This past week 30 new inches of snow fell in our area of rural

Maine. I know - I've written about the snow before, and if you're

sick of reading about it, just think of how tired I am of living in

it. I figure writing about the weather at least puts my readers in

Australia and Florida in a good mood as they don their shorts and

head out for the day.

Anyway, after we had the driveway cleared, my first stop was at

one of those big box hardware chain stores to pick up a roof rake.

For those of you who have the good fortune of never needing this

tool, it's exactly as it sounds - a rake on a long, lightweight

pole that allows you to scrape the snow and ice off your roof

before it all comes sliding down on your head.

I knew I would never be able to find the rake on my own in the huge

store, so I walked straight to the clerk at the information booth.

She shook her head sadly when I questioned her. "We've been out of

roof rakes for almost a month. You can't imagine how many people

have come through that door asking for them." I figured this might

be good luck on my part, because surely this meant more would be

coming in soon? "Oh no - we've moved onto spring merchandise," she

replied. "Just look at the displays - we won't have much available

for snow removal again for nine months." I glanced around, and

saw I was surrounded by patio furniture, deck umbrellas, and lawn

mowers. Just beyond the clerk's booth was a large array of small

flowers in pots waiting to be planted in gardens, already wilting

under the fluorescent lights.

The clerk and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Neither of us will be relaxing on a chaise lounge in the garden

with a gin & tonic watching our tulips bloom anytime soon. We have

over five feet of snow on the ground, and even if it

miraculously melted next week, the earth is frozen solid. Spring is

just around the corner somewhere - just not in this particular

corner of rural Maine.

Some central office geniuses for that hardware chain at a location

thousands of miles away are dictating what must be displayed and

stocked, even though they are far removed from their workers who

actually live near the stores. I'm not knocking the value of the

business - since it opened last year, we've purchased all sorts of

materials from them and even had their crew remodel our kitchen.

But isn't the primarily job of a hardware store to be able to

supply the right tool at the right time?

Literacy leaders always feel that tension of being tugged toward

the goals, mandates, and calendars designed by others who are

sometimes far removed from life on the ground in classrooms. If

you're feeling pulled in too many directions, it never hurts to ask

yourself - What's the most important thing I need to do, every day,

without fail?

There are probably a thousand different right answers to that

question. One of them is certainly putting the right book at the

right time into the right hands. When the school gets engulfed in

test prep craziness and a colleague or student melts down, Testing

Miss Malarkey by Judy Finchler might be a perfect fit. When a

coworker takes a big risk in changing her curriculum and you're the

first to know, Walk On! by Marla Frazee is a funny and uplifting

pep talk in the guise of a children's book about first steps. We

are always reading with others in mind, stocking our mental shelves

with the tools people in our community will need to get through any

rough patch.

I hope you're treating yourself to lots of book browsing time these

days, no matter how many other demands there are for your

attention. Sometimes burying ourselves in books feels like a

guilty pleasure, since we're paid to do what we love best. But

it's not just reading - it's taking inventory, meeting needs, and

always connecting others to worlds beyond those in front of our

noses.

This week, we've got some terrific web resources for virtual

browsing of children's and young adult literature, plus more as

always. Enjoy!

Brenda Power

Editor, Choice Literacy

Free for All

Here are a couple features from the Choice Literacy Archives to

help you find the right book at the right time for your students

and colleagues.

If you rarely have time to get to the bookstore (or live far from

one), the web has many wonderful blogs chock-full of reviews,

author interviews, and the latest releases. Franki Sibberson

shares her favorite blogs in the kidlitosphere:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/194.cfm

If you had to choose only one professional text and one children's

or young adult book that you couldn't live without in your

teaching, what would you select? We've got the picks from over a

dozen of our contributing authors:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/427.cfm

Teachers Domain from WBGH in Boston has launched a new web-based

series of activities focused on struggling adolescent learners.

Inspiring Middle School Literacy is a set of multimedia-rich

self-paced lessons on the web in science and history to support the

learning of core reading and writing strategies. You can browse

the topics at this link:

http://www.teachersdomain.org/special/adlit/

March is Women's History Month, and the Wild Rose Reader has

compiled a master list of many different resources and booklists

of children's and young adult literacy that honor and instruct

about women's achievements:

http://tinyurl.com/c6enne

We've posted our full slate of Choice Literacy Workshop summer and

fall events, including new offerings on middle school reading

instruction,word work, nonfiction in the intermediate grades, and

dealing with assessment data. These new topics are in addition to

our popular offerings from last year on CAFE assessment, struggling

readers, literacy coaching, and the literacy principal in action:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department22.cfm

For Members Only

It's mid-year, and many teachers are checking in with students for

more extended conferences assessing literacy strengths and needs.

Katie DiCesare shares her conferring format, template and two

sample writing conferences. The goal with these first graders is

to help them become more self-reflective and independent in

monitoring their work:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/843.cfm

If you are working in middle or high schools, the challenge is

finding a way to check in with over a hundred students with a

mid-year assessment. From the archives, Katie Doherty provides a

mid-year assessment survey and template that helps students home in

on their emerging skills and needs:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/534.cfm

What texts are appropriate for teaching comprehension strategies

to readers who are so young they may not yet be decoding texts?

Ruth Shagoury and Andie Cunningham present criteria for selecting

books for instruction, as well as two annotated booklists of

classic and more recent titles. These books are especially useful

in contexts with many English language learners:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/840.cfm

Finally, struggling readers require lots of attention in schools,

but supporting advanced young readers sometimes requires teaching

skills that are just as sophisticated. In Part II of "Harder Texts

Aren't Always the Answer," Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan offer

advice for talking with parents about what it means to "challenge"

a student instructionally. A catch-up link is included if you

missed Part I:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/845.cfm

That's all for this week!

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