AISL Blog: What the Future Holds

aislonevoice

I have returned from Dallas/Fort Worth with a sense of optimism and a lots and lots of notes to compile into an understandable trip report.  However, my task for today is to blog about the exciting future plans of the Independent Ideas.

At the AISL conference I talked about how Dallas was my 10 year anniversary.  I started AISL in Charlottesville as a newbie and the Dallas conference was what spurred me to become involved. I offered to help with the listserv after the conference and was the tech coordinator for many years after that, before moving onto the Board and eventually being asked to serve as President.

My vision for the association is to get our voice, the voice of the independent school librarian, to be heard. I want our independent voice out there in social media and I want our peers to know what we are doing.  In order to do that, we, as independent school librarians, need to be involved with social media. We need to connect with AISL and we need to promote ourselves and our work. I did a survey recently on social media and our involvement in it. Out of 468 members, only 91 responded (the survey results can be found HERE)

Tech evangelist Avinash Kausik tweeted: “Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how.  When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.” (Claire will be blogging about our book discussion on It’s Complicated and whether we should be in the teens social media world according to Danah Boyd.)

 


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Above is the postcard we handed out at the conference.  It has links to all of our AISL social media links.  If you aren’t already connected to AISL in these venues, please connect.

facebook logo

 

This link will take you to our AISL facebook site.

 

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This link will take you to the AISL pinterest boards. We would love for you to add your pins!

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We would love for you to follow AISL and tweet us!

Now, as for what is going on with the Independent Ideas blog.  Currently, having the blog on the website is not working for us.  So Claire Hazzard, board member and tech guru,  will be moving the blog to its own website with its own URL.  That will give us a higher profile and better ratings.

Additionally, we will be creating bio pages for each of our bloggers with link backs to their school library pages and blogs.  I’m always interested in finding out more about the writers and the way we are set up now doesn’t allow us to do that.  Having our own blog site will allow us the ability to highlight our writers.

While at the conference, Barbara Share, who is the blog coordinator and moderator, was able to corral some more guest bloggers.  So you will be seeing some new bylines in the coming weeks and months ahead.  If you are at all interested in doing a guest post, please notify Barbara (her info is on the AISL wiki).

The blog, the wiki, our twitter, pinterest and facebook page are all social media outlets, and yes, they can be very labor intensive at times.  But they can also be great ways to promote your program, your library, your students, yourself and what you have accomplished.  Too often we work alone in our libraries for our students and we don’t share the amazing things that we do to help someone find that book, discover the love of reading, solve that problem, research that question, use technology in a certain way, collaborate with teachers.  Next time you do something, don’t just close up shop and go home.  Write it up and send it to me or Barbara Share as a blog post.

Share your stories. We all want to know what’s going on in your library.

AISL ONE VOICE!

aislonevoice

A Truly Epic Event– Or– A Whale of a Tale

A few weeks ago our school held a Moby Dick Read-a-Thon. Twenty-one  and a half hours of reading Moby Dick – out loud, in turns—to air live on the school radio station and be recorded for all posterity. Some may ask: Why?!?   And I say:   For the same reason anyone climbs Everest—because it’s gosh-darn HUMONGOUS!

moby3 (design by Andrew Ravan with inspiration from Mark Hilt)

At Harvard-Westlake Upper School, English teachers have what is called Teachers’ Choice, where teachers can select their own texts to teach during second semester. Choices have ranged from Krakauer’s Into the Wild and Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides to Ellison’s The Invisible Man. Two of our teachers, Drs. Malina Mamigonian and Charles Berezin, have taught Herman Melville’s Moby Dick for the past 2 years.  This is the second voyage on the good ship Pequod, and the first that I took part in. To say that it was transformative sounds as if I were exercising hyperbole (as my son’s third grade teacher would say) but… not so. It was a truly moving experience.

Arrangements started several weeks before, with the different sections of classes gathering after school in the library to brainstorm on decorations, scheduling, readers, food, and other such details. Scheduling such an event is perhaps the trickiest part, but as this is a purely voluntary event, and students can drop in and out, signing up to read just one chapter if that’s all they can manage, it all fell into place. There was a small core of dedicated leaders and a larger crew of helpers. Four sections of Juniors read Moby Dick in their English classes, but the event was open to anyone in the Harvard-Westlake Community.

