Break From Homework + Advice about a Workshop Presentation

Wow. It's been about a month since my last post. I've been too busy to catch my breath, let alone blog. However, I've spent the last hour and a half (that I'm supposed to be doing homework) catching up on reading everyone's wonderful blogs.

By the way...I missed the giant bloglovin' giveaway that was going around, but I've added the bloglovin' widget to my blog, so please follow me :)

This is my last week on campus in Walla Walla. Then I have one more week to finish up projects and wrap up my online class. I haven't been home in over two weeks. I'm getting eager for my own bed, organizing my house, and starting to think about my classroom again. I have managed to see my husband every weekend, which is lovely. Last weekend we met out in North Carolina for his cousin's wedding. It was my second time in the south (Florida excluded). The wedding was at a neat little castle somewhere outside of Charlotte. It was in a woodsy area and I was amazed (not being from the south) at how noisy it is outside. My experience from the south outdoors comes from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. Needless to say, my husband and mother-in-law had to share with me that the sounds coming from the moat (yes...a moat) were not from a recording, but actual real-life frogs :) hehe...

This last weekend we met up midway between Seattle and Walla Walla and went camping with some friends of ours and my sister and her family. It was great, though 100 degrees the whole time, so we're feeling a bit baked.

I'm stalling a bit from the homework, because the amount has been overwhelming. I'm wondering if I work full time with no breaks until everything is due if I will be able to get it all done. I've neglected pretty much everything except eating, some sleeping, and working out. I had high hopes for TpT products, but nothing has been happening there either. At the end, I will have finished 12 credits (16 if you count my professional project - but that's not due until the spring), wrote about 40 pages of academic research papers, logged between 60 - 100 hours of research, read countless amount of chapters, and spend many hours in class. I'm tired.

However, I have to begin thinking forward to August. This is where I need your help (if you've made it through this long post). I'm doing a workshop on Reading and Writing Workshop for our inservice meetings for some of the teachers in our conference (like a district) before school starts. It's 45 minutes long, and I will have people in it who will have never done workshops before and people who have and are just looking for a bit more information.

What do you think are the most important topics to cover? Obviously I'll talk about the basic structure of the workshops and the components (mini-lesson, independent time, conferencing/guided reading, closing). I'll cover anchor charts and doing advance planning on the lessons/conferences to make sure all curriculum is covered. Please comment and let me know what topics you think are the most important.

Thanks and please send me productive thoughts to make it through my final 2 weeks. Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post...I scratched the lens on my iphone and can't take any pictures....need to get a new one soon.