Greenburgh, NY's Poet Laureate, Brenda Connor-Bey, offers interactive and
cross-curricula professional development writing workshops. Workshops
and projects are designed to meet specific programming goals and objectives.
They are adaptable to meet curriculum-based studies for students at all
grade levels.*
Whether conducting staff workshops or classroom residencies, art, literacy and movement
are the cornerstones of her work. Brenda says of her teaching, "My main goal is to get students writing.
More than anything, I want them to enjoy the process and to see that writing is and can be something they
can enjoy and use every day of their lives."
Staff Workshops are designed for participation
by a wide range of educators including: General Education and Special
Needs Education, Art, LOTE/ESL and Foreign Language Teachers and Administrators.
As an outcome, participants acquire arts-in-education projects for use
within their classrooms that address curriculum-based mastery skills in
literacy, art, social studies, math, and science, and challenge their
students' cognitive thinking and creativity. For the past two years, Brenda
has been in an arts & literacy collaboration with visual artist, Karen
Sevell Greenbaum. Poet and artist have created a year-long series of professional
development workshops, follow-up planning sessions and in-class observations
for teachers and administrators for Hawthorne Cedar Knolls in Greenburgh, New York.
Classroom Residencies offer opportunities for
teaching staff to collaborate with Brenda through planning, preparation,
and successful completion of the projects. Customized for grade and ability
levels, Ms. Connor-Bey's classroom residencies are created to model and
integrate a variety of hands-on and interactive techniques that make the
writing experience exciting and memorable for students.
Brenda is affiliated as an independent teaching artist with the arts-in-education
departments of the Neuberger Museum of Art, the Katonah Museum of Art,
Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES, and is an artist roster member with
the Westchester Arts Council.
* Workshops & Residencies conducted in New York
State meet the requirements for the New York Learning Standards
