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ELA Selected For Web Redesign
March 2015: A design team from the University of Washington's Human Centered Design & Engineering program selected ELA as a candidate for a web site redesign. The class teaches how to use evidence from site analytics, use-case studies and user interviews to inform web site designs to answer visitor desires. Watch this space for exciting changes!
ELA at Microsoft Non-profit Fair
October 2014: ELA answered an invitation to participate at Microsoft's annual non-profit fair to appear for two days out of the five-day fair, once on the day focused on educational organizations, and again for the day for arts organizations. ELA board members Daniel Sackett, Mark Magill and Pamela Sackett (pictured above) spoke to curious passers-by, gave out Five Ways brochures and other literature and answered questions.
Booing Death Inspires Young Writers
July 2014: Seattle public school language arts teacher Christina Roux invited Pamela Sackett into her classroom again (see November 2013 below), this time for her 2014 University of Washington Summer Youth Program High School Course under the auspices of Puget Sound Writing Project (PSWP).
Pamela performed excerpts from Booing Death. Some excerpts included performance with Ms. Roux's talented teacher's assistant, Julie Olsen, who has an impressive background in theatre and opera. Pamela provided musical interludes between each reading and revisited the classroom a second time to conduct a specially-designed exercise to inspire the students to delve deeper and more courageously into their writing and reflecting process.
The writing program description, in part: "Improve your opportunities in life by learning to write well. Study strategies, habits, and fundamentals of great writers that lead to effective writing." Sackett's Booing Death excerpts were a substantial part of the class reader, keeping company with the likes of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Theodore Roethke, Willaim Faulkner, Mark Twain and Charlotte Bronte, among other notables.
Buy Books at Barnes & Noble to Support ELA
May 2014: Barnes & Noble has chosen Emotion Literacy Advocates as the beneficiary of book sales during a bookfair. To have a portion of your purchases go to ELA at no additional cost to you, just include Bookfair number 11370368 with any store purchases made May 8th - 15th or any online purchases May 8th - May 20th. For online purchases, include Bookfair number 11370368 beneath the credit card information area during checkout. Thanks, B&N and you for supporting ELA!
Booing Death Goes to School
November 2013: Seattle's Roosevelt High School selected Booing Death for "Book Seminar," an honors credit literature course. Students read Booing Death and were invited to attend an author event in Seattle. The course culminated with the author's visit to the classroom. The brainchild of language arts teacher Christina Roux, whose expressed aim was to bring a "living author and her work" to the classroom. Based on student feedback about the book, author reading/signing event attendance and students' study guide response narratives, the program was a grand success!
Portions of Booing Death were integrated into a drama therapy curriculum this fall at Antioch University, Seattle, thanks to Bobbi Kidder, MA program faculty and Drama Therapy Coordinator. Students received selected excerpts from the book and, subsequently, Pamela visited the class to read the pieces and address questions. Students engaged with the material through writing and movement exercises conducted by Professor Kidder. Booing Death served well as a catalyst for internal landscape exploration and skill-building.
For more details or to bring Booing Death to your classroom, please contact ELA.
See and Hear Booing Death in October
October 2013: This month's live events for ELA's latest release have been scheduled for:
- TUESDAY • October 15 • 9:00 - 10:00 PM
CFRO FM 100.5
Vancouver Co-op Radio's World Poetry Cafe
Vancouver, BC - THURSDAY • October 17 • 6:30 PM
at Banyen Books & Sound
3608 West 4th Ave, Vancouver BC
Booing Death Events Go Swimmingly
September 2013: The first two events promoting Booing Death were blossoming successes. Both were well attended with diverse groups, favoring the presentation with rapt focus and thoughtful questions. Over half those attending purchased books. Here are a few pictures from the first event. (Photos: Bill Zama)
Elliott Bay Books Billboard
The crowd gathers at Elliott Bay Books
The author
See and Hear Booing Death
September 2013: Opportunities to experience live readings of ELA's latest release have been scheduled for:
- TUESDAY • September 10 • 7:00 PM
at Elliott Bay Book Company
1521 10th Ave, Seattle - THURSDAY • September 26 • 7:00 PM
Sponsored by University Book Store
at University Temple United Methodist Church
1415 NE 43rd Street, Seattle
ELA Publishes Booing Death
July 2013: Booing Death (with Shpilkes and Rhyme), ELA's latest book release, demonstrates uncompromised authentic expression of emotion, in this case in the arena of grief and loss. Click for a more complete description and to order.
