Library Afterschool Program Recognized by White House

This morning at the White House, Pima County Public Library's afterschool program called Word Journeys was recognized as one of the top 15 programs in the nation, awarding the us the prestigious Coming Up Taller award. Program Director Marge Pellegrino and one of the program's teen volunteers from Amphi High School attended the awards ceremony and received the award from First Lady Laura Bush.

Marge and I have known about this since July and it has been a little bubble of joy for both of us -- and very hard to keep secret!

Word Journeys hires teens from Amphi High School to mentor elementary school children afterschool during the school year. Each week the high school students help plan a workshop based on a picture book story that includes, writing, art, and oral interpretation, and includes explorations of the library and its treasures.

For the last two years children and teens from Tucson's Somali Bantu refugee families have been included in the program, children who were born in the refugee camps and had known nothing else. Their English skills have improved so dramatically that fourth-grader Hawa told me she bravely defended Obama's tax policies when her school teacher told the class that Obama would raise everyone's taxes. She was very proud to have voted in the library's recent "Kids Vote" election.

Local coverage:

• Tucson Citizen
• Arizona Daily Star
• PCPL News

Other coverage

• Mrs. Bush's speech at the ceremony
  
• CEP News
  
• Coverage of the ceremony and the other finalists

Coming Up Taller is an initiative of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to showcase cultural excellence and enhance the availability of out-of-school arts and humanities programs to children.

Update: Marge just called, and they were interviewed after the ceremony by the local affiliate for Fox News! So cool. A representative of one of our recent funders was also there, someone from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.

And here (above) is the first ceremony photograph!

More to come, I'm sure.

Homage to Marge

One of the inspirational people I work with is Marge Pellegrino, the author of My Grandma's the Mayor, and several other books for children. Marge is the founder and director of our Word Journeys program, an ambitious after school workshop where high school students mentor elementary school students in writing, art, and speaking skills.

Marge's Word Journeys projects are deep ones. They're designed to elicit heartfelt responses to the eternal questions of humanity: How do I have compassion for others? Who am I in the world?, and How can I make the world a better place?

The format of the workshops includes a reading, listening, and writing exercise, a paper craft or sculptural activity related to that exercise, a treasure hunt for relevant and meaningful items in the library, and finally a time sharing the work. After the younger students leave, the teen mentors write and share their thoughts, impressions, and feelings.

For example, after listening to the book For Every Child, mentors and children discussed how each of the basic human rights of children made them feel. The students were asked to translate those into a cause and effect with similes, for example: "When you keep me safe, I feel warm like a barn fire on a cold night." Each student created a collaged quilt square; when they were through, their square was tied to every other child's in the group to make the "quilt."

Another workshop used the book On the Day You Were Born by Debra Frasier to set up an activity that asked the students to create a story and image about the day they were born.

This year Marge suggested that we try something new. She proposed that half the teens and half the younger children be from Tucson's growing Somali Bantu refugee population. By doing this she hoped not only to include the children, but also to build bridges in the schools between "mainstream" children and the Somali kids, who often feel isolated in the classroom and on the playgrounds.

Why an homage to Marge today? Tomorrow we celebrate the end of the seventh year of Word Journeys at a party at the Woods Branch Library. The children will do presentations to everyone about one of their projects, and I will present Marge (shhhh!) with a plaque that commemorates our selection as a semifinalist for the White House's 2007 Coming Up Taller Award.

Another reason for this homage is her recent Op Ed for the Tucson Citizen entitled "At age 40, Woods Library defines 'home'" that perfectly describes what is so exciting about today's public libraries. Here is an excerpt:

Over the past 40 years, Woods has come to look a lot different, inside and out. The programming and offerings have kept up with the ever-changing technology and the diverse population that flocks to this fourth-busiest branch in the county.

People from 39 countries, from every continent except Antarctica, call Woods their branch.