A spreadsheet was created dividing the work chapter by chapter, all 137 chapters (and Epilog) broken down by estimated reading times.  Students and other community members signed up for different chapters, sometimes signing up with friends to share the longer chapters.  Students would be able to come and go except during the 11:00 pm – 6:00 am lockdown for those sleeping over in the library.

A chowder dinner was provided, featuring both fish and vegetable chowder and biscuits, with sandwiches and cupcakes for all-night snacking. Coffee was provided by (who else?) Starbucks.  Students planning on staying over came prepared with sleeping bags and pajamas (the Totoro Onesie was a big hit this year—very cute!).  Student designed t-shirts were made available through Customink.com.

Decorations were anchored by the Podium As Prow/Pulpit creation designed by the head of our Performing Arts department, Rees Pugh (a wizard at all stagecraft). The inspiration came from the highly decorated pulpit at the shorefront church led by Father Mapple as described in Chapter 8.   Additional atmospheric touches came from the stage lighting: blue-violet LED lights scattered about the reading area were offset by a shimmering indigo light slowly rotating like the waves of the deep blue sea. Battery operated tea lights lent their flickering ‘candlelight’ to the cozy atmosphere. One student created a continuous loop of ocean views and whale images accompanied by sounds of wind and wave and whales which was projected in the area where students set up their sleeping bags. Brilliantly done.

moby2

The reading started promptly at 4:00 pm Thursday April 17, and continued non-stop until 1:37 pm Friday April 18. I had listened to the Moby Dick audiobook (unabridged, of course) in preparation for this event, and had just finished the entire thing a few days prior to launch. “Everyone Knows” that Moby Dick is an American Treasure, an Icon, but mostly a Really Really Long Book, and that included me, but I’d never read it before. I was in for a surprise. In addition to being a wonderfully crafted tale of obsession and adventure, Moby Dick is surprisingly funny. Some of our student readers really went to town with the various characters’ accents and comedic interactions, and we had many truly laugh-out-loud moments. Why is this such a deep dark secret?

There were also moments of rapt attention when the reader was engrossed by the text and the audience was in the grip of the spell cast by Melville’s language. I found that when I read one particularly dramatic chapter, as Starbuck is wondering whether it would be better to commit the sin of  killing Captain Ahab in his sleep, or to hold back and likely see the whole ship of 30 men lost, that I was caught up in the spell myself. It took me several minutes after leaving the podium for the next reader that I was fully myself again.

It was a thrill seeing others have this same experience, knowing that students really enjoyed their time in the spotlight, and knowing that this whole event is only successful – like a whaling voyage, in fact—with the combined coordinated efforts of a dedicated team. While the readers continued one after the other, students, faculty and administration came and went, jumped in to read a chapter and waved goodbye, it seemed every different element of the school was represented by someone that night. Some students even brought henna tattoo kits, and as the night progressed proceeded to decorate a goodly percentage of participants with so many tattoos as to out-Queequeg Queequeg.

We were thinking about what other novel would work as well, if there was interest in moving to a different author in the future, and frankly I can’t think of one that would provide such a rich experience. The very act of reading Moby Dick out loud is in itself a truly epic event. To have 21+ hours’ worth of such beautiful language read aloud, with its astonishing imagery, star-crossed characters and drop-dead adventure on the high seas—this really is the epitome of Great Literature. This is epic. This is Grand on a Grand scale. This is truly a Whale of a Tale.

Tips for next time: provide a whiteboard for announcements :  you can’t break into the reading to tell everyone the food’s ready or Lockdown is in effect.  Provide coffee, cocoa, and food near the reading location, rather than in a different room or building: keeping the event contained creates a greater sense of community. Order smaller amounts of chowder as it’s not best served all night long. Small sandwiches are a better bet for continuous nibbling. It would be possible to have students collect sponsors – per chapter or per minute—and include a fund-raising element, perhaps to benefit whale preservation or marine ecology.

moby1

Over to you:

Have you experienced your own version of a Read-a-Thon or sleepover event in your library? What has worked well? What different books or authors have you explored in this way? Let us know in the comments.