ELA Founder Honored as Antioch University Seattle Distinguished Alumni
June 2013: As part of the annual commencement, Pamela Sackett was celebrated as the Antioch University Seattle Distinguished Alumna of 2013. The ceremonies were held at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle Sunday, June 23. The award is bestowed once a year to an individual who brings "distinction to Antioch by making a significant contribution to their professional field or to the community."
Buy A Book, Support ELA at Barnes & Noble Bookfair
April 2013: ELA has partnered with Barnes & Noble to promote both traditional and emotion literacy. Books you buy at the downtown Seattle store or online between Friday, April 26, and Saturday, May 4, can help support ELA. Before visiting the store, just print this PDF document for a voucher and present it with your purchase. Online, buy your books as usual and in the Payment section of checkout, scroll to the bottom, check the 'Bookfair Order' box and enter Bookfair ID number 11053337. A portion of your purchase will be donated to ELA.
Pamela Sackett To Sign Books at Barnes & Noble Event
April 2013: On Saturday, April 27 at 2:00 PM, Pamela Sackett will be appearing at Barnes & Noble's Pacific Place store in downtown Seattle, 600 Pine Street. Ms. Sackett will sign two ELA-published books, Speak of the Ghost and Saving the World Solo. See you there!
ELA Hosts Table Education Resources and Job Fair
August 2012: Thanks to a generous grant from The Windermere Foundation, ELA had the privilege of hosting a table at the Education Resources and Job Fair on August 11, 2012. ELA gave 200 musical learning tools as gifts to children and low-income families—The Full Spectrum Birthday Song CD and The Ducks & Us Song CD and study guide—along with ELA's literature: Emotion Literate's Proclamation and 5 Ways of Thinking Favorably About Feelings.
ELA successfully participated in earlier versions of this same event in 2007 and 2008 (see news items and pictures below) thanks to grants from the Windermere Foundation. The event has grown and developed to not only assist families to prepare their children for school, but also to provide head-of-households and job seekers with access to employers. “Work It Out Seattle” produces this wonderful event, coordinating social service tables to for 2000+ children, youth and families this year. ELA can attest to the high attendance. Children and parents crowded the ELA table for hours with interest and curiosity about ELA's work.
The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie Selected for Film Festival
October 2011:The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie has been officially selected to participate in The 2011 Salish Sea Ecosystem Film Festival.
The festival "showcases the best and most recent films, videos and multi-media presentations about regional habitats and inhabitants of the Salish Sea."The festival is part of the 2011 Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference, the largest, most comprehensive scientific research and policy conference in the region, co-hosted by Environment Canada and the Puget Sound Partnership, presenting the latest scientific research on the state of the ecosystem.
ELA Now Connecting on Facebook
October 2011: Emotion Literacy Advocates joined the social media movement with a new page on Facebook. We plan to post news, interesting quotes and ELA happenings, so if you're on Facebook and would like to keep up with ELA, "like" our page and our posts will show up on your news page. We pay attention to and welcome your comments!
The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie Reviewed
September 2011: SEA-Media.org, a web site devoted to "more media about our Northwest waters," gave a pithy and glowing review to The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie. Check it out!
ELA Partners with Distributor
December 2010: ELA has entered an exclusive partnership with Chip Taylor Communications (CTC) to distribute The Ducks and Us in both its animated and music-only formats. CTC represents a wide array of high-quality media to educators and broadcasters.
