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| A Call to Arms (full of books) |
I worked for several years in granite fabrication -this when I was much younger and better suited to the cold and heavy work. I get shivers just thinking about the water jets in mid-winter now. My time as a fabricator was fairly typical: I gawked at the many large machines, endless rows of granite slabs and half-formed mantles or tables, and wondered. "How will I ever learn this stuff?"
As noted, my developed was not particularly unique. I learned my way around the workshop through watching more experienced men at work, asking questions, and practicing. There was a great deal of on the job practice and on demand performance, and I quickly learned not only about the machines, templates, and time frames for projects, but about the many materials I was asked to use.
Marbles are far softer to granite, for example; and some marbles are particularly difficult to handle in wide spans as they have soft, fault lines in them. I learned which granites needed a heavy hand to make shine and which to avoid any contact with oils. Eventually, I knew much about the pluses, minuses, and plain oddities to the many materials I was expected to work with; and, having shown some semblance of mastery with them, I was allowed to complete large projects independently as well as form works on my own that I thought might turn a profit for the company.
So, how does this possibly connect with school and Language Arts?
Simple.
No reader's & writer's workshop can be said to be complete without having a healthy, ever changing, classroom library. Classroom books are the marbles and granites of a workshop model. Books are the necessary material for students to study the Language Arts craft and complete their own projects. The young and developing minds that amble, hop, saunter, and race into a room dedicated to learning the crafts of reading and writing in a workshop setting must see, read, and practice with as many books as possible -books, which are in reach, and not down the hall in stacked rows awaiting discovery. (If you're so interested, you may want to read a piece I wrote about turning our school library inside-out. School Libraries: The Blockbuster of Today?)
We need books, armfuls of books, today! If you have any reading materials that you're confident will not feel the warm embrace of curious minds and eager fingers anytime soon, then please put them in a bag and drop them off in the school office. Don't think that any book is too damaged, or easy, or difficult, because in a workshop classroom the breadth of desires to explore and levels of reading abilities is vast. Books as low as third grade are as welcome as are those for early high school. I am more than happy to sift through stacks and stacks of your donated books to see they get into the right classrooms for students. If something is deemed too hard or too low, it will find a place in another school. I promise. (I'm clutching a nearby book to my heart as I type this, the universal oath of a Reader.)
This is my call to arms (full of books, please.).