To Conference (verb)

As I contemplate what to pack for Dallas and worry about blinding new and old friends with my pasty winter legs, I can barely contain my excitement.  You see, professionally AND personally, this is one of my favorite weeks of the year.

This post is for conference veterans and newbies alike. A bit of AISL conference advice. Please use the comments section to build on this.

How do you conference?

What to wear? (Thanks Jen Weening—I’m adding this after reading your email to the listserv!). During the day, you’ll find a little bit of everything, from jeans to dresses and heels. I vote for business casual during the day with comfortable shoes as you’ll be doing a lot of walking. I also layer so I’m ready for heat and AC. Bring something fun for the Skip Anthony banquet. It’s your chance to exchange your Clark Kent façade for fun, stylin’ Superlibrarian.

Networking

The hospitality suite: when you arrive at the hotel you might find yourself feeling road weary. You probably have a fantastic new book in your carry-on and some comfy pants calling your name. Fight it. Go by your room to drop your bags, freshen up, then head to the hospitality suite. When you arrive there, grab a snack and a glass of wine and get ready to mingle. It might be uncomfortable at first, but putting faces with names and learning who you might have some things in common with (single sex? Elementary, middle, or upper?) can open up doors to meaningful conversation and perhaps even genuine friendships by the end of the conference.  Not your first time? Look for new faces and make them feel welcome. Revel in reconnecting with old friends and putting listserv names with faces, but look for conference newbies to draw into conversations. I really appreciated those that did this for me my first year.

Meals and bus rides are equally valuable. Even if you are an introvert, don’t miss this opportunity to connect. At times, these conversations can be as educational as the workshops that you will attend.

Talk to boys! Men tend to be in the minority at our conference. It’s uncomfortable to be in the minority. Ladies, let’s make sure we’re making them feel welcome and included as well.

 Practical Advice

Carry a notebook or device for note taking at all times. When you’re on the bus and someone starts talking about a fantastic book they’ve read that you or your students might also like to read, write. it. down. You probably think you’ll remember. You might. But if you’re like me and your “brain plate” gets full, these details might fall right off. I also take people’s cards and write on them what it is we discussed and anything that I want to follow up on when I get home. It will help, trust me. Try to sit with someone new on the bus each time. It’s quality time built into your day as you travel.

Bring a camera or device to take pictures. Take a picture of the name of the library before you start snapping away—you might want to email the librarian to discuss specifics later. You will see some awesome displays, new titles, furniture, spaces, quotes, technology, programming, etc.  Take pix of slides in a presentation if they are particularly good or relevant to something you’re interested in. Record all of this inspiration to recreate in your own space or to include in your conference report when you get home.

Take pix of student art to share with your art teachers. Do the same for other student work displayed in the library or on campus that might inspire a class project. Innovative recycling program in San Fran you say? Bring it to your school! I first saw Read posters done for middle and upper school teachers of the year at a school I visited during an AISL conference and that became an awesome tradition at my last school. Reading programs, book displays, ways to integrate book carts into 3D book displays, tech integration…pix are always good to show administrators great ideas in action when you get home.

Use social media to engage in conversation with our colleagues who are unable to attend this year (#AISL2014 @AISLDFW)

Have FUN, but not too much fun. Be remembered for your fabulous ideas, not for your fabulous table dance moves. 😉

Take advantage of every opportunity offered to you. The planning committee has spent an incredible amount of time and energy thinking through what you should see and do in their town. Even if you’re really tired, push yourself to go on that tour, visit that museum, see that sight. Some of my favorite AISL memories include seeing Niagara falls for the first time, visiting wine country, touring the Country Music Hall of Fame, catching a Rockies game in Denver, dancing the night away with a 360 degree view of the San Francisco skyline, and touring the Naval Academy last year, just to name a few. [Note, I missed Las Vegas because I had a new baby. There are surely some good stories from that one.]

I absolutely love this conference. It is my professional ‘cup filler’ for the year. To avoid information overload, I come back and choose 3 action items to either begin on immediately or to plan for the next year. I keep my notes and refer back to them at least once a year. It’s amazing to see some of the same issues from my first conference in ’07 still relevant today.

