Adolescent Literacy Website

Ever on the lookout for resources, I was delighted when a colleague shared with me a website that had been recommended to her. Ad.Lit (http://adlit.org/) is a website called All about Adolescent Literacy: Resources for parents and educators of kids in grades 4-12. The website has been around a while given some of the dates on the articles, but if you haven’t visited it, it is worth a stop. My favorite part of the website were the author interviews as they go beyond what students read in the brief “about the author” and address aspects of the authors’ lives that students would find interesting and perhaps connect with. I found additional author’s interviews under the Video and Multimedia section as well. So here is a preview of the site.

Author Interviews: Every want your students to meet an author such as Christopher Paul Curtis or Lois Lowry, they can through if you download their interview from adlit.org. The power of the interview is that the author becomes accessible and “real” to students. To briefly summarize Lowry’s interview, she shares how a series of life experiences made her a writer. From having to recite a poem at age 4 for her grandfather’s friends to one of those friends leaving her enough money when he died to buy a car, so she dropped out of college, got married, had four kids, and then finished her degree.

Classroom Strategies: Looking for additional strategies to add to your teaching tool box or perhaps a refresher on a particular strategy? This website organizes dozens of them in a table divided into reading (vocabulary, comprehension) and writing and further classified as a strategy for before, during, or after. This may sound familiar to Power Tools alumni who have used the Power Tools lesson plan. The explanation of each strategy is done through a series of questions and answers such as “what is it?” and “why is it so great?” then it moves to the how-to use and includes a link to a sample of where the strategy has been applied.

Glossary: Always nice given the alphabet soup laden world of acronyms and terms not defined in the dictionary. Those terms can come in handy though, I once had a colleague pulled over for speeding. When asked where she was going in such a hurry she rattled off that she was late to meeting with the school SPED coordinator to discuss an upcoming IEP as the SWD needed some additional accommodations. She got a warning.

Just for Fun: This page is a bit of everything left over, but should not be missed. Want to know how to get free books before anyone else can buy them – students can sign up to be book reviewers, writing contests, technology links.

Research and Reports: This section is organized by topic and consists of brief annotations with links to the report, if available on the internet.

Topics from A-Z: Additional links to resources are organized by topic. Some topics are rather lacking in resources (e.g., special education), although others fill many screens (e.g., content area literacy strategies). The podcast article under technology is useful to get one started using this technology with students. If you have ever scripted a video production, you know how much reading, writing, and editing is involved. Using the technology is a way to engage students in the reading and writing process.

Consider sharing a web resource that you have found fun, useful, or a combination of both by posting it as a comment to this article.

Teacher Hiring Season is Upon Us

Winter is a common time for students who will be graduating from teacher preparation programs in the spring to start applying to school systems for the next school year. Experienced teachers, whether moving into the area, re-entering the profession, or simply looking to changes school systems start applying in late winter and early spring. The process from application to job offer is filled with challenges for both the applicant and the employer.

• For applicants, waiting and not knowing generates questions. Did the school system receive my application? Are there openings? When will I be contacted? What is the hiring process? Should I sign with School District A that has offered a contract or wait to see if my preferred school system offers me an interview.


• For employers, some openings due to retirements, etc. may be known during the winter, but often full list of needs is not known until existing teachers return their contracts, student redistricting is completed, and a host of other factors that tend to create a pressure hiring push in July.

So what can you do to increase your yield of new hires that will be effective and successful in your school? Alternatively, if you are an applicant, how can you enhance your odds that you will be hired and like your new school? Articles, books, websites, etc. contain a plethora of tips, practices, and research. So cut through all of this, the answer is simply to cultivate relationships by treating others as you want to be treated whether you are in central office, in a school, or applying to the school district.

When an application is received, a quick email to the applicant acknowledging its receipt is a first step. Many school systems use online application submissions so there is an automatic confirmation. Employers, providing follow up information (e.g., school districts facts, job fairs), as an email blast to all applicants in the database keeps applicants connected. Applicants, ensure that applications are grammatically correct, legible, and complete (or indicate if something is being sent under separate cover).

In preparation for an interview, employers review your questions to make sure they are job-relevant and well-distributed among the various job responsibilities that the new hire will perform. Building level interviews typically last about one hour, so inquiries need to be made about all quality areas (i.e., classroom management, planning, instruction, assessment, interactions with stakeholders) associated with effective teaching. Applicants prepare by thinking of specific examples that highlight their strengths and demonstrate their learning related to these key areas. One technique is to look at the job description posted by the potential employer and reflect on experiences you have had related to each job responsibility.

During interviews show an interest in the other party. People tend to disclose more when they perceive that someone is interested n them and this helps to forge a connection. Applicants come prepared with a couple of specific questions about the school perhaps gleaned from visiting the school or district’s website. Interviewers ask experienced-based questions that get applicants talking about their past performance. Applicants answer these questions by telling the situation, task that needed to be done, action you took, and results (STAR).