ELA is enthusiastic to be able to offer our unique perspective to a wider audience in formats and packages that would otherwise be beyond our reach. Check out The Ducks and Us on the CTC web site and order!
T-shirts Support ELA In (ELA) Style
September, 2010: ELA opened a virtual t-shirt shop on the web, using the Skreened.com on-demand service. Anyone can now support ELA, its programs, and most importanly, its ideas, by buying a t-shirt.
ELA chose Skreened.com because of its environmental and business practices, namely its use of ethically sourced t-shirts, low-waste on-demand production and the availability of organically grown fabric.
ELA plans to add new designs often, so check back soon!
Elkins, WV, To Use The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie
Friendly, well-meaning neighbors and wildlife can make for a sour cocktail, as Barbara Nash of Elkins, West Virginia, discovered. She thought the ducks in her yard were cute when she moved there in 2006. Since then, the population of nesting ducks has ballooned, with neighbors frequently venturing onto her property to watch and share human food. The ducks stay all winter and prevent her from maintaining a garden or a manicured yard.
Ms. Nash petitioned her city council, leading to action by a city council member and the USDA Wildlife Services. Forty-nine ducks were euthanized by USDA Wildlife Services in May, 2010, in spite of a petition with 1000 signatures to leave the ducks alone.
There is a lasting solution, however: education. If the ducks were not lured from their natual river habitat by the promise of human-food handouts, then they may return to their normal population levels and migration patterns. The potential for disease and pollution could be minimized or avoided all together. And Ms. Nash might well get her yard back.
The mayor of Elkins found out about The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie, and plans to use it in a city-supported education campaign. "We're pro-active advocates of education, art and consensus building, " said Elkins mayor Duke Talbott in a phone call. After hearing a description of the movie's human-inclusive narrative aimed at social change through better understanding of the needs of people and wildlife, Talbott said "We want to accomplish exactly those goals."
For further detail:
- "Woman gets ducks in a row, going to Elkins Council" - The InterMountain.com
- "Elkins Residents Have Wild Ducks Euthanized" - wboy.com
The Ducks & Us In Print
August 2010: The Capitol Hill Times, North Seattle Herald-Outlook and South Seattle Beacon ran a story entitled "The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie takes flight" in their early August editions. Thanks for promoting a worthy project with clear and readable reporting!
Download a PDF of the article.
The Ducks & Us On The Radio
Pamela Sackett was interviewed about The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie Sunday, July 18, 2010, on 'Conversations' with Lizz Sommars on these stations:
- KMTT, 103.7 FM, 'The Mountain', between 6:00 - 7:00 a.m.
- KISW, 99.9 FM, 'The Rock', between 6:00 - 7:00 a.m.
- KKWF, 100.7 FM, 'The Wolf', between 7:00 - 8:00 a.m.
- KNDD, 107.7 FM, 'The End', between 7:00 - 8:00 a.m.
The Art Institute of Seattle Touts ELA Collaboration
July, 2010: The Art Institute of Seattle posted a press release on their web site and sent it to 150 media contacts announcing their students' collaboration with ELA on The Ducks & Us Songbook Movie project (see learning tools for more details).
Seattle Supports The Ducks & Us
June 2010: The Seattle Mayor's Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs has awarded Emotion Literacy Advocates a smART ventures grant for The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie Tour Launch Project (see below). Funds will support post-production and outreach work. The Ducks & Us Heads To The Movies
June 2010: What do Columbia City Cinema, a one-stop, triple-screen neighborhood movie house seated in the most ethnically diverse zip code in America and Far Away Entertainment, a nine-location movie house with over thirty screens in the state of Washington have in common? Come July and August, both are getting behind Emotion Literacy Advocates (ELA)—a local, arts-based non-profit using the arts to promote social-emotional learning—by booking ELA's latest creation: The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie.
Slotted as a pre-feature attraction, The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie is a children's-style musical story with illustration, animation and video by Art Institute of Seattle interns and background vocals from the Northwest Boychoir. In under seven minutes, the movie wraps reading literacy, environmental literacy and emotion literacy into an empathic message for anyone who thinks bringing left-over bread, seeds and table scraps to the park benefits wildlife.
