Parmala Farmer and Lana O'Shields, Grand Prize Winners in the "Why My Literacy Leader is Better Than Chocolate" Contest

Brenda Power

While reading the entries in the "Why My Literacy Leader is Better Than Chocolate" Contest, reviewers all noted the same thing -- what's most striking about literacy leadership is how many different forms it can take. If we want high standards in schools, we have to resist the urge to standardize everything. As teachers shared stories of their colleagues, it was clear that each leader forges relationships based upon the unique communities they live in, the distinct teachers before them, and especially, the emerging literacy of the students in their care.

This was a whimsical, fun one-time contest. All winners received Godiva chocolates just in time for Valentine's Day, DVD workshop kits, and complimentary subscriptions to Choice Literacy. Yet we were so inspired by the responses we've decided to start a new feature at Choice Literacy, profiling one leader a month from a different part of the country. These stories are too good and important to share only in a brief, capsule form.

We've provided excerpts from the winning nominations below, but look for extended profiles of many of these leaders (and others) in the coming months.

Grand Prize Winner: Parmala Farmer (Landrum, South Carolina)
Nominated by Lana O'Shields

I was introduced to Parmala a little over three years ago when she became our district literacy coach. During the time I have known her she has challenged me to question my teaching practices and to implement procedures and routines that coincide with my beliefs as a teacher and the way children learn.

One issue we tackled together was reading. When Parmala first arrived I was a teacher who taught reading primarily from the basal and the use of skill sheets. Under her leadership I have totally revamped my reading block. She introduced me to teacher mentors such as Lucy Calkins, Debbie Miler, Sharon Taberski, and Regie Routman. After studying their practices and evaluating my own teaching style I now teach reading in a way that meets the needs of all my students. I do this through small group strategy instruction, whole-group mini-lessons, and individual reading conferences during independent reading time.

The worksheets are gone and real reading experiences are part of our everyday routine. Not only have my students experienced tremendous growth in reading, but their love and enthusiasm for this lifelong skill will be something they will carry with them far beyond the four walls of my classroom.

During the day you will find Parmala leading professional development classes, tutoring children one-on-one, working hand-in-hand with classroom teachers and learning more about the ever-changing profession in which we work. The following passage from Reading with Meaning by Debbie Miller explains my feelings about Parmala and the impact she has had on my teaching perfectly:

"Only when I began to assume responsibility for the teaching, learning, and thinking in my classroom did I understand that I really did know my kids, what they needed, and where they needed to go next. Only then did I begin to believe that I was smart enough to figure this stuff out for myself. I'd had support from Steph [Parmala], yes, but she'd made it clear the decisions were mine to make. She'd trusted me before I'd known to trust myself." (p. 22)

Parmala has only been in my life for three short years, but the influence she has had on my teaching will last a lifetime.

First Prize Winners

Stephanie Blad (Shakopee, MN)
Nominated by Dave Orlowsky

Stephanie, Dave, and a box of chocolates.

Despite Stephanie's vast knowledge, she is completely welcoming and approachable to both staff who may not be as comfortable with a literacy coach in their midst, and to the seasoned teacher who is always striving to implement best literacy practices . . . What is more, ALL opportunities for professional development are geared toward ALL teachers in our building, as Stephanie finds application even to music, PE, and art education staff, making connections for and with them . . .

Dr. Richard Bordeaux (Mission, SD)
Nominated by Lori Jackson

Literacy leadership wears many different faces. There are those who stand before us, to educate and inspire as we reach to shape practice; those whose leadership takes to the page in the form of writing the guides; those who take the forefront in political battles to sustain. And then there are literacy leaders who stand behind us, whose leadership is a quiet, reassuring presence. Doc B, the superintendent in our district, has long recognized and valued the unique needs of Native American children. He has been dedicated to a belief system that honors children in their ability to think, recognizing that packaged programs and government dictates are not quick fixes. Faced with the realities of NCLB, he has never wavered in his constructivist principles.

Our district faced the difficult decision being faced in boardrooms and conference rooms across the country: how to respond to Reading First . . . Do we accept the funding that comes alongside the forced adoption of a reading curriculum with a state seal of approval? Dr. Bordeaux weighed it all carefully, thoughtfully, and then said, No. No Reading First funding if it meant adopting prescriptive programs that do not value the thought processes and potential of stuff and students. Leadership can take the form of consistent support and decisive resistance.

