UAB to host civil rights-themed national writing conference for teachers

The conference is being held in conjunction with the citywide commemoration of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham.

RMWPThe UAB Red Mountain Writing Project (RMWP), the School of Education and the 21st Century Literacies Conference will host educators from across the country for the National Writing Project’s Urban Sites Network Conference April 26-27, 2013. The theme is “Writers of Social Justice: How One Pen Can Change the World.” The conference is being held in conjunction with the citywide commemoration of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham.

The conference will feature a host of civil rights-themed events, including a roundtable with civil rights movers and shakers, as well as tours to historic sites. Author and social-justice speaker Helen Shores Lee will be a featured speaker. She will provide firsthand accounts of living during the turbulent movement as the daughter of famed civil rights attorney Arthur Shores.

Also, literacy speaker Steve Zemelman, an author and former director of the Center for City Schools who is the co-founder and director of the Illinois Writing Project, will be a guest speaker.

The Red Mountain Writing Project is a local affiliate of the National Writing Project and has a mission to give teachers new and innovative strategies for literacy instruction. The RMWP, founded in 2004, has impacted more than 100 teachers from north central Alabama through its annual Invitational Summer Institute; those teachers have created and implemented professional development opportunities for hundreds of other teachers.