These are just some of my suggestions for getting the most from your time in Dallas. What did I miss? Please share comments, questions, or suggestions of your own below. Until then, I’ll pack my boots and sing…

“The stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas!”


The Road Not Taken: thoughts on poetry

In support of National Poetry Month, I’m arguing that the best thing we can do to support poetry in our schools in abandoning the dreaded “poetry unit.” This is more geared towards teachers, poets, and poetry lovers, but look to what librarians can do to foster poetry appreciation in their school cultures. (As the librarian here, I also used to teach a Humanities course that heavily relied to poetry to teach cultural literacy components. And I sponsor the poetry slam group. I’m guessing that others have similar experiences of “reach” beyond the library walls.) Teach poetry throughout the year, use it to support class texts, and teach contemporary poets along with the classics. Poetry’s marginalization is not new. 19th century British author Thomas Hardy went so far as to say, “If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have left him alone.” Hardy himself turned to poetry when public scrutiny of his novels proved too stressful. Complexity, foreign styles, and allusions are perceived as barriers instead of points of access or integral elements of the text.  Many individuals who otherwise are well-educated in the arts don’t read poetry.  Poetry is one of the vital keys to deeper literacy, an opportunity to experience words as substance, rather than words whose purpose is to lead somewhere.

Children instinctively respond to the rhythm of poetry.  Infants react to rhythms: intuitively in heartbeats, auditorily in lullabies, and physically in rocking. The pattern or rhythm is familiar and comforting, and it is a predictive learning tool.  Even new rhythms and rhymes seem familiar because one knows what to expect.  When one thinks of children’s rhymes, sound is imperative.  Meaning is secondary.  They are an auditory, and often a social, phenomenon.  Poems often involve physical activity, like freefall, finger-counting, or touching various body parts.  Adults still remember Humpty Dumpty and “eenie meenie, minee, mo.”  Elementary age children enjoy poems with rhythm and meaning, such as Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein.  Great children’s poets are masters at surprising children with the innovative ways they use words within the structure of patterned language, creating a sense of “unknowable mystery,” a mix of clarity, directness, and mystery.  Poetry is an enjoyable experience that children actively seek.  Somewhere between childhood and adolescence, however, appreciation of literature in general and poetry in particular drops.

Schools have been utilizing “the poetry unit” for far too long.  The poetry unit is characterized by intensive study of poetry for several weeks of the school year, often incorporating poetry writing prompts (or exercises), to teach literary devices and speech patterns.  It is as though there is a poetry box; teachers take poetry out, puzzle the pieces together, and put the finished product away until next year’s unit.  Poetry is a complex and varied genre.  The poetry unit simplifies poetry by presenting a few “representative” examples during a short time period and using them to teach other literary skills.  The poetry unit is often used in conjunction with the DAM approach-dissecting, analyzing, and memorizing poetry.  Students read the poems, break them into their primary components, and analyze.  In order to measure memorization and speech skills and to provide intimate knowledge of the mechanics of one poem, teachers will assign poems for students to memorize and recite to the class.  Librarian and poet Baron Wormser believes that requiring students to memorize specific poems, not of their choosing, is particularly harmful to teenagers.  Students memorize the poem and drag it through adulthood as an “unhappy totem” reminding them that they don’t need more poetry because they already carry poetry with them.  Memorization combines with a focus on a poem’s structure, its sound, meter, and grammar, to produce a superficial lop-sided understanding of poetry.