Vanessa Bramlett (Oakland, CA)
Nominated by Cassandra Todd

Picture this. Vanessa is coaching me. Her schedule is busy, she can only come in for 30 minutes twice a week for three weeks. The first day I watch her confer during writer's workshop with a child, I take notes on the structure and language she uses with the child.

Next time she comes, a week later, life has gotten in the way, we sit on the couch in my room and confer with Aaron between us. She asks him what he's working on as a writer and then reads his story, giggling at the funny parts. Then they have a conversation about what authors do to make their stories better. Aaron literally skips off to go work on his story. We look at each other and say simultaneously, "That's how you want them to leave a writing conference!"

Then today, I overheard a short conversation Vanessa had with a new 5th grade teacher. They talked about what Vanessa was doing with students in her class, exclaiming about how what the students were reading was affecting their writing in the classroom. Then Vanessa gave her some ideas on what she could do next with her students. All day long Vanessa has small conversations with everyone in our school community, students, teachers, administrators. In every conversation she joyfully lifts the person she's talking with to be the best teacher, student, administrator they can be. That's why she's better than chocolate.

Natalie Brunelle-Dunning (Portsmouth, RI)
Nominated by Michele Poselli

The Portsmouth Middle School literacy team - Michele is third from left, and Natalie is fourth from left.

I want to whoop and holler about my Literacy Leader and I could not pass up the chance to exclaim about the genius of our new principal! Our middle school was a mecca of stable teachers since opening in the late 70's. Last year, retiring teachers left available positions for other teachers to join. The reading specialists and I met to strategize ways to encourage teachers to collaborate as grade level teams to look at student work. We knew this was not a new concept, yet teachers were accustomed to operating independently.

Each learning center consists of teams of four teachers. Across the grade levels there are four learning centers. We could effectively influence how they interacted with each other if we created a support team to show how collaborating can and will make the difference in their students learning. We created "The Literacy Team". Only one thing was missing. After all, who were we? We were from elementary schools. We were only three people and two of us were there only part time.

Then Natalie, our principal, became the leader of our "Literacy Team." She admitted she knew very little about literacy. She soaked up information we threw at her about literacy; the assessments, mentor colleagues, coaching sessions, study groups and student personal literacy plans. She created a schedule supporting at-risk students while providing opportunities for teachers to sign up for coaching sessions at their discretion. She put the responsibility for learning literacy into the teachers' hands and gradually released them to us!!!! The instructional model in action!

Julie Dermody (Chapel Hill, NC)
Nominated by Bernice Goldstein

Julie and Bernice

My literacy specialist is better than chocolate -- and I love chocolate! To begin with, she's passionate about literacy and shares her passion with both the staff and students at our school. She sees the "big picture" of literacy -- reading, writing, speaking, and listening and she works hard for all of our students -- struggling readers/writers, English language learners, and gifted students.

If you consider what she does as individual pieces of chocolate, you would find a wonderful assortment. The "nutty chocolate" would be what she does for the teachers and staff at our school. These things include: staff development, mentoring teachers, demonstration lessons, posting resources and ideas in a file on our school's email site, and writing grants that have enabled our school to have Writer Cafés and a student-run school bookstore. She also reads and comments about student papers and suggests mini-lessons to bring student writing to the next level (suggestions are followed by resources." By writing weekly articles for students to respond to using their persuasive writing skills, she models writing.

Ginger Featherstone (Martin, FL)
Nominated by Shannon Blount

Ginger and Shannon

My principal, Ginger Featherstone, and I have worked together for almost ten years. She was an assistant principal at my first high school, and when she became principal of the new high school in the district, I jumped at the chance to work for her. I was a reading strategies teacher for my first year which meant that in addition to teaching 9th grade English, I worked with teachers promoting reading across the content areas (quasi reading coach, so to speak).
Mrs. Featherstone made it a point to give me an extra block off in the day to do this job. She was one of the first proponents of literacy in the content areas, being a former science teacher herself. She not only guided me in this new role, but gave me many opportunities to try new things like using administrative periods to teach comprehension strategies to all the staff. When our governor decided to place Reading Coaches/Literacy Coaches in every school, Mrs. Featherstone encouraged me to apply. Thankfully, I was able to continue to work with her and the faculty I'd come to love.

My first year as coach, I thought that doing a school-wide read aloud would be a "novel" idea. She allowed me to form a cross-curricular team to create activites designed to enhance the daily reading schedule of Navajo Code Talkers (also providing subs for plannng.) I found on the internet that a few Navajo Code Talkers were still living and did public speaking, and before I could even tell her of the cost, she said, "We'll do it." She and I went to chamber meetings and rotary clubs to fundraise for our endeavor. I'm pleased to say, we raised more than the $8000 and have an account set up specifically for any reading initiatives we might create.

