The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy December 6, 2008 Vacation Reading


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The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
December 6, 2008
Vacation Reading

Have you ever noticed some of your most productive days are those just before vacation? Perhaps not the actual day before vacation begins - depending on the season, you can get waylaid by eggnog or oohing and aahing over student displays. Yet in the week or two before vacation, we have so much energy for clearing our desks, finishing projects, and leaving everything in order, because we're really looking forward to downtime. For literacy leaders, the downtime we treasure usually includes time with family, friends...and lots of books.

Without even realizing it, lifelong readers take time in the midst of the holiday bustle to prioritize the texts on their nightstands, daydreaming about immersing in The Book Thief or fourteen back issues of The New Yorker or even the last two months of postings from their favorite blog. Vacations are prized times for readers, and terrific opportunities for raising up lifelong readers of any age.

The challenge is to convey our genuine excitement about having time for reading over break with students, as well as to share our process of how we choose the texts we will read. This week, we've got a feature and template from Franki Sibberson to help you start conversations with students and colleagues about the joys of reading over break. Plus more as always - enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Franki Sibberson finds the days before holiday break are the perfect time for talking through with students how to make pleasure reading choices. Her feature includes a template to help students organize and think through their preferences:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/763.cfm

Mother Reader has 63 "paired book" gift suggestions for the young readers on your list. The idea is you match a gift of a book like Birdsongs with binoculars for birdwatching, or A la Carte with a homemade gift certificate for a cooking lesson from you. Most of these are inexpensive, and sure to get you thinking about other creative pairings for your favorites:

http://tinyurl.com/6k64yz

This recommendation comes from the teenage kids of Choice Literacy staff, who turned us on to a website with an amazing amount of free music. Our first thought was teens + free music on the web = something totally illegal, but we were pleasantly surprised to discover this site is legit. Playlist scours the web for legal music (from artists' official sites, promotions, and approved blogs), and allows users to create mixes for streaming of favorites. If you have web access at your school and can stream music, you can create a playlist of festive tunes for background music at study groups, end and start of year gatherings, and literacy celebrations of any kind. We've found all kinds of obscure tracks from favorite artists here:

http://www.playlist.com/

We normally use this space in the newsletter to advertise our DVDs, workshops, or site licenses, but we are so darn tired of being bombarded with ads and promotions this time of year that we're leaving it empty. Consider it our holiday gift to you!

For Members Only

Have you ever struggled as a literacy leader to explain the balance between creativity and common standards in teaching; between shared expectations and individuality? In The Bed and Breakfast Model, Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan present an analogy that is helpful. It might be fun in a study group to use this feature as a springboard to talk about the unique strengths and quirks of teachers at your school:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/764.cfm

By January, the need to reach students who are slipping through the cracks starts to feel more urgent than ever. If you are organizing for winter, you might consider partnering with colleagues or leading a study group looking at case studies. This week's video features a quick excerpt from a professional learning community focused on case studies, as well as advice for leading these groups from Principal Karen Szymusiak:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/778.cfm

Finally, we continue our month-long series on graphica featuring video from a 4th grade writing workshop. In this week's final installment, Sarah Thibault discusses the lesson and her graphica work with literacy coach Jennifer Allen and principal Harriet Trafford. We include catch-up links to first three videos if you missed them:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/779.cfm