I love visiting classrooms, because I never fail to be inspired by the ingenuity of teachers. This week we were filming in a school near Seattle. A grades 5/6 multiage classroom was especially beautiful and distinctive. In one corner of the room was a "garden area" for reading, with vines wrapped around a trellis leading into a cozy spot with books, a rug, and a bench to sit on. What brought the area to life was a floor to ceiling painting, four feet wide, with a 3D effect of looking out onto fields of flowers and rolling hills. Stepping under the trellis, you felt like you were walking into the French countryside. I asked if the teacher was an artist. The reply? "Oh no - he just noticed the panel gathering dust with other props from school plays in a storage area, and asked if he could borrow it."

The opposite corner of the room had another library area, featuring yet another discarded panel from a school theater production. This one was of a den or sitting room, with rich mahogany wood, dark red carpets, and shelves of books that seemed to punch out beyond the walls and add many square feet to the classroom. The panel was anchored by real shelves of books, as well as antique chests and suitcases the teacher had opened and converted to book storage by adding a few shelves within them.

Next to this classroom "den" was a sink and cupboards, where 30 mugs were neatly stacked. Each student brought in a mug from home at the start of the year. Fridays include a hot chocolate reading time - students can fill their mugs with warm water and packets of chocolate or tea provided by the teacher, to sip on while reading books in the den or garden area. This is a school with very little money for teacher supplies, and strict restrictions on furnishings - no couches or soft chairs allowed. Yet in the face of no budget and little leeway in design, a lovely literacy environment thrives.

Our crew heard bits and snatches of the horrible economic news roiling the world as we moved from classroom to classroom gathering footage of wonderful teachers in action. I thought again how lucky I am to be in this profession, working with teachers like you who can dig through dusty supply closets and attics, roll up your sleeves, and transform discarded play scenery and old suitcases into a charming literacy oasis.

We shouldn't have to - there should be plenty of money to create the most inviting, warm spaces for learning. That's what makes the work all the more remarkable - while waiting for news on Friday of what's next in the financial crisis, I held fast to the image of that gaggle of preteens sipping their hot chocolate, sprawled throughout the room and curled up with good books. If people need lessons in how to thrive in environments without an abundance of resources, they need look no further than the nearest school.

All over the country and world there are students, teachers, and community volunteers hard at work on this fall's theater productions, creating striking art that will likely be gathering dust in a couple months behind the stage, if it isn't discarded immediately. Maybe it's worth a trek over to the high school stage to see if you can salvage one or two scenes from a library or garden to create your own classroom haven for literacy?

This week, we've got a terrific middle school activity to get students thinking about genres as they help organize the classroom library. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Katie Doherty's 6th graders take charge of the classroom library, with an activity designed to build an understanding of genre at the same time:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/703.cfm

Media literacy is crucial in a world where we're bombarded with advertisements every day. A bonus is that students of all ages are fascinated by how ads are designed to manipulate. The Don't Buy It! website from PBS has a wealth of materials, lessons, and web links for teaching media literacy in grades 3-5, and the activities are easily adapted for older and younger students:

http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/teachersguide.html

Mirriam-Webster's Word Central has a slew of games and activities like "build your own dictionary" that are fun choices for student independent word learning on the computer:

http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html

The Literacy Principal in Action is our new professional development video featuring Karen Szymusiak. While Karen shares her work as a principal, any literacy leader can learn from the formats she uses for hosting grade-level team discussions of challenging students, literacy chats across the school, and mixed-aged student groups. There is a $30 discount for members, and you can preview footage from the video at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item18.cfm

For Members Only

By late September, many teachers are still wrestling with small groups - their composition, routines, and how to integrate them into daily workshops. We have a trio of new posts this week that look at different issues in leading groups.

Franki Sibberson uses a knitting metaphor to reflect upon alternatives to guided reading in the intermediate grades that promote more student independence:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/688.cfm

Katie DiCesare comforts a student in tears at the end of the day, and realizes part of the problem may be that she moved the child into a guided writing group too quickly:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/701.cfm

This week's video presents a strategy group on summarizing. Karen Terlecky reinforces a whole-class lesson for a group of students using nonfiction text. It's a fine example of how to differentiate and fine-tune instruction based on emerging student needs and ongoing assessments:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/704.cfm

Looking for a thoughtful and feel-good icebreaker for a staff meeting or study group? Ruth Shagoury uses the "I Used to...Now I" prompt to get colleagues thinking and talking about changes in their literacy instruction over the years, as well as where they might go next in their teaching:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/702.cfm

The new Choice Literacy Cluster is on a high-interest topic - Strategies for Learning Words. The cluster includes contributions from The Sisters, Shari Frost, Franki Sibberson, Mary Lee Hahn, and Katie DiCesare:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/700.cfm

That's all for this week!