Igniting a Passion for Reading

I started the first three chapters of Dr. Steven L. Layne's Igniting a Passion for Reading: Successful Strategies for Building Lifetime Readers back in the fall, but I just now got back to it and completed it. However, I think now was actually a better time in the year for me to read the majority of the book because I am at the stage in the year where I am looking ahead to what my literacy block will look like next year. My schedule will be different, and I have been considering what I will include and how I will break down the time alloted.

In his book, Layne dedicates a chapter for each of the following areas: targeting aliterate readers (those who can read but do not have a desire to do so), knowing your students, book chats, read alouds, modeling, book discussions, reading lounges, celebrating books, author visits, and a sample quarterly plan. I loved that at the end of each chapter, with the exception of the last, he had a reflection called from the trenches followed by contributions from authors discussing memorable teachers in their literacy lives.

Reading his ideas to foster a love of reading leading into life-long readers was a great way to reflect on current practices and a new lens to consider ideas that have been simmering for quite a while with regards to planning for next year. Many of the ideas were not new concepts, but it was the idea of seeing it again at a different phase in my career, making me realize that it is a good book for pre-service teachers, teachers in their first years, as well as teachers with years of experience. Whether it is seeing the ideas for the first time or to remind ourselves of important concepts in our personal teaching philosophies, reflecting on or reworking strategies we use in the classroom, this book opens up a good dialogue.

Reading Countess' "Recycle Your Reads"

I just finished reading a post over at the Reading Countess' blog. She explained how last year she got the idea to organize a book drive for her students (who come from financially stable backgrounds) to donate some of their books to another school that serves many students who are not as economically advantaged. I loved how she said, "In a time when people expect something for nothing, I offered no reward to my students. No homework passes, no 'shoes off' passes, and no bonus points would be awarded for them for giving to the worthy project. I wanted my kids to know what it was to give unselfishly because it was the right thing to do."

So how many books did her 5th graders donate last year?

210!

And this year when she decided to expand the idea to her whole school?

3,287!

I love how she inspired her students to be generous and conscious of how they can make a difference at their young age. I encourage you to read the full post for more details.

The Power of Words

I always love authentic writing experiences that pop up by chance and that result in students seeing the power of words, even though they were not part of the year long scope and sequence plans. This spring we had such an opportunity. My students knew that next year as the school grows to the 8th grade and we have our first graduating class we would need to add one more teacher to the middle school team. In a conversation with our director some of the boys in my class happened to mention that they wanted a retired teacher who had been in to sub for us regularly this year to be the third teacher.

The director mentioned that they should send him a letter inviting him to apply. I guided them through gathering ideas. Even though it was the boys who mentioned the original idea, all of the students were excited about the possibility and the student scribes quickly filled the board with the class' ideas. Next, I helped them think about organization as they grouped their thoughts. I drafted the sentences that they mentioned on the Smart Board, and they also gave suggestions for revision along the way. Once we had a complete draft I pointed out aspects such as noticing repetitive sentence structures. I talked about how in the beginning it was great just to get the ideas out but that they should go back and reword or combine some sentences so that it would flow better.

Throughout the whole process students were very active - providing ideas, giving opinions, crafting sentences... They also had their own voice. While I was the scribe and guided them along, I made sure to not put words into their mouth. There were some fun lines, such as them telling him they liked his sense of style. For a split second I was tempted to sway them against that line since it was not professional. However, I am glad that I quickly remembered it wasn't about what one professional would say to another, it was about what 7th grade students would say to an educator they admire for many reasons. The final result had ideas about him as an educator, as well as showing their personality and why they thought he would enjoy being their teacher.

I could not have been more thrilled when we completed the application and interview process and he was welcomed on board as my new colleague. I love that my students had a chance to be involved in the application process, which in my experience is rare, and even better, they were also able to see how their writing influenced something so important to their lives. I am proud of them for their role in the process.