Amy Greene, Wendy McColley, and Catherine Weiss (Annandale, VA)
Nominated by Jennifer Orr

Our literacy team of Amy, Wendy, and Catherine promotes reading and writing in our school beyond just the traditional methods: workshops, teachers-as-readers groups, bringing in of consultants, purchasing of materials, and attending conferences. However, it is the more creative ways they teach us to encourage and foster literacy that make them worthy of this award.

All three assist individual teachers, and therefore meet the needs of all teachers in a variety of ways. For some teachers they model guided reading, as well as reading, writing, and word-study focus lessons. They also meet weekly with classroom teachers to discuss plans and debate ideas. They are able to identify who needs hand holding, who needs just a push, and who needs some independent time.

By dividing their time between co-teaching language arts in a classroom and coaching other teachers the literacy team brings a balanced perspective and current hands-on experience to their coaching. Everyone in our school reaps the benefits of their knowledge and classroom experience. Their co-teachers feel like literacy masters through the experience of planning, observing, and teaching with their literacy team partner on a daily basis.

Further, the literacy team is able to sympathize with the teachers they coach and give them constructive advice since the literacy team faces the same classroom challenges on a daily basis. In this way, the literacy team does not act as distant literacy experts, giving orders from afar, but as troop leaders in the trenches with the rest of us.

However, it is the creative use of bathroom wall space that exemplifies the pro-literacy culture this team promotes and creates. Every so often, new literacy quotes show up on the walls of our faculty bathrooms. These brief, but meaningful, quotes - often from new professional books - lead to interesting discussions during lunch. The quotes act as a quick book blimp, introducing teachers to new books they may want to read about literacy.

In addition, these teachers foster literacy among the students and families in our school. They help plan and present numerous evening events for parents that help them understand ways to create a literacy rich home life for their children. Parents attend these evenings with their student and leave with both ideas and materials. In the school, students have had the opportunity to participate in a lunch time poetry club. This club created poetry posters for the school, poetry collections for classrooms, and poetry bins for the office and clinic so students could read poetry, no matter where they were.

Marjorie Kaiser (Crestwood, Kentucky)
Nominated by Erika Wardlow

The National Writing Project's affiliate here in my city is the LWP, the Louisville Writing Project. Our great (now, former) Director was a woman who epitomized all that I feel a teacher of writing teachers should. Therefore, I would select that grand dame, Marjorie Kaiser, as my literacy mentor, my Literacy Leader.

Before that summer of '95 and the four weeks of our LWP Summer Institute, I NEVER considered myself a writer, of any sort or stretch of the imagination. Sure, I taught writing, such as it was, every day to my elementary students, but to think of ME writing, publishing? -- that was incomprehensible. Marjorie expected me to devote myself to exploring my past, delving into long-buried memories, and even though the work was difficult (what do you mean "write solidly for the next 20 minutes?") it was exhilarating. Those times at my writing journal were precious and remain the basis for how I teach about Writing Workshop to my students now.

This wonderful woman, an accomplished professor, esteemed by her English Department colleagues in the School of Education at the University of Louisville, was a model of humility as she called upon us to take pride in our writerly aspirations. As she exhorted us to write poetry, she modestly downplayed her own ability to produce what I considered excellent poems herself. She encouraged us to write and share our writing, and in doing so exemplified the best practice for teaching writing that all good teachers strive for in our own classrooms.

Dr. Kaiser is retired now, she is in poor health and I rarely hear from her. But I will always remember her and the difference she made in my professional life and in my life as a whole. She is my Literacy Leader, and probably has been for hundreds of teachers who found themselves lucky enough to experience the LWP under her expert direction.

Alisa King (Knightdale, NC)
Nominated by Jamee Lynch

Alisa King has played a major role in helping me turn around a troubled school. When I became principal at Hodge Road in 2001, it was not a place that was child-friendly and literacy achievement was abysmal. Alisa was initially a lead literacy teacher based out of our central office, and was assigned to help the school in a consultant role. However, she saw an opportunity to take her skills and commitment to children to help shape a vision for a child-centered school with authentic literacy engagement.

