Seminar Descriptions

Family Reading Club Seminar
Dr. McLean Dade is a part of a growing movement that advocates for the development of community family reading clubs and opening media outlets that allow for families to interact on relative topics worldwide.  The following seminar is presented with this in mind.

The Family Reading Seminar with guest author, Dr. Karen B. McLean Dade introduces parents/caregivers and their adolescent children to a home reading experience that focuses on interactive exploration in areas of cultural identity development and social responsibility. Using the first volume of her new book series titled, "Divine N Promise: A Difficult Journey," Dr. McLean Dade helps to ignite exciting dialogue, reading strategies and activities through the hard life and diverse experiences of Divine and Promise, who are teenage twins that many youth can relate to.  This introductory seminar seeks to enhance the family bond and to discuss real life issues that young people face in today’s world.  As families exchange perspectives about the book content, youth needs and parental guidance on life situations are able to surface in a more creative, positive and intellectually stimulating environment.

Secondary School Seminars
School Community Family Reading Night Seminar
In seeking outreach to the family community, the seminar invites middle and high school youth and their parents/caregivers to attend an exciting night of performed book excerpts and poetry. These events include interactive guided discussions between student performers, teachers, parents, and community. For centuries, theatre has assisted societies in areas of community advocacy and in changing the way we view the learning process. This style of creative curriculum has a strong correlation, to successful student learning, social development, self-efficacy, and academic achievement, with implications to enhancing overall family literacy.

Middle and/or High School Book Club Seminar
This secondary school readers’ club seminar, with guest author, Dr. Karen B. McLean Dade focuses on a participatory reading activity using volume one of her new book series titled, “Divine N Promise: A Difficult Journey.” Contemporary stories that have practical value in the lives of adolescents often increase their motivation for reading. This seminar includes discussion and creative art activities centered on comprehension, reading motivation, cultural identity development and social responsibility. Additionally, the goal of this seminar is to promote formulating school book clubs and to give students the opportunity to dialogue first hand with an author/educator.

Educators’ Seminars
Volume One Divine N Promise: A Difficult Journey (KO Publishers, 2009) is authored by the presenter. It is a 6-volume “real life” series, written for middle/high school students and their families. It focuses on literacy enrichment and learning motivation. It has a toolbox of activities for teachers/students with each chapter. This workshop will introduce key concepts from the volume such as, cultural identity development and social responsibility. Education contemporary novels such as the Divine N Promise series, have demonstrated success with urban school children and beyond. Real life stories can relate to and have practical value in the lives of today’s youth, and increases their motivation for reading. The main activity in this workshop will be strategies to establish “real life” book clubs for the classroom, after school programs, and families.

Toward a Literacy of Promise: Joining the African American Struggle The title of this workshop is coined from the recently published book of the same title (Routledge, 2009). “The book is dedicated to all teachers who have the courage to teach about things that really matter.” This workshop will probe, discuss and facilitate activities pertinent to the issues and strategies presented in book such as, (1) Problems and Promises, (2) Literary Texts (3) Oral and Popular Texts. A special focus on how to integrate the arts will be featured using Chapter 9 “Voices of Our Youth: Antiracist Social Justice Theatre Arts Makes a Difference in the Classroom” a chapter authored by the workshop presenter. This workshop is designed for educators interested in cross cultural and creative learning style strategies.

Go Beyond Expectation "Read To Succeed"
Middle/High School “Real-Life” Family Literacy Event available in your city.
This two-fold event entails:

Middle/High School Workshop
The Read to Succeed Readers’ Theatre Workshop is a culturally creative approach designed to stimulate reading and writing motivation for urban secondary school students. The aim of this workshop is to help increase confidence and academic performance for youth aspiring to attend college.

Parent Engagement Workshop
The Parent Engagement Workshop helps parents to have power conversations with their teens. These supportive conversations will enable their children to learn through inquiry to become better critical thinkers, problem solvers, and effective classroom students.

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