Choices Orientation Reflection
By: Sonjanita L. Moore
Friday, October 24, 2008

I was nervous about how things would go in the Choices Orientation today, but things went smoothly. The majority of the teachers were there on time. They had great rapport with each other and with me, Chuck and Nomi. The space was great – modern, welcoming, spacious. The orientation was very fluid – I think Chuck and I work well together. I had great individual conversations with a few teachers…

One teacher talked about her PhD work in which she is using Warriors Don’t Cry. She also referenced the “legacy” theme of this year’s CPS history fair. She is immediately looking for Chicago connections to Choices (eyes on the prize).

Another teacher wanted to know more about resources for immigration unit that is new for them this year and was inquiring about accessing more copies of Warriors Don’t Cry.

I spoke with a teacher about The Giver and its impact on her classes, but we also spoke of various titles on the resource table and talked about connections to other FH resources. She referenced her attempts to balance her principal’s insistence on moving away from Basil reader to using only novels. I was able to give her film and lit suggestions. We also talked in general about the state of schooling in Chicago for African American students, in particular males. She spoke of friends who have encouraged her to come to FH for the last year. She left very excited.

Two teachers from a local (spanish) bilingual school are looking forward to getting resources in Spanish or having digital copies so that they can have time to translate materials prior to student use. Ironically, they are working with reps from YWLCS in the development of outcomes and are interested in having further conversations with me about outcomes and FH connections.

Three teachers from the same school were glad that they were all able to attend and are going to “push” their principal to let them all attend the December session together all 3 days – rather than splitting them between Jan and Dec and urging them to only miss 1 day of instruction.


Moving forward I think the following should be taken into consideration:

1. Move the start time/agenda up 30 minutes – the beginning felt very rushed since library opened at 9, we all arrived earlier than 9 with materials and were standing outside and food arrives at 9. There’s no time to mingle and welcome when we have to rush through setting everything up and getting started.

2. Plan ahead to have at least 1 Choices teacher present for 10-15 min Q & A – Laura was unable to come today which was fine but in lieu of comment cards I think it would be helpful

3.Plan ahead to distribute Road to Brown or send out an email to new teachers to check with previous Choices teachers as to the location of the DVDs given last year