The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
November 27, 2009
A Verb and a Decision
Monday morning I sat on an airplane, preparing to fly home for the
Thanksgiving holiday. The pilot stood in the center aisle, giving
the usual spiel about flight time, weather back home, and rattling off
the names of the co-pilot and three flight attendants.
He concluded with these words, "If there is anything we can do to make
your flight more enjoyable, please let us know. We really love
this airline, and we hope you'll come to love it too."
We really love what we do, and we hope you'll come to love it too.
As much as I've enjoyed my work at different schools over the years, I
don't think I've ever declared myself so publicly to a large group of
strangers. Love not as a feeling, but as a verb and a decision. I
wondered how the mood might shift at a welcome night early in the fall
for families new to the school, if they heard the principal say, "Our
staff really loves this school - we hope you'll come to love it
too." Or if at a literacy open house they heard you say, "I
really love reading aloud to your child, and I hope you'll love it
too." Or at the first mentor meeting of the year - "I love
this program - it made all the difference to me when I was a new
teacher, and I hope it does for you, too." Or to a child, "I
loved this book when I was your age - I hope you'll love it too."
Times are hard, and many in our communities are struggling. In
the midst of all that, maybe we need a little less "Fasten your
seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy ride" and a little more "Fasten
your seatbelts, and prepare to be delighted."
This week, we've got some thoughts from Kathy Collins on how holiday
meal planning is a lot like differentiation in classrooms. Let me be
the first to say I loved this essay, and I hope you will too.
Plus more new features as always - enjoy!
Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy
Free for All
Kathy Collins compares differentiation in classrooms to holiday meal
planning, and realizes the process is all about attitude and heart:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1035.cfm
The holidays are the most stressful time of year for many people.
Smart Teaching offers 101 Ways to Cope with Teaching Stress:
http://bit.ly/szwk7
The Children's Illustration Blog is (understandably) highly visual, and
a great way to keep up with what's new and exciting in picture book
imagery:
http://picturebookillustration.blogspot.com/
Creating the Ideal Classroom Atmosphere from The Poetry Archive
includes a dozen practical tips and activities for helping students
develop listening skills. While the context here is poetry, the
suggestions are useful for teaching focusing skills in any classroom:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/teachersTips.do
For Members Only
In I Need a Hero, Terry Thompson provides five easy steps for
incorporating the use of more graphica and comics in your teaching:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1014.cfm
Terry's article is the lead article in our new Teaching Beyond Reading
Levels Digest. This week's edition focuses on teaching with
comics and graphic novels. If you haven't checked out the new
digests feature, you're missing some excellent compilations of
materials from Choice Literacy and across the web:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1034.cfm
Heather Rader explores the fine art of asking specific questions during
coaching debrief sessions in You Get What You Ask For:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1032.cfm
In this week's video, Katie DiCesare presents a writing minilesson to
her first graders on "envisioning" their writing - using mental images to
pump up the quality of the verbs and infuse more energy in drafts:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1036.cfm
Finally, if it's been awhile since you've visited the site and you want
to catch up on what you've missed recently, the Big Fresh Archives is a
terrific place to start:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department62.cfm
That's all for this week!
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Jennifer Allen
