It has been a wild week of weather for our subscribers in North America. I hope most of our readers in the Pacific Northwest missed the floods, our Midwesterners are de-iced, and here in Northern New England, everyone is dug out from the 18 inches of snow. At this time of year, that amount of snow is so near normal in Maine we'll have trouble remembering it in a few weeks. The storm everyone still talks about, even ten years after it hit, is the Great Ice Storm of January 1998.

It's hard to forgot eight days in the dead of winter with no electricity. I had ignored whatever warnings were out there before the storm, and so had not laid in any extra groceries, water, or batteries. I settled into a dreary routine each day of chipping ice, melting it on the woodstove so we'd have some water, and rifling through canned goods figuring out how to stretch our supply. Only one radio station was live during those first few days in our local area, and our family would huddle around a little portable boombox each night for a couple hours, conserving our meager supply of batteries as we listened for updates.

A week of no coffee, no showers, and canned food on the Coleman stove made me appreciate in new ways so many of the basics I'd taken for granted. Looking back, no matter how busy I'd been doing whatever I was doing for my job and family the day before the storm, it wasn't the best use of my time. I should have spent a couple hours (at least!) fulling tubs with water, stocking up on groceries, and putting new batteries in the flashlights. I can still vividly recall a morning on the fourth day without power, whacking away at the ice on my front lawn in sub-zero weather, wondering what I ever found appealing about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her stories of pioneer life.

So what's the lesson for literacy leaders? It's easy for anyone to get so caught up in what needs to be done this moment, that you don't take time to prepare for storms, no matter how strong the warnings. The "storm" many literacy leaders will face this spring will be budget cuts. When money is tight, and programs are new, they are often the first to face the ax.

There are two ways to protect the literacy programs and staff you value most - build up such a powerful case for the quality and worth of the program that it is untouchable, or write a grant so that the money for a cherished program comes from outside the district. The two methods are related - if you write a compelling narrative for a grant describing your work, you can't help but become more articulate about the goals and quality of it.

If grant writing isn't for you, consider inviting local media and family in for some extra showcases of accomplishments. Now is the time to strengthen the awareness of the worth of these programs - because even if this isn't the year when a budget storm whips through your district, there is no doubt you'll face one eventually. For educators, it's as dependable as...the weather.

This week we've got some tools and tips for writing grants and publicizing events. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

From the Choice Literacy Archives, some tools and tips for writing grants:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/298.cfm

The November Learning site has a nifty guide available for download, "Writing Winning Grants." The author, Alan November, notes that just the process of sitting down together and coming up with common goals can unify a community. The 22 page guide includes prompts, templates, and worksheets to take you step-by-step through grant writing skills. WARNING - This is a pdf file, so if you are on a dial-up connection, you may not be able to access the guide:

http://tinyurl.com/3bvbl8

"Alert the Media" from the Choice Literacy Archives has basic advice on writing press releases to elicit media interest in your programs:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/239.cfm

Join Choice Literacy for our Winter Workshops at the Sand Key Resort in Clearwater, Florida on January 27th, 2008. Workshop topics include literacy coaching and reading assessment with The Sisters and Jennifer Allen:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/454.cfm

For Members Only

Part II in our video series on teaching the Rule of 3 from Aimee Buckner - this week, she pulls a "mini-group" after her whole class lesson to provide extra support for students who didn't fully grasp the lesson:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/499.cfm

Aimee's mini-groups are an easy and simple way to differentiate instruction in workshops, and save time when conferring. If the concept is new to you, reading Aimee's explanation of how these groups work may give you useful background information:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/158.cfm

The Sisters (Joan Moser and Gail Boushey) have another photo essay in their design series - this one on organizing and dressing up meeting areas:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/502.cfm

That's all for this week!