The Big Fresh from Choice Literacy
June 13, 2009
Someone is Leaving
That's something that is growing on me as I get older - happy
endings.
Alice Munro
Someone who brightens your day at work is leaving. How do I
know
this? Because if it's June and you work in schools, someone is
always leaving. Maybe it's the teacher next door who had a big
retirement dinner last week, or the young teaching intern still
sending out applications for her first job. Could be the
woman who
has helped in the lunchroom for 30 years, or the friendly janitor
who is always willing to help move a table. (Okay, about half
of
you reading this are nodding in agreement, and the other half are
snorting in laughter. Janitors are either wonderfully
helpful. .
.or they go the other way. After working in over 30 schools,
don't
ask me how I know this. But I digress.)
It doesn't matter if you've already attended the big retirement
party, or signed the card, or ate the cake and chatted with
everyone after school in the teacher's workroom. Once you have
a moment to catch your breath, you have a wonderful gift you can give
this person you will miss. You can write them a
letter. Whenever
anyone is in transition, a handwritten note from a colleague left
behind means the world. If they're faced with the giddy excitement
of their first job, it's a reminder that they've already shown
competence and have been valued as a young teacher. If they're
facing
the long days of retirement, it's a reminder that they've already
lived a life that mattered daily for kids.
I think so many of us plan to write to our friends who leave, and
somehow never get to it because it's hard. So hard to sum up
what
they've meant to us, and the hole they leave in our professional
lives. But what matters is the attempt. Just write
- about one
day when your friend really made their mark, or made you laugh, or
did something the kids are still talking about to this day. It
won't be perfect, but I guarantee you it will be tucked away and
reread again and again. And it will help your colleague have a
happier ending as they move out of your sphere and into a new one.
This week, we've got yet more advice for planning and organizing
classroom libraries, plus more as always. Enjoy!
Brenda Power
Editor, Choice Literacy
Free for All
If you are looking to organize a more kid-friendly classroom
library, as well as ways to enlist students in organizing materials
from the start, you'll enjoy Katie DiCesare's essay with tips on
using children's emerging interests and needs to organize book
baskets on the go:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/352.cfm
If you haven't discovered the TED Talks on the web, you are in for
a treat. These are inspiring brief lectures from visionaries
in
almost every public realm. Scott McLeod at his Dangerously
Irrelevant blog has compiled a handy guide to the Top 20 TED Talks for
School Administrators. This is terrific free professional
development on the web for summer renewal:
http://tinyurl.com/kw7d9h
This is a little lighter than our usual posts, but if you have a
young reader in your life with a birthday coming up (or even if you
are just a lover of children's books and baking), you are going to
want to check out this PBS Booklights post on Books Good Enough to
Eat. It's a charming collection of photos of book-themed cakes
gathered from across the web:
http://tinyurl.com/pbdq4t
Childhood Education has an excellent research summary making the
case for nonfiction in school and classroom libraries:
http://tinyurl.com/lp2kwu
If you're buried under a mountain of assessment data, you might
enjoy the new Choice Literacy Summer Workshop "Making Assessments
Work for You." Offered in Portland, Maine on July
7th, the event
highlights protocols for helping teachers move from assessment data
to designing classroom instruction. The DVD provided to
participants includes sample study group meetings and demonstration
lessons developed based on assessment data. You can download a
workshop description and registration form at this link:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/maine09.pdf
Our new Intermediate CAFE and Intermediate Daily 5 DVDs featuring
The Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) are on sale this
month -
purchase both by June 30th and save $99. View footage from
both
programs at this link:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/item27.cfm
For Members
Only
Want some free DVDs? Take our new member survey and you've got a
chance at winning some of the $10,000 worth of DVDs we are giving
away. We have light posting this week, because we are hoping
to
get lots of member response as we begin a major reorganization of
the website which will continue through the fall. Even if you
don't win DVDs, by giving us advice, you'll eventualy "win" a
website better organized to meet your needs:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/913.cfm
Our new video this week is a quick three-minute tip from Joan Moser
of "The Sisters" on how to organize large laminated charts or
Big
Books. The simple tool she shares is a great little summer
project
for the handyman or handywoman in your life:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/914.cfm
If you are a mentor to new teachers, or responsible for a mentor
orientation program sometime this summer, our Mentor Interview
Questions from the Choice Literacy Archives might help in your
planning. This series of over 30 questions for
mentors or novice
teachers can be used to plan a mentoring program, match mentors and
novice teachers, or launch partnerships early in the fall:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/members/379.cfm
Finally, remember to visit the Clusters Department as you plan your
summer and fall professional development. Articles and videos are
grouped by topic with reflection questions provided, for use over
four or five learning sessions. There are currently 30
clusters
available - enough to keep you busy all summer and beyond:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department71.cfm
That's all for this week!
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