Just back from a quick trip to the Pacific Northwest, where we filmed some fabulous makeovers of classroom libraries, book rooms and storage area we'll be featuring in a "literacy spring cleaning" series soon. But what struck me most was what was going on outside the classrooms - gardens are in full bloom in Seattle, and the lush flowers reminded me of how our little corner in Maine is always late to see spring each year.

How ironic that the start of the gardening and testing seasons overlap in most schools. Gardening reconnects many teachers to the natural world; and at the same time test after test in our classrooms couldn't feel more surreal.

The late educational researcher Lawrence Stenhouse noted that the difference between the teacher and the large-scale policy maker is like the difference between a farmer with a huge agricultural business to maintain and the "careful gardener" tending a backyard plot. It's a quote I've loved for a long time, especially when contrasting the goals of high test scores with my goals as a teacher:

In agriculture the equation of invested input against gross yield is all: it does not matter if individual plants fail to thrive or die so long as the cost of saving them is greater than the cost of losing them . . . This does not apply to the careful gardener whose labour is not costed, but a labour of love. He wants each of his plants to thrive, and he can treat each one individually. Indeed he can grow a hundred different plants in his garden and differentiate his treatment of each, pruning his roses, but not his sweet peas. Gardening rather than agriculture is the analogy for education.

When you care about each and every plant thriving, it changes the way you view everything. Rereading this quote reminded me of the mutual passions of teachers and gardeners, and set me on a hunt for more connections between the two.

When the world pushes us to move faster and harder in schools, the careful gardener often has to do just the opposite, as Michael Garofalo notes:

Gardeners must dance with feedback, play with results, turn as they learn. Learning to think as a gardener is inseparable from the acts of gardening. Learning how to garden is learning how to slow down.

Michael P. Garofalo, in Pulling Onions

The careful gardener learns readily from mistakes in the midst, and is at peace with knowing mistakes are an integral part of the learning process:

Gardening is something you learn by doing -- and by making mistakes.... Like cooking, gardening is a constant process of experimentation, repeating the successes and throwing out the failures.

Finally, if you want to have a thriving garden, there is only one point of view that really matters:

My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view.

This week we've got a new quote collection on evaluation and goal setting, the second in our three-part series on closure activities, suggestions for using picture books with older students, and more. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

***Free for All***

From Winston Churchill to Shelley Harwayne, there's a range of opinions on evaluation and goal setting in our new quote collection:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/340.cfm

Do you find the terms for different types of assessment confusing? The Council Chronicle from NCTE recently published a brief article which defines and gives examples of formative assessment, and how it differs from other assessments:

http://www.ncte.org/pubs/chron/highlights/126802.htm

If you're looking for ways to integrate meaningful self-reflection and goal-setting into reading workshops with young children, you've probably been following our CAFE series with The Sisters. Their CAFE in the Classroom DVD Workshop Kit is now available for purchase:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item11.cfm

***For Members Only***

Gardening always makes me think of one of the most beloved characters in children's books - Peter Rabbit, and his trips through the neighbor's fields. In this five-minute video of a small-group lesson, Gail Boushey of "The Sisters" shares a simple activity for students to notice words in Peter Rabbit. In the debrief, Gail and Joan talk about strategies for building vocabulary awareness in young students:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/341.cfm

Franki Sibberson shares ways to foster continued enjoyment of picture books with intermediate readers, and highlights some new texts with special appeal for older readers in this article which includes a booklist:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/339.cfm

We've got the second feature in our three-part series on closure activities. This week we've posted two quick writing icebreakers for the start of a study group or faculty meeting late in the year, designed to help colleagues note how they've changed, and milestone moments in literacy from the previous year:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/342.cfm

Correction: A couple members wrote in that they were struggling to locate the John Steinbeck poem "Like Captured Butterflies" mentioned in part 1 of our series on closure activities. No wonder - we published the wrong title for the poem. Our apologies - the correct title is "Like Captured Fireflies." We can't publish the poem because of copyright restrictions, but we have found it here on the web in an article from InDesign magazine:

http://tinyurl.com/36no3y

The corrected article at Choice Literacy can be found through this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/328.cfm

That's all for this week!