arizona “Intentional Inquiry: Powerful Learning for Students and Teachers” Thank you to our keynote and breakout session speakers, to our exhibitors and vendors, to all the members of the conference committee, and to everyone who attended this year’s conference. It was a wonderful day of learning! Dr. Karen Smith, ASU Professor of Education Silvia Edgerton and Sarah Diaz, Silvestre Herrera Fine Arts and Dual Language School, Phoenix, Arizona Together our speakers have been exploring possibilities for student and teacher inquiry within rich, diverse, multilingual classrooms. Given the ever-increasing restrictions placed on all classrooms, and especially on our classrooms that serve English Language Learners, Tucson TAWL is especially delighted to welcome these respected educators. Karen Smith is an associate professor at Arizona State University. She taught 5th and 6th grade at Silvestre Herrera Fine Arts and Dual Language School in Phoenix, Arizona for several years before assuming her faculty position at ASU. She continues to work with the teachers at Herrera School to explore ways to support their inquiries into their practice and their students’ learning. Silvia Edgerton has worked at Silvestre Herrera Fine Arts and Dual Language School in Phoenix, Arizona for the past 26 years. During this time she has been a bilingual classroom teacher and Title III staff development facilitator. Currently, she is serving as assistant principal. Silvia’s interests include providing Herrera students with quality instruction that honors their linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Sarah Diaz is a first grade dual language teacher at Silvestre Herrera Fine Arts and Dual Language School in Phoenix. Sarah’s unquenchable thirst for learning and providing a quality education for her students has moved her toward creating curriculum that puts students’ lives and voices at the center of what they are learning and experiencing in her classroom. Silvestre S. Herrera Elementary Fine Arts and Dual Language School is located in Phoenix, Arizona’s urban core and is in the city’s oldest Hispanic community. Today it is well defined by its residents’ deep-seated pride in their cultural and linguistic heritage. Herrera’s population is predominately working-class Latino, consisting of both immigrant students and students born in the United States. A central feature of the school is its commitment to bilingual education, and for the past several years, several of the teachers have engaged in systematic inquiry into defining and implementing a bi-literacy program that takes into account students’ rich cultural and linguistic resources and the academic needs of these students.