When you think positive, good things happen.
—Matt Kemp
[Now you can listen to the Big Fresh as a podcast!]
Good Things
“Good things…” I whisper as my sons hug me before leaving for the day.
“…are going to happen to me and through me,” they finish.
It’s a quiet and predictable conversation that has been happening daily for years. A long time ago, I decided I wanted to send my kids into the world believing that good things are going to happen to them, and good things are going to happen through them.
This is not a slight thing to believe.
The world can be cruel and dark. Some kids know this before others. All kids learn it at school. The world can also be good and light. When we enter the world believing that good things are going to happen to us, the likelihood skyrockets that we will find the good.
As we welcome 2022, I’d like to remind you that good things are happening to you and through you. It’s part of the human experience. Look for it today, and when you wake up tomorrow, remind yourself: Good things are happening to me and through me!
This week we look at welcoming spaces—plus more, as always.
Shine on!
Ruth Ayres
Editor in Chief, Choice Literacy
Ruth Ayres is the editor in chief of the Choice Literacy site and the director of professional learning for The Lead Learners Consortium in northern Indiana. Ruth previously worked as a middle and high school language arts and science teacher and a K-12 instructional coach. She is the author of Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers (Stenhouse, 2017) and other books for teachers of writers. When not writing professionally, Ruth collects stories of adoption, faith, and whimsy. You can follow her at Ruth Ayres Writes or @ruth_ayres on Twitter or Instagram.
Featured Contributor
Brian Sepe is an instructional literacy coach in Buffalo, New York. He is also a consultant and instructional coach with the Western New York Teaching Residency Program. Brian’s experience is steeped in the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and in K-8 classrooms. He is also trained through the Instructional Coaching Group (ICG) with Jim Knight. You can find Brian at briansepe.com and @Brian_Sepe_ through social media.
Join the Choice Literacy Book Club! This month we are reading Outside, Inside by LeUyen Pham. Sign up now so you are in the know about #ChoiceLiteracyBookClub.
Cathy Mere and Ruth Ayres discuss this week’s theme, welcoming spaces, on the podcast.
Suzy Kaback thinks deeply about the concept of belonging as an essential part of building a school community. This article was first published in 2020.
NEW COURSE! Don’t miss Stella Villalba‘s new course Honoring Our Students’ Stories: Building an Intentional and Inclusive Learning Community to Grow Readers and Writers. This course is free to Literacy Leader members and available to purchase.
Stella Villalba teaches us how to discover, honor, and share student stories to create an inclusive learning community. With special attention to English learners, Stella walks educators through a process to intentionally honor the past and present of students to position all students to grow as readers and writers.
New members-only content is added each week to the Choice Literacy website. If you’re not yet a member, click here to explore membership options.
When students feel safe, they are positioned to learn. Julie Cox shares ways to create a learning environment that brings unity to her high school classroom.
Bitsy Parks leads her first-grade class in a study about communication to strengthen their socially distanced and muffled-by-masks community. Included is a booklist.
Don’t forget our downloads! Ruth Ayres explains how she sets realistic goals for her own learning during the year. Download a reflective practice guide to consider your next goals for writing workshop.
The Elementary Contributor course Empower Choice is an excellent way to reflect on the choices you offer students as readers and writers. It is free to all members or available to purchase.
New members-only content is added each week to the Choice Literacy website. If you’re not yet a member, click here to explore membership options.
In the course It’s a Cycle Not a Hamster Wheel: Getting the Most Out of Coaching Cycles, Dana Murphy takes you into the nitty-gritty of coaching cycles with examples and advice from experienced literacy coaches from across the country. You’ll view videos of an initial meeting between a coach and a teacher to plan a cycle and sample demonstration lessons within a cycle, as well as quick tips for getting organized and taking good notes throughout the cycle. (This course was created in 2019.)
Heather Fisher guides a reflective practice exercise to begin a professional meeting that gives space for participants to pause and consider their core values. This simple experience has the potential to powerfully energize educators.
Dana Brownlee writes important relationship-building advice for leaders in light of the pandemic-induced roller coaster over the past two years.
In this encore video and article, Jennifer Allen shares a few strategies for building the reading community beyond individual classrooms in your school. Book swaps, a shared staff novel, and family literacy breakfasts all reinforce the most important aspect of reading: It should be pleasurable and engrossing, no matter the age of the learner.
Quote It:
Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, and all achievement in real life grows.
—Ben Stein
That’s all for this week!
