What is your job? Why is it important?
Have you ever had to answer these questions on the spot? We're in the midst of budget season in schools, as administrators crunch numbers and everyone makes funding requests that will start cycling their way through committees and school boards. If your position or a favorite literacy project may end up in the red zone for possible elimination, it might be time to craft an "elevator pitch."

The phrase "elevator pitch" comes from the business world, and the premise is simple - if a stranger in an elevator asked you to describe your job or project, what would you say? What are the most succinct, concise, and intriguing few sentences you can string together that explain the work thoroughly, but still can be conveyed in the time it takes an elevator to move up or down a few floors?

The beauty of a well-crafted elevator pitch is that once you have it, it's not hard to remember because it's so short. When you find yourself chatting in line at the grocery store with a parent, or on the soccer field sidelines with a school board member, you can run through it naturally when the topic of your favorite literacy initiative or your daily responsibilities comes up.

These short pitches are especially important if you have one of the literacy leadership positions that have cropped up recently with titles no one outside of schools (or sometimes inside) can understand. How many people outside of education really understand what a "literacy coach" does? What's a "teacher on special assignment" or "curriculum support teacher"? How do you explain the role of an "assistant superintendent for literacy professional development"?

There are literally hundreds of different job descriptions among the subscribers to this newsletter for literacy leaders, and I suspect the more unusual or new the title is, the more likely the job will be targeted for cuts during lean budget times. And if you want to move from a simple job title, like "4th grade teacher," to something more complicated, like "team leader for literacy development," an elevator pitch can help you create a winning argument for taking on more of a leadership role in your school.

Elevator pitches are simple, but they sure aren't easy to construct. I've been writing my elevator pitch about what I do at Choice Literacy for over a year, and it's just about perfect...as long as the elevator is traveling at least 57 floors!
This week, we've got a clever assessment tool, as well as some useful resources for crafting descriptions of literacy programs and leadership roles if you are working on program justifications and budgets in the coming weeks. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

The "Draw a Scientist" test is well-known among science educators for ferreting out basic cultural conceptions of science among students. Suzy Kaback devises a similar "Draw a Reader" test with a template included, and it yields some surprising results among students when a team of teachers test it out. This would be an interesting and easy activity to try across a school or grade level. You can then use the drawings and writings in your school community as a tool for analyzing attitudes and experiences with reading among students:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/521.cfm

The best advice I've found on the web for creating newsletters comes from Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development. In his brief article "Is My Sister Smarter Than a Monkey?", Michael talks about the importance of framing topics or arguments in compelling and amusing ways. It's great advice if you're trying to get your colleagues interested in a new curricular idea, or you're preparing a presentation for administrators or the school board. And if you're in charge of writing ANY ongoing newsletter for teachers or community members, you'll want to subscribe to Michael's free newsletter - he provides the funniest and most helpful advice for newsletter editors on the web:

http://tinyurl.com/22t639

Survey Monkey is a terrific free online survey service. If you want to survey colleagues or community members and ensure the responses are anonymous, this service is very easy to use, and compiles results automatically for you. It's a wonderful tool for finding out what colleagues really think about literacy initiatives, and you don't have to be tech savvy to create your own customized survey in minutes. You can give the service a test drive at this link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com

If you're a literacy coach in the process of defining your job or responsibilities, Jennifer Allen's Layered Coaching DVD workshop kit has tools that can help you. The kit includes 95 minutes of video footage from classroom observations, debriefs, study groups, and curriculum mapping. The CD workshop guide includes 54 full-color pages of templates, guiding questions, and supplemental readings. You can preview footage from the DVD at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item14.cfm

For Members Only

This fall, Shari Frost questioned the amount of writing going on in many elementary writing centers. She decided to work with a team of literacy coaches and teachers to explore ways to increase writing in classrooms - through better use of centers, or alternative programs. In this follow-up article, Shari presents two different solutions that are working well - one involves introducing writing tools in a more systematic way in centers, and the other is an implementation of a different program entirely for independent work:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/524.cfm

Franki Sibberson finds many boys who are reluctant readers love the sports novels of Matt Christopher. So what is the logical next author or genre for these boys to keep them reading voraciously? "Beyond Matt Christopher" is a booklist of different authors and genres for boys who are big Christopher fans:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/530.cfm

Eddie is a six-year-old whose first language is Cantonese. In this video of a writing conference with Ruth Shagoury, very little English is spoken, and yet there is plenty of communication. In the debrief, Ruth talks about the importance of looking at slow writing growth over time, especially with young English language learners like Eddie:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/527.cfm

Finally, from the Choice Literacy Archives, Jan Miller Burkins shares an interview rubric literacy leaders can use to evaluate literacy coaching candidates...or the match between their own learning philosophies and those of a hiring committee:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/376.cfm

That's all for this week!