Capital Region Boces, 9th Annual Summer Reading Institute July 14--17 Guilderland HS

I looked forward to scooping up some new ideas at the Annual Summer Reading Institute.  I got lucky and when I got there I found my favorite colleagues- Sara, Tammy, MaryBeth and Tim.  In June, I signed up to hear Richard Allington speak about RTI, enjoy the 8:00 AM BOCES coffee & breakfast, catch up with my colleagues and maybe pick up a book or two from the vendors, especially Baum & Beaulieu because I have those green coupons they gave me to use up.

When I arrived I caught Peter Johnston’s Keynote “The Threads of Literacy, Learning and Community in Classroom Talk.” He described two ways of thinking. I am paraphrasing what I remember so forgive my interpretation if I am off a bit.  He described a Fixed Model Mindset of thinking about learning and vs. a more productive learning mindset. I think he it called something like a Process Model Mindset of thinking about learning.  The process mindset allows students to continue with and continuously move forward with their learning.  Living with a fixed mindset the students assign limits to their own learning.  They think: I am smart or not smart, good at that or not good at that -etc.  I read and loved Choice Words 2008 and I am not sure if these ideas were in Choice Words.  Maybe I will go back and look at some point.  What I found most exciting about Peter Johnston’s ideas that day was that we can reteach our students (and ourselves) to adopt valuing the process of learning and pointing out to them when they show that they are stuck in the fixed mindset.  How many times in life have I shut my learning down using the fixed mindset without even knowing it? It would be a great discussion to have with the students at the beginning of the school year and revisit periodically throughout the year.

After the keynote I went to listen to Richard Allington but that did not work out for me this time.  I have had the pleasure of listening to, learning from and laughing with Richard Allington in his class at SUNYA and at the Annual Summer Reading Institute in the past but this time I think his treatment of the topic of RTI was not a good match for what I was hoping to take back to school and use this 2009-2010 year so shhhhhh -I went AWOL the next day. Tim told me he was enjoying listening to Michael Sullivan speaking about boys literature.  I really enjoyed his presentation.  He was funny and engaging.  He gave us a great bibliography entitled Books for Middle Level Boys.  His website is< www.talestoldtall.com/booksforboys>. Besides being a Harvard Graduate and a Librarian he is also Traveling Storyteller, Chess Teacher, Juggler, Softball Umpire and Coach, and an Origami Teacher. This eclectic backgroud added up to an uncommon and fun presentation.   He gave us some background on brain research related to reading development for boys.  It was all easy to put in place –gee I should have thought of that- helpful stuff.  As a bonus he gave us lessons on how to be a story teller and get the students to be story tellers too.  Powerful stuff! Story telling must be a great tool for facilitating student development in soooo many areas such as oral language, logic, organization, & various writing skills etc.  I didn’t end up buying any professional books this year because I have several waiting to be read on my dining room table and I promised myself I would read a good chunk of them this summer. I will order Michael Sullivan’s book recommendation The Power of Reading by Stephen Krashen, 1992.  I will also place an order for some of the books on his bibliography for my third, fourth and fifth grade level student library at school.

I also  enjoyed a couple of lunches with Tammy, Sara, MaryBeth and Tim.  The sidetrip to CVS for Dibbs was good and I didn't know Tammy could eat so many "Butterfingers" pancakes.