Nice Reaffirmations

It is always nice for students to hear students make comments that validate the teaching practices I do. Today some of my students participated on a panel of students at our school for some university students taking a children's literature class. I had been excited for the panel, thinking my students would enjoy talking about the books they love. Yet, I didn't realize until after that it would also be an experience to reaffirm my literacy beliefs. This afternoon the college professor who was coordinating the panel was sharing different comments from my students about what they like about class and how they find books. For example, they brought up Author Tip Tuesday, book talks, reading response letters and our classroom library. I am glad that I have been able to play a role in my students' literacy lives, and look forward to spending one more year with this particular class!

iTouches Have Arrived

Friday was teacher work day, and we spent it getting the new iTouches that we received ready to roll out on Monday. For now each classroom gets ten iTouches, but eventually we will build to have a 1:1 ratio. The prep school students (grades 6-8 - the grade levels I teach) will be filled up to a 1:1 first. Eventually, next year the older students will be assigned an iTouch that travels with them instead of having them assigned to classrooms. Students will be able to take them home as well. However, we will not be checking them out this year as we still need to figure out exactly what our procedures will be related to that. One of the huge areas that I am excited about for the touches is using them as a response system for data. I am also looking forward to the possibilities with content creation, including having some of my students create audio books as a service project for the younger grades. We are not quite there on understanding exactly how to do these pieces yet.

For now I am thinking about how I will use them for the last five weeks of school. There are some applications for Spanish that students will use once we are back to our last two Spanish weeks. In the meantime, I am planning on launching them by having student read on them during reading workshop. There is one App that has a dinosaur montage and students can zoom in to individual pictures and then read information about them. One of my 6th graders is fascinated by dinosaurs, so I am going to offer this to him first. Then, there are a couple of other Apps with information about notable people and another with history classics*. I also want to add a link for University of South Florida's Lit2Go to the home screen of each touch.

I have also been considering putting some of my classical music into iTunes. This year my class has been pretty lucky. Because my classroom was the only one completed at the start of the year, we spent the majority of the year with out many distractions during reading and writing workshop. Even though I thought the construction that started up in the winter was a distraction, I quickly realized that amazingly enough, it was still relatively low on the distraction scale in comparison to having another class in the building.

As there was a higher level of noise in the building I talked to the students about how we still had to be productive but that we could experiment a little with ways to help us remain productive. For example, students have been able to give feedback on whether they would like to have classical music playing in the background to block out some noise, or if they prefer to block out the other class on their own. Students have had differences in preference, so the iTouches could be an opportunity for students to make decisions for themselves.

I was just reading Ruth's post about noise level in writing workshop. I had originally been thinking about having the music on iTouches available for reading workshop, but she got me thinking about how it would also be a great option for writing workshop. There are so many possibilities. It will be amazing to see different ways I will be able to maximize the benefits of iTouch in the classroom.

Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices

Ralph Fletcher's Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices had caught my eye for some time now. Recently I ordered a copy and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Aside from all of the writing advice/thoughts, I was thrilled that it talked about boys in general. Growing up in a family of all girls and being a mom of two girls, I can't say that I have a strong grasp on boys. Of course, I have observations from my years of teaching, but I don't think that makes up for the lack of having a brother or a son. Thus, the book got me thinking about myself as a teacher and if my classroom is an environment where boys can reach their full potential or if it more easily accomodates girls and their learning styles and preferences. It was pretty fascinating to me, and it sparked my interest to delve deeper. Eventually I would love to read other books that he mentions, such as Thomas Newkirk's Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. (I just saw the front cover for the first time when I was getting the link for the post - I absolutely love it!)

One of Fletcher's comments early on in the book was, "Let's create the kind of classroom where every boy who enters can say to himself: This is a place where I can write, a place where I can bring all of myself to my writing" (25). The book outlines just how teachers can be more mindful of creating this environment. I especially loved the What Can I Do In My Classroom feature at the end of each chapter to list out the main classroom implications from each individual chapter in a succinct manner.

Since technology and literacy is a current area of high interest for me, I also enjoyed reading Fletcher's remarks about texting. While some people do not see it as a valid means for developing literacy skills, he said, "But it's making these boys into better writers [...] I mean, you can't spend hours working on a skill without getting better at it." What a great reminder!

Aside from the book piquing my interest in the field of gender studies, I am also excited to read more of his books about writer's notebooks. I already have a copy of his Breathing In, Breathing Out on my to-read shelf. I can't wait to get a copy of his Pyrotechnics on the Page (expected to come out later this month) as well. I might just have a Ralph Fletcher mini-marathon reading this spring. He also helped me to recenter and reflect as I am creating and re-working my 3 year curriculum map. After reading a recent post from Two Writing teachers, I had already been noticing my flaw of not leaving enough room for student choice in genres, and reading this book hit that message home. This was an excellent book on so many different levels.