Applicants follow up as appropriate such as a “thank you for your time” email or letter if an interview has been held. An employer (e.g., school) may want to keep the communication door open by having a standard email that all interviewees receive after the interview inviting them to contact the grade level or department chair if they have any questions about the school. These communications should avoid the topic of if a job will be offered as that is often the domain of the personnel department.

In short, relationships are about connections. The ability to connect and accurately assess those connections is key in having a successful hiring season.

FYI: SURN is hosting a workshop on teacher selection March 20, 2009 contact prdevc@wm.edu for more information.

I created the Teacher Quality Index: A Teacher Selection Interview Protocol in order to bring together the research-based findings of what constitutes an effective teacher based on co-author James Stronge's writings in that area with my research on effective interviewing practices. The book can be found at http://shop.ascd.org/productdisplay.cfm?productid=105001. It presents the selection-related research and a research-based interview protocol.

Power Tools Possibilities

For several years Rozzelle and Scearce have presented their Power Tools reading strategies in a variety of formats. They’ve tweaked, revamped, and tailored the presentation depending on the audience and prior feedback. The Power Tools workshop a week ago provided some more food for thought as the participant evaluations were read. It is nice to receive very positive feedback in the check the degree to which you agree to the statement boxes. Yet it is the comments that often are incredibly insightful and helpful in strengthening a professional development offering.

Several participants indicated that they would like to have a Power Tools II workshop available so that more strategies could be modeled and discussions among Power Tools users could be held. The School University Research Network (SURN) agrees. Jan has done intensive work with school systems over a period of time, so many materials, activities, and discussion starters are already produced. So we are looking at offering Power Tools II in the fall to folks who have completed Power Tools I. The focus will be on sharing our collective professional expertise in working with the Power Tools in our unique instructional settings. Of course additional strategies will be modeled as well.

A key question for educators currently using Power Tools and reaping the benefits is: How do I share what I am doing with my colleagues? One indicator of a highly effective teacher is someone who looks beyond his or her professional practice and positively impacts the work of others. Sometimes simply sharing a successful lesson plan starts someone else’s wheels turning. Modeling a strategy with novice teachers and discussing the connections, issues, and rewards as a form of “cognitive apprenticeship” develops and adds a new tool to the beginning teacher’s tool box of strategies. Sharing experiences on this blog is another way to reach beyond your classroom’s door.

One of the evaluation comments suggested another way to share the Power Tools with others. A paraeducator who attended the two-day workshop shared that her participation in the professional development equipped her with insights and strategies to support the teacher’s instruction and the student’s learning. We know that school wide implementation of instructional approaches is powerful as students use tools across disciplines in authentic ways. One can start on a micro-level with their classroom, department, or grade level. Just think of the benefits is the people invested in student instruction understand and apply a core group of instructional strategies:

• Paraeducators can better support the work in the classroom if they understand the use and educational benefits of a particular strategy. The benefit can be much stronger for the school system as investing in professional development of paraeducators can increase retention rates and more importantly, paraeducators are an important source of future teachers as some elect to complete coursework for their teaching license. So, the benefit continues.
• Cooperating teachers (sometimes called clinical faculty or supervising teachers) could model the strategies with their student teachers. In the short term, the classroom both teachers familiar with the strategies which translates into coherent instruction. In the midterm, a new teacher may discuss Power Tools during an employment interview as an example of work that was done and set him/herself a part from other applicants. Finally in the long term, when newly minted teachers go into their classrooms, they have additional tools and resources that support and foster student learning.
• Mentor teachers with their new teachers may attend the professional development and work on implementing the strategies together. Additionally, a mentor who has done Power Tools I may do Power Tools II and work with his or her “mentee” who attends Power Tools I.
• A colleague sharing what works well with others is a powerful endorsement of and way to share effective strategies.

So how do you (or will you) share what you are doing that gets results?

Power Tools for Adolescent Literacy

Seventy-four educators from around Virginia attended the Power Tools for Adolescent Literacy 2-day workshop in Williamsburg, VA. There is a synergy that occurs in well-constructed and worthwhile professional development offerings. Presenters and participants interact in meaningful ways sharing their expertise, work context, and experiences. Workshop participant, Ed Shepherd (assistant principal and blogger) suggested that a blog be started to share the Power Tools materials. His blog about the workshop may be read at http://learningtocollaborate.blogspot.com/2008/12/power-tools-and-teacher-sharing.html. Inspired by Ed's passion for technology and motivated by the tips for getting started he offered, SURN created a blog.

Presenters Carol Scearce and Jan Rozzelle modeled a variety of literacy strategies while providing information, tips, and research to support the use of the strategies to increase student comprehension and retention of content material. From the vocabulary organizer that guides students in defining, visualizing, and linking unfamiliar words with their prior knowledge to interactive note taking and the golden lines template, participants interacted with the material and began to visualize how the strategies could be implemented in their instructional settings.

SURN invites workshop participants to share their thoughts about the workshop and the implementation of the strategies with their students as well as questions.