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
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
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:
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
That's all for this week!