Inside, high school mentors work with elementary students in literacy activities. Homework Help invites children to find help they might not be able to get at home.

Moms network and learn from each other and experts. Neighborhood groups hold meetings.

Anyone can come in and spend time on a computer, or browse the collection, the magazines, check out a movie.

It's a place for lifelong learning, a place from which parents sometimes need to drag their children because they don't want to leave.

[...]

From the fresh flowers on the desk to the library associates who can call neighborhood kids by name, Woods is a bright spot in the neighborhood.

Come celebrate Woods' 40th anniversary from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. April 19.

We meet Mem Fox!

On March 5, 2008 our library put on a day-long event named "Creating a Community of Readers, Starting at Birth," where we engaged the parents, teachers, business people and politicians of Pima County in a conversation about what we can do to improve the literacy rate here. Mem Fox was our keynote speaker, having traveled all the way from Australia! She was wonderfully funny and insightful and a real kick in the pants. I am on the left, then my boss Gina, children's librarian Julie and seated, the inimitable Mem.

For my part, I co-taught a shortened version of our "Ready to Read" class so that the attendees could see some of the programming the library is doing out in the community. Ready to Read is a two-day S*cceeds-certified class on literacy and early brain development that we offer to daycare and homecare centers.

Our Motheread program at the Jail

I have been co-teaching Motheread with Frederica Torres at the Pima County Adult Detention Center for nearly 6 months now and I love this program the more I do it.

A typical class starts with a get-to-know-you period. We encourage the women (and men, we do Fatheread classes too at the Jail) to come to all 8 sessions, but often there are new faces as the prisoner's situations are pretty fluid. So we start by asking everyone to tell the group their name and their kids' names. Most of the women are moms, but some are also aunts, sisters and grandmothers. Sometimes this is an emotional time as the women remember the children they are separated from. Some of the women have college degrees, but most never finished high school.

Then we pass the week's storybook out. Even though we're working with adults, Motheread uses children's picture books -- and it really works well. Then we read together. Everyone who wants to read aloud takes turn reading a page, until we're done. When we're through, we discuss our impressions of the story and its illustrations. Often the women will notice things I didn't observe, even after careful reading. Did you notice that the troll under the bridge in Paul Galdone's Three Billy Goats Gruff was chained to the bridge? The Troll didn't choose to be there, under the bridge threatening passersby, he was chained there.

The books are chosen carefully to be ones that work on many different levels and have messages of family, community, compassion and decision-making. Some of the titles we've used are The Runaway Bunny, Cherries and Cherry Pits, A Chair for My Mother, Grandfather's Journey, In My Family, The Tale of Rabbit and Coyote, and Abiyoyo.

The middle part of the class focuses on how the women can use the book with their children. We share storytelling tips and information about early literacy and child brain development, with an emphasis on the six skills of early literacy.

The last part of the class is a writing project of some sort. For example, the week we read from Carmen Lomas Garza's book In My Family, we wrote about a food memory. When we read Sandra Cisneros' Hairs/Pellitos, everyone drew a self-portrait and wrote a descriptive paragraph about their hair. When I get back to the library I type their stories up, decorate them, and print them in color.

After the class is finished the women have a short crafts time. Typically we will bring die-cuts and colored paper, and the women will make stationary for their kids, cards, or write letters. We are prepared with large envelopes, and the book we read in class, the die-cut crafts and the writing assignment from the week before that I have decorated. These envelopes are checked for content and mailed to their children.

The last class is very special. We bring a digital recorder and record the women reading aloud to their children, and we send that on a CD in the last packet.

For the women (and the fathers in Fatheread), the classes are an escape of sorts and a chance for positive contact with their children. For Frederica, Ella, Dawn and I, we hope we've weakened the cycle of illiteracy and crime just a little bit. It feels very good.

There is more information on Motheread at the official website. Our program is funded by the Pima County Public Library and the Pima County Child Abuse Prevention Council.