The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy October 31, 2009 Whats Your Wallah?


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The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
October 31, 2009
What's Your Wallah?

In India it's hard to go far without coming across a chai wallah - a person who makes and sells fresh chai tea. It's what they do exclusively, and you can find a chai wallah on scores of street corners, by shrines, even on trains as you travel. They don't sell magazines or give shoe shines or offer any other services. They just make tea.

I realized last night I am a shortbread wallah - I made up a big batch when I was called at the last minute to bring something to an event tomorrow. I know how to make other cookies, but shortbread is what my friends ask for because I've made it so often. We all have at least one simple task or skill we have perfected over time.

I know two literacy coaches who work together in a district. One is gifted when it comes to organizing and making sense of assessment data. The other is amazingly talented at working one-on-one in classrooms with teachers, nudging them out of their comfort zones. These two coaches decided long ago to rethink their workloads, giving far more of the assessment load to the data wallah and more classroom coaching time to the conferring wallah. They are both happier in their work - wonderful collaborators with each other and their colleagues. Their bosses are delighted that they have beautifully organized data and terrific support for teachers in classrooms. The data wallah does spend some time in classrooms, and the conferring wallah has to pore over numbers now and again. But they've given themselves permission, and so has their administration, to maximize their time and minimize their burnout by doing more of what they do best.

Teachers and literacy coaches are expected to do so many things well - often far too many things well. We excel at some tasks, and muddle through many others. There is much to be gained by getting creative in reallocating responsibilities. My good friends Joan Moser and Gail Boushey ("The Sisters") work so well together in part because they respect each other's strengths. Joan has a special talent for dealing with difficult people; there's no one I'd want with me more than Gail when my computer and sound system blows up in the middle of a presentation. They have a tacit agreement that Joan is their conflict wallah and Gail is their tech wallah. Can Joan work through a software problem? Of course - I've seen her do it more than once. And I've also been there when Gail carefully and skillfully talked through an issue with someone ready to pitch a fit. Yet whenever they are together and have a choice, they immediately choose Gail to resolve tech issues and Joan to smooth over people problems.

What's your wallah? What's the wallah of the teacher next door, or the other literacy coach in your school? Can you partner and rejigger your responsibilities so that you're doing more of what you love, or at least what you do well and efficiently? One thing about those chai wallahs in India - no brew tastes exactly the same. Even when you do something well, you have your own particular flair with the task. When we watch anyone who has truly mastered a skill, we learn more than we do stumbling our way through it, alone and discouraged. Sweet tea indeed.

This week we have lots of resources for starting November organized and inspired. Enjoy!

Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

From the Choice Literacy Archives, Letters from Home are a great way to get to know your students or colleagues. This is a one-time activity that can enhance or supplement any upcoming event for families, whether it's a holiday open house, parent-teacher conferences, or just a literacy night:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/153.cfm

The start of any month is worth a click over to the Education Oasis for their curriculum calendar of learning links. November's resources include literacy links for kids connected to Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, as well as birthdays and websites for a slew of favorite authors:

http://bit.ly/5dk2p

Jon Scieszka's fabulous site Guys Read has been revamped and recharged so it is more useful and fun than ever. We've featured the site before, but you might want to revisit, scroll down, and read through the new categories of books for guys. My favorite is books with "At Least One Explosion." His picks are bound to appeal to even the most reluctant boy readers:

http://www.guysread.com/

The Poetry Foundation has launched their Learning Lab for teachers and students. There are lots of fun and provocative poetry resources here, from how to use Robert Frost poems in the science curriculum to how poetry can help teachers connect with struggling readers:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/articles.html

This is not a literacy link, but if you're curious about those chai wallahs (or just love a good cup of tea), you can learn more about them in this photo essay:

http://chaipilgrimage.com/category/chai-wallahs/

For Members Only

This week's video features Clare Landrigan guiding a small group of 5th graders through the comprehension strategy of finding evidence in text and making predictions:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1016.cfm

Franki Sibberson describes how the topics and arrangements of baskets in the classroom library give strong messages about reading to students:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1011.cfm

Is there a great divide in your classroom between numerical data from assessments and your anecdotal notes? Cathy Mere bridges the gap with her Class Reading Grid, a nifty tool for recording and analyzing a whole classroom's worth of student assessment data on one page. A template is included:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1015.cfm

Both Franki and Cathy's articles are included in the new Digest Series we are launching this week on Teaching Beyond Levels. This digest will run every two weeks through the fall. The first issue includes a special section on working with gifted young readers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1010.cfm

Finally, if you're a new member and looking for an easy way into the 1000+ articles and videos available at Choice Literacy, the Big Fresh Archives is a great place to start:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department62.cfm

That's all for this week!