State Testing Reflections - Building Confidence

Aside from the content knowledge, confidence level has appeared to be a big obstacle for some of my students. They know the content, but the thought of taking a state assessment panics them. This is even more so these days as the emphasis on testing keeps growing in our culture. Our state allows up to three attempts on most state assessments, so some students can have a lot of testing. As 7th graders they have up to three attempts for reading, up to three attempts for math, one attempt for writing, and if they are qualified as an English Language Learner, they have the two portions of the ELPA assessment. All of these assessments span multiple days. Imagine all of these testing days if you have test anxiety or a low confidence level.
We talk to our students about remaining calm in testing situations, and we also try to have them do Brain Gym activities prior to their testing sessions. Something new that we are trying to build confidence in genral is an after school program that is fairly brief in duration with problem solving team builders. One of my colleagues is running the program, and he is the perfect person to do it. He participated in a summer leadership program for years. The one year I was able to go we were co-leaders on the team, and he led many of the problem-solving team builder activities. Since he is running the group right next door to my classroom, I could often hear the laughter, along side his motivational talks to limit their frustration while working through different activities and to debrief each activity.
 
I love that this new piece will not only help students to remain calm while testing, but it also serves a bigger purpose of having a life skill to limit frustrations while problem solving and to keep trying rather than giving up if the first plan does not work out.

State Testing Reflections - Stem Questions

In my first post in this series I talked about how it is essential to help students transfer their everyday reading skills to state tests. Some students are able to make this shift on their own, while others benefit from having some classroom time spent understanding the testing genre. I also previously mentioned how my state has blueprints and specifications, which includes stem questions for each of the reading strands, making it easier to help familiarize students with the test language.

Our director originally brought up the idea of having a 5 question quiz each week to go along with our read aloud using the stem question format. I liked this idea in that it would give students opportunities to get how the tests are set-up without using too much of classroom time on test prep activities. I think it ended up working really well for some of my colleagues; however, I struggled with implementing it consistently. It was hard to know exactly where I would be in the read aloud book on the day designated for the quiz. I also knew that hearing a book prior to answering questions and reading the text while answering the questions were two different skills.

Lately I have been reflecting on the possibility of having a text of the week. I got the idea from Kelly Gallagher's article of the week. I thought that I could adapt his original idea to include stem questions. I would be able to frame the text as they would be in state testing as well. Although this would incorporate many more texts than current events. It would include fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as texts that match up well with reading to perform a task.

This summer I will continue to think through this idea, but I know that in one form or another, I am going to try it out next year. Yet another example of King's concept of "two previously unrelated ideas [coming] together."

State Testing Reflections - Writing Components Pondering

Aside from the regular reading and writing assessments, my students classified as English Language Learners also participate in our state's English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA). One test covers reading, writing, and listening, while a second has speaking. I had already reflected on the writing state assessment and the success of having a prompt writing genre, but as my students geared up for ELPA and I have been reflecting on the most essential pieces that I will make sure to integrate next year a thought came to mind regarding writer's notebooks that synthesized ideas from many sources.

Before I explain my idea, I am going to back up and give a quick overview of the influences that came together for the idea. Much of how I use writer's notebooks right now is inspired by Marsha Riddle Buly, a visiting professor that I had while on exchange in Mexico. She has been very influential in who I am as a writing teacher. She pointed me in the direction of starting to delve into so many areas that are key components of my classroom today, such as workshop in general, writer's notebooks, and word study. While writing feature articles, she showed us how utilizing notebooks to guide writers through lists, quick writes based on ideas from the lists, and experimenting with certain pieces of a work in progress (such as an introduction) can be very beneficial. I am certain utilizing writer's notebooks the way she modeled it will always be a big component of my workshop.

I am currently pondering others' ideas as well. This summer I saw how Mark Overmeyer emphasized the benefits of prompt writing and I later read his book to hear the full explanation. At the same time I was reading Jeff Anderson's ideas for instruction with editing and mechanics. Their thoughts have been in the back of my mind simmering away throughout the year as I have been implementing some of their ideas. This spring I read how Penny Kittle also incorporates a lot of quick writes in her classroom. 

I had been thinking about having my students write more quick-writes, including quick writes inspired by prompts, rather than just related to their current piece of writing in their notebooks next year. Inspired by the ideas from the various influences to give it a try, I also thought about how this would help my students when they come upon the extended answer responses on the ELPA. My thoughts right now are that I will also link my Everyday Editing lessons, inspired by Jeff Anderson's ideas (and the title of one of his books), to this practice in the notebook. I will be rethinking the scope and sequence of the teaching points I integrate taking into consideration not only my grade level language arts standards, but the English Language Proficiency standards. This again would help students score at higher levels on the ELPA writing portion.

