Professor Ashley B. Armstrong presented at the Legal Writing Institute’s (LWI) “Teacher Training Bootcamp 2.0″ on December 18th. The virtual workshop was hosted by Stetson University and covered second-semester 1L legal writing—including how to teach persuasion and oral argument, classroom activities and exercises, and professional development. Professor Armstrong presented on a panel discussion introducing effective classroom exercises to participants. Armstrong’s exercise focused on crafting impactful preliminary statements and included analysis of several examples. Her lesson leveraged participatory pedagogy, integrated think-pair-share cooperative learning strategy, and featured legal writing guru Ross Guberman’s four techniques for developing compelling themes.

The Legal Writing Institute (LWI) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1985. LWI is dedicated to improving legal communication by supporting the development of teaching and scholarly resources and establishing forums to discuss the study, teaching, and practice of professional legal writing. This is the second annual “Bootcamp 2.0.” LWI also hosts a fall “New Teacher Training Bootcamp” that covers first semester best practices for predictive legal writing.