This spring as our Choice Literacy video crew prepared for the last leg of our April and May classroom taping blitz, we discovered Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would be playing at an arena just a few miles from a school in California where we would be taping. We're all huge fans, so I decided concert tickets for the crew would be the perfect gift to celebrate the end of another great year of video production.

Of course, there was a big problem with my plan - any of you who have bought tickets for Springsteen know you can't contact Ticketmaster a few days before a concert and score decent seats. His rabid fans know the moment each concert's seats go on sale months in advance, and are at the computer or phone ready to order. It's not uncommon for all good seats to be gone within an hour of tickets being released - on any given Springsteen Saturday sale day, you can find middle-aged men weeping at their keyboards because they overslept and their home arena is sold out by the time they log in to Ticketmaster. Sure enough, when we checked, the only tickets available for the concert we wanted were singles with obstructed views.

But we were determined, so the crew went to work. Three of us spent time the weekend before the trip scouring the web, trying to find tips on fan message boards for getting last-minute seats. We discovered a web group with a long history of fans selling seats at face value only, with controls in place to ensure you could have confidence when purchasing. We knew buying seats from these fans would be an option, though they likely wouldn't be together, and it would be a bit of a hassle to pick them up or get them delivered in time.

In browsing at another fan site, we found another hot tip - Ticketmaster had released some prime seats just days before for our concert. Those seats sold out instantly, but rumors were that more would be released over the weekend. We set up a schedule for crew members to check in at Ticketmaster throughout the weekend for new seats.

Within twelve hours, a couple hundred seats were released on our watch, and we were able to purchase excellent tickets just a few days before the concert.

So what does this have to do with literacy leadership? Absolutely nothing, except that the principles we used in getting the tickets could be applied to many situations literacy leaders find ourselves in when we're working with colleagues in schools.

When faced with a challenge, instead of starting out on the path well-traveled, it's best to go first to the "rabid fan" experts who may have creative alternatives. Whether your goal is improving the children's literature collection at your school, or integrating more word work into your literacy program, there is probably a teacher in the school or a group on the web that can save you research time and dollars. When the topic is their passion, they are more than happy to share their knowledge and save you hours of legwork and hassle. The Bruce fans on the web were willing to sell their extra tickets at face value or provide insider information on late releases of seats, just for the joy of sharing a fantastic concert with others. If we hadn't gone to the rabid fans for advice, we would have found ourselves sitting behind concrete pillars or spending a fortune buying from scalpers. So often we settle for far less than what we want in schools, or pay more than we can afford for a quick-fix program or outside consultant, because we don't look first to the free or low-cost expertise available in our schools or on the web.

Don't provide all your new resources at once to colleagues - dole them out throughout the year. Ticketmaster has learned they can goose their traffic by holding back small numbers of prime seats to popular concerts. By releasing them at unexpected, random times, they keep fans coming back again and again to their site (and likely sell many tickets to other events in the process). When you save part of your budget for gifts of new children's and young adult books for colleagues at study groups and staff meetings throughout the year, or post-it supplies, or book baskets for library reorganizations mid-year as needs arise, you delight your colleagues just when the year is becoming a slog or they need a little pick-me-up. You also reap the rewards of a small surge in enthusiasm for trying something new, just because the materials needed for the change are provided on the spot. Never knowing what treats await them at study groups and staff meetings builds morale in surprising ways throughout the year.

Divide and conquer - our time is short, and our strengths vary. Literacy leaders, and especially literacy coaches and specialists, are expected to wear so many hats as we work with colleagues. We are the professional development coordinators, assessment data analyzers, schedulers, curriculum creators....the list of demands on our time grows and grows. Any one person has terrific skills in some realms and struggles in others. I've noticed some literacy coaches and specialists who work together in districts are beginning to divide responsibilities among their team to capitalize on strengths. For example, someone who loves poring over data has the title "Assessment Data Coordinator" as part of her literacy coaching position. Another literacy specialist who enjoys organizing meetings is the "Professional Development Event Coordinator." If you consider the strengths among your team, and parcel out responsibilities accordingly, work is completed more efficiently, and tasks are done by those who enjoy them the most. Without a team of us working on the ticket issue from different angles, we never would have gotten fine seats so late in the game.

And what an amazing concert it was! May we all be so enthusiastic and at the top of our game professionally as Bruce is, over 40 years after he first picked up a guitar. This week, we've got some advice on troubleshooting "coaching cycles" (a popular concept now in schools), plus more as always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy (and #1 Dedham, Maine Springsteen Fan)

www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

Shari Frost finds "coaching cycles" are a valuable way for literacy coaches to work with teachers over time, but the first year of implementation was bumpy for her coaches. In this week's feature "Troubleshooting Coaching Cycles," she shares some of the struggles her colleagues encountered in implementing cycles, as well as advice for overcoming these hurdles:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/637.cfm

Did you have a goal this summer of upgrading your technology skills? It's mid-July and time's a'wastin'. Here's a fun resource to fulfill that goal. Scratch is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's web initiative to build computer programming skills for students and teachers, and it's a delight to play with the materials they provide on the web. Even if you have virtually no knowledge of computer programming, you will likely enjoy and learn much from playing at this free site for a few hours:

http://scratch.mit.edu/

A hearty welcome to our newest site license members from Chesterfield, Missouri; Michigan City and Wayne Township, Indiana; Destrehan, Louisiana; Baytown, Texas; Candor, New York; White Marsh, Maryland; and Waterford, Pennsylvania. Information on site licenses is available at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department63.cfm

If you're a new member and a little overwhelmed by the 500 feature articles and videos currently available at the site, the Big Fresh Archives is often a good place to begin browsing at the site:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department62.cfm

For Members Only

Jennifer Jones decides to take a cue from George Constanza in an old Seinfeld episode, embarking on a purely selfish "Summer of Jen" filled with reading for pleasure only. Yet she soon finds she can't help but make connections between the books she is reading, teaching opportunities, and ways to share her insights with colleagues. The article includes book recommendations and teaching suggestions:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/636.cfm

Aimee Buckner shares Part II in her three-part video series on using poetry to teach observation skills with the mentor text Old Elm Speaks. If you missed Part I of the series, we provide a catch-up link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/640.cfm

Finally, Joan Moser (of "The Sisters") continues her month-long video series on organizing and using individual book boxes with children. This week's installation highlights how to differentiate book box contents for students of varying abilities:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/639.cfm

That's all for this week!