The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
June 19, 2010
Passionate Learners
This week I was reading an interview with Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO
of Nvidia (a graphics chipmaker). When Jen-Hsun
interviews potential employees, the thing he looks for is
passion. How does he recognize passion in an interview? He
explains, "If you use words like love - 'I love doing this' - you can
just tell when somebody's passionate about something."
We all have "must do" work this summer, but what are you most looking
forward to this summer? The joy of being a literacy specialist is
that we can build our skills and knowledge base by reading and writing
about almost anything, if we just stop now and again to reflect on our
own literate lives. In fact, this self-reflection
is crucial for understanding the literacy learners around us.
What I'm most looking forward to this summer is meeting my new niece,
recently adopted from a country in eastern Europe. I'll set some
time to read and write about her homeland, how siblings adapt to new
children, and the best children's books for the transition. I
can't wait to dive into new texts and websites on these topics.
Set aside what you must do this summer for a moment, and think about
what you are most looking forward to - is it a family vacation,
the birth of a grandchild, finally getting the yard landscaped, a class
reunion? Is there any way you can set aside some more
reading and writing to learn about whatever it is you're anticipating
joyfully in the coming months? It's reading and writing you'll be
passionate about, and literacy that starts with love is sure to include
some unexpected learning about how to ignite passion for reading and
writing in your students and colleagues. Think ahead to the fall,
and imagine saying "I loved reading about ________." What
instantly springs to mind is what is sure to keep you passionate about
literacy all summer long.
This is our last newsletter before our annual two-week summer
break. I'm looking forward to meeting many of our subscribers at
our workshops over the next two weeks in Ohio and Washington.
We'll be back in early July with lots more new content. In the
meantime, I hope you'll fill out our survey with your suggestions for
literacy at the start of the school year. We gave out over 40
free memberships to the websites with our last survey, and hope to give
out just as many with the new one. Happy Summer!
Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy
Free for All
How about getting together with colleagues over a professional book
this summer? From the Choice Literacy Archives, Shari Frost has
suggestions for the kinds of books that work best in book clubs for
educators, as well as a list of her current favorites:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1157.cfm
Share your favorite literacy activity for the start of the year by
completing our new survey. If we post your idea, you'll receive a
free membership to Choice Literacy. You can complete our survey
at this link. It's a whopping one question, and shouldn't take
more than a few minutes of your time:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/J9562T7
Are you a "word nerd"? Check out the 50 coolest sites for word
nerds at this link. Save the Words (a site that allows you to to
"adopt" words that are in danger of disappearing from the lexicon) and
Morpheme Machine (for creating new words from morphemes) are two of my
favorites:
http://bit.ly/bIeP4q
Teachers who are designing their own self-paced, stress-free learning
for the summer will love this link from Teacher Reboot Camp. It
includes 35 free online summer learning resources for educators:
http://bit.ly/bfxpj7
*If your school server doesn't allow shortened links, you can access
the "word nerd" site by copying and pasting the full link below into
your browser:
http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2010/05/50-coolest-online-tools-for-word-nerds/
The full Teacher Reboot Camp link is here:
http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2010/06/11/how-will-you-develop-professionally-this-summer-35-resources/
Are you heading to NCTE this fall in Orlando? Consider coming a
day early for a Choice Literacy Workshop. Presenters include
Jennifer Allen, Gail Boushey & Joan Moser, Clare Landrigan &
Tammy Mulligan, and Franki Sibberson. You can download more
information and a registration flyer at this link (it's a two-page PDF
file):
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/orlando2010.pdf
For Members Only
"Am I teaching it right?" It's the question literacy coaches
dread after demonstration lessons. Clare Landrigan and Tammy
Mulligan provide four practical tips for moving the conversation from
"right/wrong" into more reflective terrain:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1202.cfm
Brian Kelley finds his third graders are still struggling with the
concept of theme, even after multiple readings of quality
literature. His solution? Take a detour into the lyrics of
a popular Miley Cyrus song, and help students understand theme in a new
way:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1203.cfm
Rereading is a powerful tool for helping students grasp new strategies
and skills. In this week's video, Katie DiCesare rereads a favorite text
to help her first graders dig deeper into words that rhyme:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1204.cfm
Video Updates: We continue to repost many videos in new formats
and players (with higher resolution and full-screen options). As
we make these improvements, we'll announce them in the newsletter. Here
is an updated video you may want to revisit -
Katie Doherty shows the power of using picture books with middle school
students to teach the strategy of inferring:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/1205.cfm
That's all for this week!
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