Are you looking for a fun icebreaker activity for a staff meeting,

or a way to mix it up in writing workshop with students during the

winter doldrums? How about one-sentence life stories?

Smith Magazine online asked readers to send in memoirs. The

challenge? Your memoir could only be six words long. The editors

were inspired by the story of Ernest Hemingway, who when asked to

write a novel in six words, came up with this:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Tami Maus submitted this memoir, which describes much of my own

muddling through life:

Little bit Lucy, tempered by Ethel. Tami Maus

There are now over 15,000 six-word memoirs at the Smith Magazine

website. Reading through the entries got me thinking - if literacy

leaders wrote six-word memoirs of their professional lives, what

would they come up with? Mine (so far) might be:

Not perfect, glad I wrote anyway.

I asked our contributors to send along their six-word memoirs, and

here is what they submitted:

Foot in mouth, but still talking. Jennifer Allen

Insomnia again: from writing or teaching? Ruth Shagoury

It's on my to-do list. Mary Lee Hahn

Too busy for to-do list. Aimee Buckner

Smart teacher listens to smarter student. Andie Cunningham

Poster child for reading/writing workshop. Jennifer Jones

Bibliophile, trying to draw others in. Shari Frost

Trying to do it all. Failing. Franki Sibberson

Listen closely, reflect often, look forward. Katie Doherty

Got started. Learned how to finish. Suzy Kaback

Six-word memoirs bring together two crazes sweeping through

literacy education - a love of memoir and a passion for short text.

There are many possibilities for using the task as a professional

development icebreaker, a class activity with students, or you

could just pull a few from the Smith Magazine website as a read

aloud to start a discussion during a memoir unit of study. And who

couldn't use a little diversion during the late winter slog toward

spring?

This week, we've got some tips for defining your role in classrooms

when you observe colleagues, as well as different options for

observation notes on talk. Plus more as always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

Interested in more six-word memoirs? You can browse through

thousands of samples at the Smith Magazine website:

http://smithmag.net/sixwords/

From the Choice Literacy Archives, if you are looking for some

strategies for giving fresh insight after observing colleagues,

"Under, Over, and Beyond Words" has some quick tips for looking at

classroom behaviors and learning environments beyond noting what is

said:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/548.cfm

One of the biggest dilemmas many literacy coaches face is

distinguishing the coaching and evaluative components of their

work. From the Teacher Leaders Network, Cathy Toll presents

"Separating Coaching from Supervising" in this three-page article,

with four brief scenarios of different coaching/supervision mixes.

Warning to dial-up users - this is a pdf file:

http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/misc/CoachNotSupvr.pdf

Choice Literacy Summer Workshops are now open for registration.

Topics include The Literacy Principal, Helping Struggling Readers,

Content Literacy, Leading Study Groups and Meetings, Mentor Texts,

and Literacy Coaching. Workshop descriptions and registration

forms are available at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department22.cfm

For Members Only

We all know that spelling instruction works best when it happens in

authentic learning contexts. Katie DiCesare took on the challenge

of developing a one-page assessment tool to analyze the spelling

needs and abilities of each of her 1st graders. In the last

installment of her three-part series, Katie shows how she

translates the findings from individual students into instructional

plans:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/551.cfm

Aimee Buckner finds a world in a word - a keyword, that is. "Using

Keywords to Teach Themes" is a simple strategy linking big ideas

from texts with the words that define them. It's a terrific lesson

for building reading comprehension and vocabulary at the same time:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/539.cfm

What no one ever tells us about conferring is that there are often

many false starts and open-ended questions before we find a way

into a conversation with lots of students. This is especially true

with English language learners. In this week's video, Ruth

Shagoury confers with Emily, a six-year-old Hmong student, showing

how questioning and patience can lead to better conferring in this

week's video:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/552.cfm

Finally, from the Choice Literacy Archives, some quick tips for

conferring with English language learners:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/95.cfm

That's all for this week!