LANGUAGE ARTS-NEW MEXICO

Their Name is Bronte!

Three American actresses are going to play the Bronte sisters in an upcoming movie.  Here's one writer's take on what it will be like: 

The Brontes just got so awesome
By David Barnett
(from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

A trio of American actresses has been cast as Haworth's literary sisters for a Hollywood movie called Bronte. Here's how it might look...

A bird's eye view camera shows grey-skies and an even greyer landscape. We swoop towards a little hamlet perched on the side of a hill.

Voiceover (in portentous, growly American accent): "Merrie England in the 19th century. Dinosaurs still roam a land that has only recently been united as one country by King Arthur. Toothless serfs gain their only pleasure from smoking dried mud and watching the plays of William Shakespeare. But in York Shire, three hot babes with all their own teeth are about to loosen old Bill's iron-like grip on the literary habits of the country... and their name is... Bronte!"

A cave dug into the hillside. Outside is parked a horse-drawn carriage in the shape of a Mini Cooper. Within, the cave is sumptuously decorated in the style of Buckingham Palace. Three gorgeous young women with heaving bosoms are seated around a long table, with Donald Sutherland at the head of it, the sisters' dour father, Patrick.

Read the rest here. 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Library

Here's a piece from Edutopia about reading to dogs.  The Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System has a similar program.

Gone to the Dogs
Reluctant readers thrive when they read with Rover.
by Burr Snider published
5/29/2007

Becky Bishop had a problem. As the community-minded owner of a dog-training facility in Woodinville, Washington, Bishop was in the habit of taking her trained therapy dogs to hospices to cheer up terminally ill patients. Over time, however, she found that the visits were depressing the dogs.

Then someone told her about a program just getting under way that pairs dogs and reading-challenged elementary school children; the dogs act as nonjudgmental listeners to help kids get over their fear of reading out loud.

"I started going to a library on Saturdays where the kids would come to read to dogs," Bishop says. "As soon as I brought my dogs around, they just lit up, and, of course, the kids did, too. All these parents began coming up to me and telling me how their kids had been such hesitant readers until they started in the dog program, and how enthusiastic they became. It ended up being such good therapy for me that I decided to start a nonprofit to spread the idea."

That was in 2000. Now, Reading with Rover, Bishop's organization, consists of some seventy-five dog-and-trainer teams that regularly go into libraries, bookstores, and schools in several Seattle-area districts to work with children who struggle with reading.

Read the rest here.