It's one of the few lessons from my senior high school English class that remains fresh in my memory to this day. Mr. Wylde brought in dozens of artwork prints by Vincent Van Gogh. As we pored over the images, he read bits of Van Gogh's biography. Even the most jaded high schooler couldn't help but be fascinated by the details of someone so creatively crazy he would saw off his own ear. We talked about the vivid landscapes, still lives, and Van Gogh's madness. The high point came about 10 minutes before the end of the period, when Mr. Wylde played Don McLean's haunting ballad "Vincent" (also known as "Starry Starry Night"), to show us how words could paint images every bit as vibrant as the artwork in our hands.

And then, midway through the song the intercom buzzed, and the school secretary droned on with an announcement about a bus schedule change. Some of us physically jumped, so abrupt was the return to the reality of sitting in the classroom, controlled by and waiting for the next bell. The mood and teaching point was lost as the song played on. Mr. Wylde looked like he wanted to cut off his own ear for just a moment, but then he shrugged and told us the night's homework assignment as we shuffled papers and began to shift in our seats.

Visiting classrooms each year, I've always been struck by the different standards for interruptions. Some schools have virtually no bells or intercom use, and they still run smoothly. Others have a continuous, insistent background of beeps and disembodied voices.

True story - a middle school teacher in a nearby town spent years complaining about constant intercom interruptions. Finally, the last spring of his career, he undertook a research project for two weeks. Every time the intercom beeped with an announcement, he stopped what he was doing, wrote the time and content of the announcement on a post-it, and set it aside. After ten days, he invited the principal and assistant principal to view over 250 post-its lined up neatly in rows across an entire wall of his classroom. On one day alone, there had been nearly 50 unscheduled announcements. His legacy to the school was a change in the announcements policy - the new procedures the administration implemented within a month cut interruptions by over 80%.

When is the last time your school revisited its policy for intercom use and interruptions? Teachers spend so much time early in the school year getting consistent literacy routines in place, yet so much of this work is undermined by these distractions. It can be hard to break a trigger-happy central office of the impulse to hit the intercom button, but nothing might have a greater impact this fall in creating a sense of calm, focus, and purpose in reading and writing workshops at your school.

This week, we've got some terrific suggestions for read-alouds early in the year, plus more as always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy
www.choiceliteracy.com

Free for All

From the Choice Literacy Archives, last year Shari Frost polled her colleagues across grade levels and received an interesting mix of suggestions of read-alouds for the first day of school:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/403.cfm

For the primary grades, Denise Johnson has a booklist of first day read-alouds on her "Joy of Children's Literature" blog:

http://tinyurl.com/5e39bc

Choice Literacy contributor and 5th grade teacher Karen Terlecky has early year read aloud suggestions for older readers at her "Literate Lives" blog:

http://tinyurl.com/638zh2

Looking for an energizing literacy leadership break this fall? Registration for our Fall Workshops on October 18-20 in Rockland, Maine is now open. We hold these events at the beautiful Samoset Resort, right on the ocean. Featured presenters include Jennifer Allen (Literacy Coaching), Aimee Buckner (Mentor Texts), The Sisters (Daily 5 and CAFE Assessment), Franki Sibberson (Struggling Readers), and Karen Szymusiak (Literacy Principal). All events are small, with limited enrollments to allow participants plenty of time to question and chat with the presenters:

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

For Members Only

Many teachers shy away from keeping animals in the classroom, concerned about everything from care and maintenance to allergies. Andrea Smith builds her 4th grade community and literacy curriculum around student care of animals, featured in this week's intriguing video room tour:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/666.cfm

Readers enjoyed Mandy Robek's explanation of her move to home reading logs in a calendar format, and some wrote in with additional questions about the program. This week Mandy provides a follow-up article in a question and answer format, addressing issues raised by readers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/663.cfm

Finally, if you're moving from thinking about read alouds for the first days of school, to plotting out a plan for read alouds all year long, you might want to revisit Franki Sibberson's booklist of read-alouds used for the entire year with her 3rd and 4th grade students. It's from the Archives this spring:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/603.cfm

That's all for this week!