Long Island Children's Museum
Friday, November 16, 2018
9:30am-3:30pm

Option 1:
Session #A: Opportunities with NYSCA

Kristin Herron, Arts Program Director, Architecture + Design, Museum, New York State Council on the Arts

Session #B: Reclaiming our Time: Making History Relevant by Connecting Slavery and Racism in Modern America

Kara Gaffken, Director of Public Programming, Historic Huguenot Street

Discover how three organizations came together to shed light on the connection between slavery in America and the continued racism and discrimination in American society. We will divulge how we turned an immersive, overnight experience in a slave cellar into five, first-person monologues; includes live performance.

Session #C: CTLE and Me: How to Meet the Needs of Educators

James R. Jenkins, Museum Instructor, New York State Museum
Michael Stevens, Museum Educator, School and Teacher Programs, Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum

Engaging teachers can be a difficult even without NYSED Continued Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) requirements. This session will provide an overview of the requirements and the application process. Session leaders will offer examples of teacher workshops that meet CTLE requirements and discuss how to improve and attract teachers to your programs.

Option 2:
Full Day Workshop: Finding the Words: Interpretive Writing Workshop

Kris Wetterlund, Director of Education and Interpretation, Corning Museum of Glass

This writing workshop is designed to give you the skills to write engaging and informative interpretive text for the general museum visitor using storytelling techniques, museum visitor studies data and creative nonfiction principles. The workshop will also give you time and space to practice these skills.

For the workshop you’ll need to bring an image of one work of art to write about. You may bring supporting information about the work of art, but it’s not necessary. You may also bring writing you plan to revise, or you may start with a blank slate. You’ll also need whatever writing tools you prefer: pen or pencil and paper, computer, iPad or any other tool you like to use.

Writing Workshop Outline
1. Learn about core messages.
2. Learn about core messages and how to apply constructivist learning theory in interpretive writing.
3. Understand the difference between writing about concrete versus abstract concepts.
4. Learn about the average adult museum visitor and what they read in everyday life.
5. Capitalize on the power of the unexpected and use mysteries to capture attention.
6. Learn rules for good writing in any arena, including understanding active versus passive text.
7. Explore National Geographic magazine captions.
8. Learn how to make interpretive text personal.
9. Appeal to a reader’s identity to answer the question: Why should I care?
10. Learn the science behind storytelling and use it as a powerful tool for interpretation.
11. Readability: what is it and how to assess it.

Thank you to our Sponsors!