A Letter to Educators

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest designed to promote literary reading. The book selected for the Pioneer Library System’s 2013 The Big Read is Old School  by Tobias Wolff.

This coming-of-age novel is particularly well-suited for high school readers. It is appropriate for any instructional unit that addresses the American novel. We are inviting you, along with other educators in Cleveland, McClain, and Pottawatomie counties, to incorporate Old School into your 2012-2013 curriculum or lesson plans for the second semester.

The Pioneer Library System is preparing instructional kits for use by teachers. Each kit contains 30 copies of the novel, 30 Reader’s Guides, a Teacher’s Guide, an audio CD that features an interview with the author, and links to online resources. The concepts and activities presented in the Teacher’s Guide have been developed with National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Standards in mind and are in alignment with the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) Standards.

Homeschool parents will receive a set of teacher materials plus a copy of the novel for each student.

Kits will be checked out to participating teachers for a two-week period during the 16-week project, January 7 through April 30. Participating teachers and their students will also be invited to attend a presentation by the author, Tobias Wolff, when he visits Moore, Norman, and Shawnee April 25-26, 2013.

To participate in The Big Read: Old School, home school teachers will be asked to attend a training workshop to be held in a public library near your home. The two-hour workshop will include a discussion of the themes and issues in the novel, an overview of the teaching materials and resources, and documentation and evaluation procedures.

Please return the Reservation Form to us by Friday, October 19, 2012. You may make as many copies of the form as needed. Scheduling priorities will be given according to the date the reservations are received. Once the participating teachers have been identified, the Pioneer Library System project staff will work with them to prepare a schedule for the workshops and dissemination of materials.

Thank you for your time and consideration of this opportunity for you and your students.