Yet, I wanted to make sure that I was doing it for more than improved test scores. I was sifting through different rationales for the thought but leaning toward the benefits for my students as writers. Then I thought about the advice that YA author Sydney Satler mentioned to my class for one of our Author Tip Tuesdays about how practice writing unrelated to her novel each day helps her to become a better writer and impacts the quality of her novels. There's the rationale that gives me a real life authentic reason of how it can impact my students in becoming better writers, not just better ELPA extended answer writers, but better writers in general. I think I will give it a try.

State Testing Reflections - Prompt Writing as a Genre

I first heard about the idea of teaching writing to prompts as a genre from Sarah (The Reading Zone) and from Stacey (Two Writing Teachers). This year was the first year that I have had a class at the grade level to complete their actual state writing assessment. 

Before talking about my reflections on how my first writing to a prompt genre and how students did on their writing assessment, I want to give some background on my state's writing assessment. Hearing other teachers comment on their state assessments through blogging and college coursework, I realized that there can be significant differences in testing among states, so I thought some background might be helpful. In Oregon students participate in the state writing assessment to be scored by the state in 4th, 7th, and 10th grades. Students are scored using our state's writing traits scoring guide (my personal favorite is the 7th grade condensed bulleted version under the writing student language scoring guides). 7th graders are scored on: ideas and content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions on a scale from 1-6. However, voice and word choice are not calculated into the score and conventions is double weighted. Traditionally this process was completed with two raters independent of each other. However, this year and last with budget crunches, the 7th grade papers are scored once and then doubled. Students need a 40 to meet and a 50 to exceed. 

Throughout the whole year we talk about the traits, modes, and genres of writing through the natural process of writing workshop. Going right along with the concept that if students write widely and often they will do well on assessments, the prompt writing genre is truly able to focus on what is unique about writing for prompts, rather than what makes good writing in general. I use my state's resources, including sample prompts and examples of scored writing to familiarize students with what is required in able to meet or exceed on our state's assessment. I talk with students about how to look at a prompt and decide which mode of writing it is eliciting and help them make connections about what they know about what makes each mode unique, as well as the generalizations of strong writing for all modes. For example, they know that with expository writing they are explaining something, which takes on a different organizational set-up than if they choose narrative or imaginative where they will be telling a story, yet regardless of the mode the writing should always flow smoothly. 

I also talk to students about applying what they know about the writing process and what they prefer as a writer. When we are doing the genre writing unit we do not use our writer's notebooks. Instead, I talk to them about how they can use the same tools we use in their notebooks with regular notebook paper, which is what they can use on their state test and is also standard for other writing assessments at later stages in their life. Rather than guiding them through specific ways of gathering ideas as a class they do this on their own. While they have already done this various times throughout the year with their self-selected writing, I typically guide them through gathering ideas with new genres. However, the prompt writing genre is all about practicing writing independently, about taking what they know and shining as writers. 

When my students took their state writing assessment I was thrilled to see the pencils flying. All of my students had something to say. Nobody appeared to have writer's block. I know this would not have been the case without the combination of writer's workshop that values writing for authentic purposes on a daily basis coupled with a brief unit to prepare them for this specific genre. I was so proud of all of my students and how they have grown as students over the last two years. I look forward to continually improving my practices in writer's workshop and the prompt writing genre.

State Testing Reflections - Data Teams

Last year my school started the official process of data teams, putting the spotlight on the importance of holding ourselves accountable to collecting a wide variety of student data and using it to inform our instruction. Another important piece to this process is collaborating as colleagues. Sometimes this means we meet with our grade level teams, as language teams (Spanish teachers and English teachers), content area teams, or as a whole staff. Our director frequently dedicates time at our regular staff meetings to share celebrations or new ideas as a group. While my 7th graders obviously are not working toward the same standards as the kindergarten class, as teachers we are still able to learn from each other and the processes we are using to become better practitioners.

My growth as a teacher has come from a combination of experience, support and training at my school, as well as self-directed professional development through wide reading and blogging. While I will continue revamping and fine tuning, here is a glimpse into how data teams comes into play with my current unit on inferencing in reading.

We had a brief focus on inferencing earlier in the year, but it was apparent that students could still benefit from a longer, more in depth unit on inferencing. As a result, we will be spending our remaining Spanish weeks focusing on the area. I just gave my students a pre-test on inferencing. I took an excerpt from Julia Alvarez's En busca de milagros with open-ended questions eliciting different types of inferencing that we will be emphasizing. The initial data collected from the pre-test will give me a better ideas of where my students are right now, combined with observations throughout the year from a variety of sources.

