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The literacy team dove into summer with gusto!
In July, we provided 1,319 hours of reading support
for 450 students
in 11 local schools and organizations.
It was a blast!
Read more about our impact and sign up to join our volunteer ranks!
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Spotlight on the Board of Directors: Toni Burt
Open Books' Board of Directors is a wonderful group of professionals who provide strategic advice, input, and recommendations.
We would like to spotlight these Board Members and recognize them for the value they bring to the organization, beginning with the fabulous Toni Burt. Find out how she got involved!
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Save the Date for
Revelry 2011:
Book Your Trip!
Open Books' famous annual gala fundraiser, Revelry, will drop
anchor at
Catalyst Ranch
on
Friday,
November 4.
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Seeking: Literacy Interns for Fall 2011!
Open Books is seeking new faces to join our literacy intern team this fall! As an intern, you'll learn the ins and outs of our successful social venture, devour all the books you can handle, and help thousands of students across Chicago find their voices. Read more about the internship and apply! If you know someone who might be interested, please share this wonderful opportunity with them! |
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Family Deals For Literacy
Are you a mom interested in supporting our programs? In addition to bringing your little ones to the Open Books store for weekend storytimes and week-round shopping, here are two special ways you can help us this month.
Plum District is a site that connects moms with daily deals and inspirations from businesses in their community, and helps them get the most out of their day for their families and for themselves. Signup is free -- and Plum District will donate $3 to Open Books for every new member through August 31. Find out more and sign up now!
Family Finds is a daily deal site exclusively for Chicagoland families. Signup is free, and Family Finds will donate $5 to Open Books for every new member who signs up from now through August 31. Find out more and sign up now!
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Greetings, friends of Open Books!
This has been a lively and exciting summer for us, and we show no signs of slowing down! With a new school year on the horizon, we will head back to the classrooms along with our students. This month, we'll begin our fall semester of VWrite with our juniors at Gage Park High School, and we'll return for more reading fun with our Buddies in early September.
Read on to learn about how an Illinois budget cut eliminated a state-wide annual writing test for high school juniors, consider the issue of year-round schooling, and get a sneak preview of stories written by the amazing teenage authors in our summer ReadThenWrite sessions.
Whether or not you're headed back to the classroom this month, we hope you've enjoyed your summer and were able to carve out time for some pleasure reading of your own. We hope to see you soon!
Anna Piepmeyer
Program Director
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Sending the Wrong Message
About the Write Stuff
This past spring, amidst the flurry of budget cuts, something small but instrumental happened: the state decided that high school juniors who attend public schools in Illinois will no longer be required to take the annual writing test. Eliminating the test, which will only save the state about $2 million, has many in the education field worried that writing instruction may soon fall to the back burner in classrooms across the state. True, acing a writing assessment does not a writer make, but how can we ensure that the young people in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois are still taught the critical skills that will not only help them gain entrance to colleges, but also to communicate effectively with their peers as they grow up? And what kind of message about the value of writing are we sending to youth by discontinuing the test?
Last week, Open Books partnered with local mentoring organization Chicago Professionals for Youth to lead their students through the college essay writing process. The college opportunities for these savvy, eager seniors will be numerous, in no small part because they can present cogent, engaging stories about their lives and the challenges they have overcome.
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The Question of Year-Round Schooling
While August might represent the last few weeks of summer freedom for some students, many others will be zipping up their backpacks and heading back to school. Track E schools (the CPS designation for a year-round schedule) are in session starting August 9th. To all of our teachers and students in Track E schools, we want to wish you a safe and productive start to the semester! While Track E schools cut summer fun short, they can have huge benefits for some students, especially those in high-need areas. Students from poorer neighborhoods seldom travel as much during the summer as their more affluent peers, and many are in danger of sliding backward academically if they don't get reading and writing support at home. However, the push for year-round schooling has as many supporters promoting its benefits as it does detractors arguing against it. For more background on the subject, check out this article from EdWeek. |
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Student Stories:
A Preview from ReadThenWrite Authors
This month, we have a special treat for you: some amazing excerpts from our middle-school ReadThenWrite authors!
For five weeks we read and discussed engaging books (including graphic novel Yummy by G. Neri and science fiction novel The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau), and the students then composed their own pieces of writing inspired by these texts. They worked on these novellas throughout the summer, and we could not be more proud of their progress. Read some of their fine work from our first-ever ReadThenWrite student anthologies, A Day Without and I Can Conquer This.
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Open Books Is A
Nonprofit Social Venture...
You may have heard us mention the term "social venture," and you might be wondering: what exactly does that mean? Social ventures and social enterprises are organizations that use business strategies to achieve philanthropic goals or social change. They can also be nonprofits with earned income strategies like the Open Books store, whose proceeds support our literacy programs across Chicago. This fall, the Social Enterprise Alliance is having its annual summit in Chicago. Not only will Open Books be a stop on the tour of local social enterprises, but we are the proud venue for the book launch of Social Enterprise: Empowering Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs, authored by SEA Director Marc Lane! In the book, Lane provides comprehensive information and resources for the social entrepreneur, including how to: create and develop a business model for the social enterprise; organize and run the social enterprise; and effectively measure the social enterprise's impact. Join us to learn more about social enterprise and how to succeed as a mission-driven entrepreneur! August 11 6 pm FREE |
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Did you know that Open Books publishes 3 newsletters every month? Sign up for What's In Store, Volunteer Vanguard, and Literacy Landscape now!
Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that operates an extraordinary bookstore, provides community programs, and mobilizes passionate volunteers to promote literacy in Chicago and beyond. We enhance lives through reading, writing, and the WONDROUS power of used books. |
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