Over the past five years, she joined our staff, and has built relationships with teachers by serving as a mentor, resource locator, lesson modeler, feedback provider, listener, and cheerleader. One non-negotiable for her was that she had to work with children and be based in a classroom. She firmly believes that she must be a learner and teacher alongside those she coaches. While we all see her as an absolute master teacher, she sees herself as someone who must continually focus on her own professional growth and literacy repertoire.

Our school has been transformed from a place where we used to see children copying words they could not read and coloring worksheets to a place where you see kindergarten reading partners sharing a book, first grade students conferring about their stories sitting eye to eye and knee to knee, and second grade writers producing "all about" books where they proudly share a topic on which they are experts.

We could not have accomplished such a transformation without Alisa's passion for literacy and strong support for teachers. She has also helped recruit like-minded colleagues to our school, which has resulted in a talented group of teachers that is second to none.

Linda Morgason (Richmond, IN)
Nominated by Kamara Gard

I can go to Linda with any question, and she will stop whatever she is doing to listen and help. One day we spent an entire Saturday at Half-Price Books just picking out high quality read alouds for my new kindergarten classroom. Another day we spent two hours after school going through her collection of materials and supplies to see if there was anything that I could use. I went home with flannel boards, finger puppets, and resource books.

Every class that she has had involves learning something new about great teaching, wonderful food (whole strawberries and Chex Mix), and answers to the questions that come up every day of what we can do that is best for kids. She teaches by explaining, modeling, and coaching . . . I know that I am a better teacher for having worked with her. She is the reason that I then went on to become a literacy coach myself. She helped me learn that we are in this together . . . we are a team.

Lisa Russell (Maryville, TN)
Nominated by Colleen Mattison

Lisa shares her chocolate with a friend.

When I first came to Blount County Schools, Lisa was the most willing to help me find solutions for elementary children with learning problems related to reading. We would not stop until we found the right key to solve each child's unique situation. She stayed interested in this, which later promoted her to literacy leader. We worked endlessly on curriculum and grants, of which we were awarded, while she battled lupus.

We often attend conferences together where my concern with her health outweighs her excitement for literacy. I am always checking she has healthy snacks for our road trips. On one road trip, she had a nice grocery bag full of the best, healthiest snacks and I was so impressed. For some reason, I had to go into her briefcase and lo and behold, it was stocked full of every chocolate bar on earth. She and another friend were shocked I found their stash and we still laugh about that today. Of course she said that she brought those along for me since I am a chocolate addict. Save the earth -- it is the only one with chocolate.

Cindi Supko (Gardnerville, NV)
Nominated by Brenda Downs

My "Literacy Leader" encourages me, collaborates with me, pushes me, supports me, reads with me, laughs with me, worries with me, creates with me, and learns right along with me. She is a long-time colleague and friend who loved literacy so much that she became a literacy leader by reading, learning, and doing!

When Cindi and I first became friends, she was my daughter's kindergarten teacher. I had returned to teaching after eight years of raising my daughters. I watched her instruction in awe and learned from her teaching mastery. Cindi and I earned our master's in reading together in the early 1990's. Since then we have been literacy coordinators and reading specialists. In time, Cindi moved on to become a district-wide professional development trainer. But more than that, I see her as a "connector of literacy ideas" as she encourages new teachers and supports those veterans of the teaching trenches. It can be a thankless position especially when evaluation rears its ugly head. But I know that she encourages, coaches, and teaches--as well as evaluates new teachers.

At times, I believe she feels like she is an island and separate (yet accountable) from our district office and its fiscal concerns, NCLB data, and assessments. But her island of literacy has spawned a chain of events. She has increased administrator and district awareness over the years, causing more personnel to be employed to provide literacy trainings for the secondary schools. She worked hard to help put literacy coaches in each of our seven elementary schools. Because it's been such a developmental process, I don't think anyone is aware that she has helped to build our current "literacy bedrock" within our school district.

My own views of literacy have grown as I learned with and from Cindi. As I've developed as a coach, she has taught me to look closer at instruction and teaching styles. She has encouraged my need for research and shares every new idea that will stimulate my own learning. She's helped me to realize my own talents and how those talents can help others. I've watched as Cindi encouraged other literacy coaches to be their best. Many of the coaches are highly thought of within the school district due to their own hard work AND Cindi's trainings, discussions, and collaboration. She never expects anything from any teacher that she wouldn't or couldn't try to do herself. She demands the best from herself because she firmly believes that any results from her coaching will ultimately benefit the children of our district. That is the principle that she works by, designs her trainings by, and exemplifies in all she does as a literacy leader.