Next week we will continue on with focus lessons, drawing on ideas from When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do, Mosaic of Thought, I Read It, But I Don't Get It, and Middle School Readers. I will collect data through informal observations during focus lessons, anecdotal records during conferencing, quick checks with an iTouch during independent reading, student application of inferencing in their reader's notebooks and reading response letters, application with unfamiliar texts and state stem questions, as well as the post test.

With data teams I have been able to use data teams in combination with state blueprints and specifications to help students make the link between our independent reading with more authentic responses and state testing reading selections. Students see how they can use the same strategies with their own reading and recognize the type of wording used on state assessments. This way the bulk of my instructional time is focused on authentic self-selected reading and conferencing with adults and peers, yet there is still a piece in place for students to be aware of how the state assessment (and other assessments) work.

One more reason to be excited for Boothbay Literacy Retreat

Recently when I knew that I might be able to go to Heinemann's Boothbay Literacy Retreat I picked up a couple of Chris Crutcher's books that I had since he will be at the retreat. Both books, Athletic Shorts and Whale Talk were amazing.

I just listened to the podcast from last year's Boothbay Literacy Retreat with Kylene Beers, Robert Probst, and Chris Crutcher talking about his writing process. He discusses how he explores as he writes - having the plot develop as he goes, rather than knowing where it is going to end up when he starts writing. This reminded me of Stephen King's explanation of his process in his book On Writing.

The end of June will be here before I know it, and I am so looking forward to networking with others who are passionate about literacy.

State Testing Reflections - Helping Students Transfer Skills

State testing is an area I think about a lot, as I am sure would be true for the majority of teachers in this age of emphasis on testing. Yet, it is a fine balance to stay true to personal philosophies while also trying to help students succeed when they are in testing settings. My goal for my students is about more than meeting or exceeding on a state test, I want them to be life long readers and writers. I feel very fortunate to have had many professional development opportunities to help me shape who I am as an educator striving to give my students the best educational experience possible. 


Writing a post about testing was on my blogging to-do list. This morning when I read a post on the topic over at A Teaching Life, I started to write a comment with my thoughts on the topic and quickly realized the time to write my post had come. I have heard often that if students are in an environment where they read and write often, they will succeed on assessments - simple as pie. Yet, in the post that I read this morning the educator asks, "Will this transfer (as all the research says it should) to their test taking abilities?" Something that my school learned was that in some cases there were students who were not performing as well on assessments as expected because of lack of knowledge of the way the assessment questions/prompts are set up.


However, one of the reasons I love the environment where I teach is that rather than throwing out all of our promising practices and exchanging them for canned curriculum in response to the testing hysteria, we problem solved to think about what we could do to help bridge this gap while maintaining our school's philosophy. Our state, Oregon, provides testing specifications and blueprints that include stem questions. Paired up with an emphasis on data teams to be more cognizant of our students' academic strengths and weaknesses to better inform instruction, being able to create some opportunities for our students to familiarize themselves with transferring the skills they use everyday as readers, writers, scientists, mathematicians, etc. has been essential to some students' improved performance on state assessments. 


As I am typing and realizing how much I have to say and reflect upon with the topic, my one to-do list testing post has quickly transferred into a list for a series of posts. This week I will be posting more about this process, as well as other testing aha moments and the success of other ideas I learned from the blogging community, such as teaching prompt writing as a genre. 

Refining Word Study Introductions

This year I have been refining my implementation of Words Their Way word study. By far, the most difficult step of the process for me has been being able to find the time to introduce all the sorts to the different groups at the start of the week. I briefly tried having students be on rotations of different days, but with my dual immersion setting this was too difficult since I am not teaching in English every week.

This quarter I decided to try out something new, and so far it seems like I am on to something. Because my students are older, I typically have them do open sorts. Now rather than calling back the groups one at a time to my word study area of the room, I have all of my small groups spread out around the room. I give them their set of cards and have them spread them out on the floor and discuss what they notice and how they think they should be grouped. Then I circulate to check in with each group. I either confirm that they figured out the focus of the sort for the week and have everything categorized correctly, nudge them in the right direction, or clear up confusion, depending on the level of support they need.

The first week I tried this it worked pretty well but there was still some groups who were waiting a little bit for me to get to them. One group pulled out the guide cards to double check and see if they were on the right track. I realized that just as they are able to start the open sort, they can confirm with the guide cards as they wait. Then I will also leave their individual sort copies so that they can begin cutting out their practice copy words.

