Connections, Winter 09

This poem came to me as I write on this winter day. It's Carl Sandburg's "New Hampshire Again."

I remember black winter waters,

I remember thin white birches,

I remember sleepy twilight hills,

I remember riding across New

Hampshire lengthways.

This is the world facilitators travel as they lead discussions in different New Hampshire towns. I'm borrowing Sandburg's line to capture your ideas, maybe some you've dreamed up as you travel. Here is a gathering of your ideas to deepen the meaning of a book and enhance students' ability to share their responses.

Creating a Reading Journal to Promote Family Literacy
When Hope Jordan does Connections programs with parents who want to know what and how to read to children, she suggests the family start a reading journal and record everyone's thoughts about the books they are reading. She usually provides the journals for them to use and keep. This idea of keeping a reading journal can be adapted for students reading a novel over the four Connections programs.

A River Ran Wild (Series: History of New England)
This story is about the citizen cleanup of the Nashua River. In an advanced ESL class, Jennifer Lee asked students to name an important river in their home country. Marsha Magill, the teacher, displayed a large map of Nashua. They went through the book and made comparisons between events in the book and events in students' home countries.

I Doko (Series: A Long Journey)
Rachel Lehr found that props are very helpful. She brought a doko (basket) for a discussion of I, Doko with a beginning level ESL class. She acted out the story when necessary, and told the story with a focus on the illustrations first time through. She prepared a small paper weaving project. Each person wrote words of their choice found in the story on strips of colored paper. They wove the strips into a small piece of paper Rachel had cut in advance as their loom. Then they went around the room to each person, unwove the strips, read them and rewove. Everyone wrote something. On the second reading Rachel read more of the text.

Jalapeno Bagels (Series: Sharing the World)
Susannah Starr's ESL class at the Latin American Center in Manchester hosted a December series with facilitator Sandra LeBeau. Sandra led a discussion of Jalapeno Bagels, a story based on an authentic Jewish Hispanic bakery in California. Sandra brought in a Mexican sweet, chango bars, and participants described how to make their favorite holiday foods.

Boundless Grace by Mary Hoffman
Click on the title to read Connections author Mary Hoffman tell of her travels to Ghana and the creation of her character Grace. Grace first appears in Amazing Grace and reappears in Boundless Grace in the series Sharing the World. Many authors, publishing houses, and journals have web sites that give background information, criticism, and program ideas for books in Connections series.

Facilitators and teachers, would you share program ideas you have used to explore a story, poem, novel, or memoir? We will pass them along to others. Illustrations are very welcome. E-mail Terry Farish

Would you like to preview Connections books for possible use? Here are three ways:

Come to the Humanities Council where we have single copies of many of the books.
Borrow them from your public library.
Order them on interlibrary loan from your public library.

"I poured my heart and soul into Wilfred, and much of my life. The love I felt for the elderly in our community seeped into the writing almost by accident." Mem Fox about writing Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge in the series Telling Our Stories.