Amy McCain Coach, French School Jackson, MS

Shh! Do you hear something? Listen carefully. It's the sound of students reading, writing, communicating… and the buzz throughout the school is all about the same book. Now, picture a group of fifth grade girls leading a cheer about the book during a reading pep rally. "Read Stone Fox!" reverberates off the auditorium walls. Visualize two first graders discussing the text along with two third graders as their classes hold a cross-grade book club meeting. Imagine students planning together how to best organize and display their summary of the story. This mental image you're creating is one of French Elementary's very first school-wide book study, our "One School, One Book" campaign that we've been engaged in for the last six weeks.

To get a clear picture of how this project came about, let's start with a flashback to November. The Leadership Team (consisting of a team leader from each grade level, the school's literacy coaches, a parent representative, and the principal) sat discussing several options for a focus text. The team had the following three main criteria:

After considering a number of selections, the group finally settled on John Reynolds Gardiner's Stone Fox, a tale of a young boy who struggles to save his grandfather's farm by entering a dogsled race.

The book was purchased, and each staff member (even the custodians) was encouraged to read it. Imagine the excitement as the staff came together to brainstorm teaching intentions and activities for the book, their conversations including the vocabulary that has become so familiar - It reminded me of…I visualized…I wonder why…I want to write a new ending!

Later, the quarterly plan helped to shape these ideas more specifically for each grade level. The lower grades chose to concentrate on visualizing, a skill younger students would need as they listened to the text read aloud. Determining importance was the deep reading strategy chosen by the upper grade teachers. Writing instruction was planned in alignment with the reading strategies, either focusing on using descriptive text or writing summaries.

Next, picture the small Husky puppy and the giant Akita that attended our kickoff assemblies for the "One School, One Book" program. Students' faces lit up with delight when the animals were introduced. Their interest in the book was increased even more when the librarian portrayed the main character, Little Willy, as a grown man describing how hard it was to live on a potato farm and how much he loved his dog. At the end of their assembly, students in grades three through five received their very own copy of the book to use during book clubs, other classroom activities, and to eventually add to their personal libraries.

Within days, everyone in the school was talking about the book. Displays of student work evidenced each class's engagement in the story. Imaginative projects, such as characters made from real potato heads, race t-shirts, and dioramas, were soon underway.

   

Almost immediately, it became evident that discussions were taking place at home, as well. Students in kindergarten and first grade knew story events that had not been read aloud by their teachers yet. Their older siblings were obviously reading to them at home. Also, many parents responded as teachers asked families to work together to complete projects inspired by the book, such as a potato cookbook, grandparent stories, and family trees.

As "One School, One Book" continued, the buzz around school did not die down. Second graders invited their grandparents to visit, to listen to the last chapter of the book, and to help complete their dioramas. Some students met in cross-grade groups to discuss their views about the books. Classes watched the movie Stone Fox and analyzed the differences between the film and the text.

Now, imagine a different time, a different place, and a different text. This time, it's your school, your cherished book, and your students' beaming faces and meaningful conversations…Can you picture it?