Generously funded by the Community Foundation for Nantucket’s Nantucket Fund, Nantucket Lighthouse School is delighted to be hosting children’s author and Writer’s Workshop educator Ralph Fletcher on Wednesday, October 16, for a series of talks and a free professional development workshop for island educators.
Fletcher, part of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, has served as a mentor to educators and young writers for decades. He is also an award-winning author of more than 20 books for children and young adults, including Fig Pudding, Twilight Comes Twice, The Writer’s Notebook, and Marshfield Dreams: When I Was a Kid, among others.
He will spend the day inside Nantucket Lighthouse School’s preschool-8th grade classrooms, reading aloud and leading book discussions on his award-winning books.
Nantucket Lighthouse School Head of School, Christine Hanson, shared “We are delighted to welcome Ralph Fletcher and learn about how to effectively modify our writing classrooms to make writing more accessible for boys.”
At 3:00PM on October 16, Nantucket Lighthouse School will host a professional development workshop with Fletcher entitled “Engaging Boy Writers.” In his workshop, Fletcher will draw upon his years of experience as teacher mentor, children’s book author, and father of four boys. The talk, title and theme of his presentation is not meant to advocate for the promotion of the interests of boys at the expense of girls. Instead, he will ask teachers to consider the well-researched ‘gender achievement gap’ in education and the data that demonstrates male students falling behind female students across the grades and subjects. He will ask teachers to imagine the writing classroom from a boy’s perspective and consider specific steps they might take to create stimulating classrooms for boys.
The professional development workshop is free and open to all Nantucket educators with thanks to the generosity of the Community Foundation for Nantucket and the Nantucket Fund. To register for the workshop, contact Alicia Lynn at Nantucket Lighthouse School: 508-228-0427