The big screen version is based on ELA's learning tool, The Ducks & Us, an original song CD and study guide by ELA's founding artist Pamela Sackett. The CD was incorporated into Seattle Audubon learning programs in 2008 and is distributed through the education and outreach arm of the Graham Visitors Center at Washington Park Arboretum. The concept grew out of Sackett's devotion to healthy urban parks and her frustration, after spending a year trying to convince the city to post signs in strategic places.
"Apparently I have no fond memories of sharing my food with ducks, so I was free to embrace the science. I trusted the facts and wished I could convey their relevance to many park visitors who throw pizza, cookies, crackers, burritos and bread, thinking that wildlife needs it." After her daily walk in the park, Sackett spent several months gently offering Progressive Animal Welfare Society flyers to folks, attempting to substantiate her requests to curtail the activity.
At an early point, a city of Seattle Parks and Recreation employee offered to assist. She approached an older man throwing food from his truck and, later, let Sackett know the man did not comprehend her request to stop. Sackett decided then to delve deeper, observe and converse with a wide range of people throwing food in the park.
"I came to understand how incomplete the science part of the equation can be, especially when it comes to behavior change. Just about every human circumstance has a social-emotional component, " said Sackett. "An artfully told story can let people know they are heard and understood, as well as convey new information."
Sackett parlayed quite a bit of good will in support of The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie project. A substantial in-kind contribution from Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, a Los Angeles-based company, will enable ELA's digital movie to be projected on a sixty-foot cinema screen.
"I am confident that wherever The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie goes, so too will go an opportunity to learn how to engage with more open eyes, " said Sackett.
Look for The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie at Columbia City Cinema and Far Away Entertainment screens in July and August. For more information, the tour schedule and to see The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie trailer, click here.
Click here for the PDF of this news item.
Windermere Foundation Supports ELA
May 2010: The Windermere Foundation awarded ELA a grant to support reaching new audiences with The Ducks & Us Song Book Movie Tour Launch Project.
Archival news:
ELA Participates in Summer Event
Emotion Literacy Advocates™ (ELA) joined with the city of Seattle in the "Healthy Parks, Healthy You" event, Saturday, August 22, 2009, at Seward Park.
ELA gave out informational brochures and spoke with dozens of participants about The Ducks & Us Song CD and study guide, which was inspired by activities in Seward Park.
Our thanks to the Windermere Foundation and Silvia Wilson for support and enthusiasm in our educational mission!
Windermere Foundation Supports ELA
May 2009: The Windermere Foundation awarded ELA a grant to support fulfilling requests for The Ducks & Us musical learning tool and study guide. The Graham Vistors Center at Seattle's Washington Park Arboretum and the City of Seattle Parks and Recreation Department both requested The Ducks & Us for their educational and outreach programs. Thank you, Windermere Foundation!
The Northwest Boys Choir Sings for The Ducks & Us
Summer 2007: ELA is developing a new learning tool entitled The Ducks & Us—an original song CD with study guide. The Ducks & Us focuses on wildlife safety and protection and compassionately juxtaposes the science of wildlife protection with the social-emotional nature of human engagement with wildlife.
ELA is excited that Northwest Boys Choir, conducted by Ben Kromholtz, elected to participate. Kromholtz arranged harmonies for the choir and directed the boys at an ELA-coordinated recording session at KUOW studios, September 24, 2007, engineered by Guy Nelson.
The recording session was a first for many of the choir members, ranging in age from 8 to 11, and gave them valuable experience in the rigors of recording, such as maintaining quiet and intense focus for long periods of time. The boys performed flawlessly, even with some last-minute changes in harmonies.
The Ducks & Us artfully demonstrates—through stories gleaned from a year of researching duck "feeders" in urban parks—hearing, understanding and including human needs with non-human realities for a systemic approach to environmental care and protection.