Overall, this seems like it will be much more smooth and developmentally appropriate for my students. At first I was thinking that I would not be able to use this as quickly with my incoming 6th graders next year, but then I remembered that the 4th/5th grade teacher has been using this all year after she asked me for support in launching it earlier this school year. Each year is it only going to get better as the rest of my school just started implementing word study about a month ago. Students will continue to come into my class aware of the concept of word study and ready to think about patterns and word parts.

It is so fulfilling to realize that different pieces are coming together and falling into place!

Reading Response Letters Update

Earlier this year I mentioned that I started having my students write Reading Response Letters. Last week as all of their Google Accounts got set up, I switched the assignment that used to be in their reader's notebook over to email. I am going to experiment a little to see if I prefer this or their notebooks. For me it is a toss up. I love typing because I am able to get my thoughts out quickly, whereas my hand can't always keep up. However, for some of my students it may be the opposite. I might eventually leave it up to my students to decide which they prefer.

The email format is easier for me to correct because I can read and respond from home versus reading notebooks only at school since they are so big and bulky to carry around.

I am also experimenting with having students include a couple of their classmates on their reading response email. This would not be as easy to facilitate with notebooks. They are able to interact a little bit more about their reading with email.

In addition, I just started writing a weekly blog post on our classroom blog that is a reading response post to my students, and they leave me questions. I have been writing a couple of questions for them to ponder related to my post at the end. Once I started writing them I quickly thought of many ideas for future posts. As I am conferring with students during reading workshop the ideas start flowing. For example, last week two of my students were rereading books, yet their thought process was completely different. One was rereading but had not noticed anything he forgot the first time, while the other was rereading a book for the 6th time that she had reread throughout various years. She was able to talk about why she loves the book and how she has read it differently as she has grown older. This sparked my idea to write my post this week about why I love rereading books from time to time and to give insights into my experiences with rereads.

I always love reading my students thoughts about reading and their current books. While there have been weeks when I was buried in journals, I still love the component. For next year when I will have three classes I am trying to evaluate whether I will be able to keep up every single week or not. I have considered the possibility of having students complete them weekly interacting and responding to their small group and then having me respond directly to them on a rotating basis. That way they would be writing each week, but I would not always be the one responding to all of my students. The social aspect of sharing about their reading would still have gains for them, while still being manageable for me time wise.

Time will tell what ends up being the ideal set-up for my classroom, but in the meantime I am willing to experiment and fine-tune.

Classroom Blogs Update Post

My latest reflections on integrating a classroom blog this year, which also includes my thinking around technology and literacy in general, is now on Stenhouse's blog. You can see the post here.

I would love to hear your favorite technology integrations, as well as your thoughts on technology and literacy.

Can't Hardly Wait!

Kylene Beers, Robert Probst, Nancie Atwell, Sara Kajder, Linda Rief, and Chris Crutcher all at one literacy and technology retreat!? Oh, and did I mention it is offered through one of my all time favorite publishers, Heinemann? I could hardly contain my excitement just thinking about the possibility of going to the Boothbay Literacy Retreat, but today as I clicked through my web registration it is hard to believe that I will actually get to go.

All the pieces are coming together. As if the conference wasn't enough to be excited about, I will fly into Boston to spend a couple of days with my sister who has been living in Massachusetts for the last three years while her husband did his medical residency there. Then she will take me to the retreat in Maine and pick me up. Next, it will be time for her and her family to drive cross country to move back to the Pacific Northwest. On the way we will be able to see another one of our sisters in Iowa, as well as our 1 year old niece that we have only been able to see one other time! I have never had a chance to drive cross country either.

There is so much to look forward to. The only downside is that I, of course, will miss my girls and husband. I think I will be gone about two weeks total. My mom just reminded me that a couple of summers ago I helped out with an institute for two weeks in the summer, and I survived being away from my family. I will, however, make sure to spend a lot of time with the girls before going on my trip.

It is still hard to believe that I actually get to go. I will make sure to have writer's notebooks with me to document my experiences. I am certain the experience will inspire many WN entries that I can later share with my students. I will definitely be posting a lot about this experience.

*Note: Even though I do not have reviews/comments on my blog about each of the literacy leaders who will be at the retreat, I have books from each one (Sara Kajder's new book is the latest addition to my professional development library, and I will be posting about it soon). I have loved every single one. It is great to recognize all the names and have a reason to be excited for each one.