The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy January 31, 2009 Clearing the Way


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The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
January 31, 2009
Clearing the Way

On Wednesday afternoon we had a blizzard here in rural Maine. Since the storm wasn't scheduled to start till after noon, school wasn't canceled. (If we canceled school every time snow was forecast, most New England kids would end up homeschooled.)

The forecast was accurate, and by one o'clock the snow was heavy, falling at a rate of an inch or two an hour. I drove a couple miles to the nearest school bus stop to transport my child and others home, barely making it up a slick hill. I wondered how in the world all the local districts would manage to get thousands of children home that day.

And then I saw a bright yellow vehicle - not the bus, but a large plow and sand machine, making its way down the road, clearing a path for the bus. Three minutes later, the bus arrived. I'm sure the scene was repeated at bus stops in communities throughout the region, because in the face of a pretty awful blizzard, every child made it home safely that day.

As I watched the snowplow pass, I thought about how we can't control the weather, but we can control our response to it. When I think of the colleagues I've valued the most through the years, many times the relationship was cemented when they or I dropped our plans, rolled up our sleeves, and helped each other through one professional storm or another. The challenge is knowing when it's a true crisis that requires setting aside plans for a colleague. There is always someone on staff who is perpetually frazzled, waiting till beyond the last minute to accomplish anything. They have muddled through life assuming someone will always be there to rescue them. We break our routines for them at our peril.

But I also suspect there is a new teacher you work who at this very moment who is struggling quietly, with no idea of how to deal with a difficult parent, or the mountain of assessment data before her. Do you have any time this week to clear a path for her? It's those make or break moments that often mark whether or not young teachers stay in the profession.

This week, we've got a terrific daily routine, "Our Living Minute," for adding nonfiction to morning meetings. We also close out two popular series on assessment and text prep, plus much more as always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Andrea Smith finds morning meeting is the perfect time for students to share nonfiction they are discovering on their own. "Our Living Minute" is a quick and fun routine for building content literacy and community at the same time:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/826.cfm

If you're always on the hunt for team-building activities and icebreakers for meetings, the Teampedia Wiki is a site you may want to bookmark. It includes dozens of options for everything from name games to diversity exercises:

http://www.teampedia.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

There are so many social media tools now on the web which can be used by literacy leaders that it's hard to keep up with them. Check out this "Smart Mob" application. In this example, students in a college course each found and read a few articles on a topic, and then put them in a shared database housed on the web. By the end of the week, the class had found and skimmed through over 90 articles on the topic as a starting point for their discussions. Just think of how you could adapt this idea for a study group looking at literature circles and book clubs, or an administrative team considering changes to a writing curriculum. It's an easy way to gather and share lots of information between meetings, as well as hold everyone in the group accountable for some research and reading:

http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=202#more-202

It was hard to miss this week's announcements of the Newbery and Caldecott book awards. Neil Gaiman, author of the Newbery winner The Graveyard Book, has a delightful account on his blog of the groggy moment in a hotel room when he heard the news (from 14 librarians shouting in unison, no less):

http://tinyurl.com/bbq3qb

The full list of book award winners in 12 categories is available at the American Library Association website:

http://tinyurl.com/d27ha7

Registration for Choice Literacy Summer Workshops in Portland, Oregon on June 29th and 30th is now open. Presenters include Jennifer Allen, Andie Cunningham, Katie Doherty, Ruth Shagoury, Franki Sibberson, and "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser). We've added new workshops this year on teaching reading in middle schools and word learning:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/825.cfm

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Franki Sibberson finds she uses different skills for previewing nonfiction than those tapped for fiction. This week she shares critical questions she asks herself while previewing nonfiction, and how she models these skills for students with texts by popular authors like Steve Jenkins and Gail Gibbons:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/818.cfm

Shari Frost overhears a student muttering about too many loons and fireflies during a class read aloud. This complaint starts her on a quest to create a booklist of more relevant mentor texts for urban students:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/815.cfm

We're finishing up two series we've featured throughout the month of January this week -

Tammy Mulligan and Clare Landrigan complete their series on grappling with the assessment data load with a look at how teams of teachers can use information to think through interventions:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/806.cfm

Finally, Andrea Smith remembers the advice she gives herself to stay in the moment during fire drills: Breathe-Smile-Notice-Enjoy. She uses these words to focus, learn from, and delight in her 4th graders' new understanding as they debrief after a workshop on reading skills for solving word problems. This is the last video in a three-part series:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/808.cfm

That's all for this week!