ELA is in process of study guide completion, working with a number of environmental educators and scientists—from Seattle City Parks, Audubon, PAWS, WA State Fish and Wildlife, Pacific Science Center and other non-profit environmental protection agencies—interested in integrating this learning tool into their programs. ELA is developing a web site for an interactive public awareness campaign and plans to offer the song in choral arrangement for youth groups and schools.
For further details, song samples, study guide excerpts and sponsorship information, contact
.Windermere Foundation Supports ELA at Street Fair
The Windermere Foundation joined with Emotion Literacy Advocates™ (ELA) to provide The Full Spectrum Birthday Song to children and families at the 2008 Educational Resource Street Fair.
Thanks to this generous sponsorship, over two hundred families now have a vital message of love and acceptance. In addition, ELA staff and volunteers gave away "Five Ways To Think Favorably About Feelings" brochures and raised awareness of the essential role of social-emotional education.
Emotion Literacy Advocates™ Active in Educational Street Fair
On August 11, 2007, ELA participated in the Sixth Annual Educational Resource Street Fair, sponsored by Casey Family Programs, Qwest and Peoples Institutional Baptist Church. Casey Family Programs invited ELA to participate by offering us a complimentary table.
Thanks to generous sponsorship, we offered forty-five Full Spectrum Birthday Song CDs, as gifts, to children, families and for raffle ticket prizes. A couple adults who visited the ELA table were very excited to receive this learning tool for use at their day care centers. ELA's participation with fair attendees bridged forty-five song CDs into the ears of hundreds. We also gave away approximately one hundred "Five Ways To Think Favorably About Feelings" brochures.
One of the greatest benefits of being a part of the fair was having the opportunity to engage with hundreds of children who came to our table, with varying degrees of curiosity. Each child who comes to the fair must first register at the welcome table. They are then given a passport and are told that once they receive "stamps," from the information tables, they can cash the passport in for free school supplies.
Children at the fair are generally in a hurry to collect those passport stamps but we devised a method by which children could receive something in addition to stamps and ELA brochures. We were glad to see several children approach our table and engage in a learning process by first letting them know that our table gave out stamps and food for thought. We pointed to our table sign:
Name a feeling, describe it and get a stamp!
Some children scratched their heads and pondered. Had they been asked this question before? Had a stranger behind a table ever asked them such a question at a fair? One adult looked at our sign and said: "Hmmmm…that's different!" These kinds of responses let us know that we were tossing something unique into the mix.
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Many of the responses proclaimed "Happy!" The irony here is that we are offering a musical learning tool, entitled: The Full Spectrum Birthday Song (or Why Just Happy?). We like "happy" as much as the next guy and we want to inspire the warm embrace of all feelings. Easier said than done—and even less easy to talk about. One boy said "mad" and that he would handle it by discussing it with friends. His young companion chimed in to name the |
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Another boy read the sign and adamantly backed away from the table proclaiming: "No, no I can't do that. I won't do that. I can't do that."
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When we gently inquired as to why he couldn't name a feeling and describe it, he blurted out: "Because I don't trust people." We commended the boy for so clearly expressing the reason for his trepidation, that, unfortunately, some people don't inspire or earn our trust, and offered him a brochure and birthday song CD, both of which he took. |
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Several children said: "sad." We commended those who said they cry when they're sad, for so congruently expressing an emotion tied directly to a feeling. We also commended those who said that when they are happy, they play...another point of congruency.
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An eight-year old boy said that when he's sad or mad, he notices memories coming up. We appreciated his ability to track a thinking process as opposed to simply reacting to a feeling and for that, we offered encouragement and a CD. |
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Another essential distinction en route to knowing and accepting feelings is to understand the nature of a feeling and how it is connected to a "soft" need like the need for acceptance, understanding and nurturance. Feelings often alert us to a soft need and can, if translated accurately, assist us with gathering up the impetus to fulfill the need.
After noticing our sign, one of the adults who visited our table exclaimed: "With these three (children) I either become emotionally intelligent or lose my mind."
