Big Fresh reader Ellen McEvoy wrote in recently with a timely

recommendation:

Concerning the advice to breathe-smile-notice-enjoy in last week's newsletter, yesterday I hauled home about 20 library books, looking for something to read to a third-grade class tomorrow. One of my favorites turned out to be Small Beauties: The Journey of Darcy Heart O'Hara by Elvira Woodruff (illustrations by Adam Rex). A little girl living in Ireland during the famine drives her large family crazy because she lives by these words--but they also lead to her being the one who helps her family feel at home after they

emigrate to the United States.

With St. Patrick's Day right around the corner, I couldn't resist

ordering a copy of the book. It is a treasure - young Darcy

receives her middle name "Heart" because her grandmother prophesies

at her birth, "One day this child shall hold the very heart of our

family in the palm of her hand." What follows is a historically

accurate rendering of the suffering Irish families endured during

the famine and political unrest in the 1840s before the forced

emigration of many to the United States. Through it all, Darcy

collects and carefully sews into the hem of her skirt keepsakes - a

butterfly's wing, dried heather and buttercups, a rosary bead, a

bit of hearthstone scented with peat. In the end, her

grandmother's prophecy comes true.

I read the book and thought about the hardships so many children

and families are facing right now, and how literature can provide

little moments of hope, even as it takes students' minds off the

challenges of the day. St. Patrick's Day is reduced to shamrocks

and leprechauns for most of us, if it's mentioned at all in the

midst of the spring testing stress in many districts. But there

are remarkable stories to be told about the Irish, with lessons of

resilience which might resonate this year more than others for some

children.

This week, we've got lots of resources for linking literature to

St. Patrick's Day, a fun nonfiction routine for Mondays, plus more

as always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Andrea Smith creates Expedition Mondays as a way to expand her

students' exploration of nonfiction resources. The routine is a

melding of routines from Poetry Fridays and First Facts Mondays,

two popular activities in many K-12 classrooms:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/835.cfm

The Chicken Spaghetti blog has more on how Poetry Friday has spread

across the "kidlitosphere." If you want some basic information and

resources for this activity, you can find them at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/cv669c

The blog A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy has a lovely round-up

of Poetry Friday offerings from a couple years back that feature

many St. Patrick's Day poems:

http://yzocaet.blogspot.com/2007/03/poetry-friday_16.html

From the Kidsread website, an annotated list of children's and

young adult books for St. Patrick's Day:

http://www.kidsreads.com/features/020306-st-pats.asp

A hearty welcome to our newest Choice Literacy site license members

from Madison, Wisconsin; Arlington, Virginia; Glenview, Illinois;

Columbus, Ohio; Highland Park & Arlington, Texas; Hillsboro,

Missouri; Walled Lake & West Bloomfield, Michigan; and our

renewing members from New Brunswick, Canada and Akron, Ohio.

Information on our affordable site license program is available at

this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department63.cfm

For Members Only

Katie Doherty concludes her video series this week on teaching

inferring through picture books in middle schools with "Conferring

About Inferring." Katie writes about how she naturally integrates

discussion of reading strategies from the read aloud into regular

reader's workshop conferences. Her features includes a conferring

template:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/792.cfm

Have you ever had the experience of skipping a step in your

teaching or materials preparation, and then discovering the new

procedure works better than the old tried and true method? Melissa

Kolb doesn't have time to add captions to child-created photo books

from field trips, and finds these "wordless photo books" become

rich resources for oral language development in her preschool

classroom:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/836.cfm

Struggling readers require lots of attention in schools, but

supporting advanced young readers sometimes requires teaching

skills that are just as sophisticated. In "Harder Texts Aren't

Always the Answer," Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan offer advice

for looking beyond levels in developing strategies for helping

these precocious readers move forward. This is the first

installment in a new two-part series:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/838.cfm

Finally, we've posted a bonus video this week. If you are in the

midst of rethinking your bookrooms and conferring space for

professional development, Josie Stewart and Jessica Ardelea offer a

tour of three small spaces in their school that are in the midst of

being reorganized to support more useful book displays as well as

professional development for teachers:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/837.cfm

That's all for this week!

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