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Another adult offered to name "frustration." Her reason being: "coming home to a house, after a long day of work, to find that nothing has changed." She went on to explain that she doesn't choose to blame her children for her frustration, that they are innocent and that it is up to her to deal with her own frustration in a direct and responsible way. |
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Emotion Literacy Advocates™ Launches Innovative Concept in Community Education: The Full Spectrum Birthday Song CD Gift Program for Children
Seattle, Washington (Spring 2007) — How does a group of independent artists who advocate for emotion literacy awareness go about promoting hard-to-pin-down, yet essential concepts in emotion literacy for children? Emotion Literacy Advocates™ (ELA), does it with a birthday song.
The idea in the song is simple enough: to understand the language of feelings, invite them all to your celebration, for starters. To actually get the song to children who would benefit from this message is another story.
ELA's initial success was with ELSOTA! (Emotion Literacy School ON THE AIR), a compact disk and sixteen-page study guide that has been incorporated into Seattle Public Schools health education curriculum. This time, the ELA board of directors was aiming to spread understanding of "soft" skills further, quicker and beyond academic settings.
Compounding the conundrum: most of the children ELA is interested in reaching are in no position to pay for a learning tool, no matter how excellent; the social service organizations that serve children are notoriously under-funded; the children served by these organizations dearly need the advantages of social-emotional learning.
ELA's solution: the gift economy. Responsible individuals and business owners want to give back to the community, but often lack time and expertise to evaluate what is needed. Professionals in non-profit organizations know what would help the children they serve, but struggle to fund what they need. ELA decided to connect the expertise of helping professionals with the generosity of forward-thinking sponsors for the benefit of children—and to fulfill ELA's mission: to create learning forums for insight into emotion through language and the arts. By giving a gift of ELA's song, sponsors give experts a useful tool.
The next step was to see how the idea would fly. In August 2006, ELA contacted Children's Hospital to gauge interest in ELA's latest learning tool, The Full Spectrum Birthday Song (or Why Just Happy?). The response was encouraging. The Child Life Department requested CDs for their birthday gift program and music therapist David Knott loaded the song into his iPod to use as a resource for in-patients. Another call led to Treehouse for Kids, a non-profit organization supporting children in the foster care system. Treehouse evaluated The Full Spectrum Birthday Song, then enthusiastically requested 1,200 copies.
To date, ELA is pleased to count twenty-three non-profit, city, state and national organizations that have requested 8,000 gift CDs. The CD gift program touches children in hospitals, foster care, learning centers, emergency and transitional housing and through programs focused on mentorship, parent training, success and self-sufficiency.
"It's faith producing to see how many organizations recognize and value the gift of social-emotional learning wrapped in a song," says Pamela Sackett, who originated the music and lyrics. Executive directors, child specialists, case managers and program heads closely scrutinized the song. "Such conscientious examination assures ELA and our sponsors that we are placing The Full Spectrum Birthday Song CD gift into capable and caring hands," says Sackett, "The arts can do so much when generated and applied with clear intention."
Sponsors are lining up, too. Gifts of materials and services from both the west and east coasts along with a grant from the Windermere Foundation has resulted in ELA producing an initial run of CDs and fulfilling the first 8,000 requests in June, 2007.
Of course, individual and group purchases of The Full Spectrum Birthday Song CD help support the gift program's growth.
With systems thinking at its core and mutual inclusivity one of its organizing principles, ELA's characteristic approach invites uncharacteristic considerations. As Windermere representatives said, "We had to think outside the box for this. We're glad we did because it allowed us to recognize the important aspect that ELA is addressing; we're excited about the nurturing component."
ELA aims to reach more organizations, state by state, and see how far this "perceptual nudge" as Sackett puts it, can go. Sackett adds, "We all have a day of birth, however culturally disparate the nature of our acknowledgement of that fact can be. Birthdays are undeniable and a great catalyst for sparking a celebration of all our feelings on that especially poignant day and every day!"
ELA fundraiser at Elliott Bay Book Company, 2001