Schools that successfully demonstrate excellence in poetry instruction share similar characteristics.  These are enumerated in appendix one-Engaging teenagers with poetry: Ten practical teaching approaches.  Most importantly, poetry is integrated into the curriculum, throughout the year, in most classes.  While Spanish classes might use poetry to teach language skills and history teachers might use poetry to provide a particular perspective on a historical event, poems must also be allowed to stand on their own merits.  They require characterization as art, not just as teaching tools.  Students can approach them and appreciate them on their own merits, not as representations of the Spanish hyperbole or the Vietnam War.  Poems should be presented out loud and in print.  A range of poems should be presented, classic and modern, humorous and serious, long and short, narrative and descriptive, local and international.  It is important that teachers are comfortable with the genre of poetry before broaching the subject with their students and that they find poems they personally enjoy.   Teachers need to recognize that not all poems will resonate with all students, but teenagers should be able to state, using form or content from the text, what worked or did not work for them in a specific poem.  Class discussion should analyze poems, teaching the skills of critical thinking, but stopping before scrutinizing a poem to death.  Since reading professional poetry and writing one’s own poetry hone distinct proficiencies, both should be taught.  Writing prompts are good beginnings, conducting students past initial trepidations as they stare at blank sheets of paper.  Student writing needs to extend beyond self expression, using revision to carefully shape each poem.  Evaluation should be thoughtful and honest, clarifying strengths and weaknesses about the student’s success using poetic forms.  Poetry should be evaluated, but whether by grade or by extensive commentary is less important that that the student knows his work is going to be carefully considered.  The goals of a good high school poetry program are that teenagers will leave the school with a solid introduction to the types of poetry that have been produced, will have developed a taste for certain types of poetry, will be able to think critically about poetry, will be able to speak intelligently about poetry with others, and will anticipate choosing to read poetry for pleasure during their adult lives.

I love the diatribe that children’s poet Karla Kuskin wrote in poem form against overanalyzing and dissecting poetry.

If I were to introduce you to someone I care for
I might say
“This is my friend Sue
I like her very much and therefore
I hope you will like her too.”
However
after your meeting with Sue
I would not ask you to explain
her psychological and chemical makeup
or the genetic reason her eyes are 1/3 grey
and 2/3rds blue,
nor would I demand an interminable essay
on Sue’s ethnicity
education
blood pressure
taste in furniture
or home.
And
that’s the way I feel about poetry.
If I want to introduce a poem to you,
I will simply open up a book and say
“I would like you to meet a friend of mine.
My friend happens to be a poem.”
(And you leave your dissecting tools at home.)

Clearly this is an area of personal passion to me, and I have many (too many) more recommended readings, prompts, poetry books, etc. If you have a particularly interesting way that poetry is integrated into your curriculum, I’d love to hear it!

 Selected References:
 Cobb, Barbara Mather. (2006). Playing with poetry’s rhythm: Taking the intimidation out of scansion. English Journal 96(1), 56-61.
 Griswald, Andrea. (2006). Assessment lists: One solution for evaluating student poetry. English Journal 96(1), 70-75.
 Hopkins, Lee Bennett. (1998). Pass the poetry, please. New York: Harper Collins.
 Lies, Betty Bonham. (1993). The poet’s pen: Writing poetry with middle and high school students. Englewood, CO: Teacher’s Ideas Press.
 Longenbach, James. (2004). The resistance to poetry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
 Ornstein, Allan C., Lasley II, Thomas J., & Mindes, Gayle. (2005). Secondary and middle school methods. New York: Pearson.
 Philip, Neil, ed. (1996). New Oxford book of children’s verse. New York: Oxford University Press.
 Thompson, Linda, ed. (1996). Teaching of poetry: European perspectives. United Kingdom: Redwood Books.
 Wolf, Dennie Palmer. (1988). Reading reconsidered: Literature and literacy in high school. New York: The College Board.
 Wormser, Baron & Capella, David. (2004). A surge of language. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Spring Reading!

Spring Reading!

 

Well, here it is – that time of year when I’m ready for the relaxing days of summer and yet feel as if there’s just not enough time to get EVERYTHING  done that needs to get done.  Getting the ordering done so the purchase orders will paid before summer (and get paid from this year’s budget – not next year’s), inventory, getting ready for inventory (we do inventory twice a year because there’s a summer program here), putting all the videos, current fiction, research books and everything else that isn’t nailed down away in our Media Room and hope no one goes into that room over the summer.  Finalizing projects, organizing everything and just rushing through to get it all done and ready for  the next school year!

I know you all can relate!

In the meantime, there is my 9th period rotation class of 6th graders.  These lovely students spent the first semester with me learning about Library Skills, research skills, how to access books, databases, etc. in the Library.  How to find fiction and non-fiction books, learning how to evaluate a website and all they need for citations.  Quite the grueling first semester with being new to the school as well.

So now I have the students for second semester and the last thing they want is a repeat of first semester.  So what do I do with this group?  What to do so that they will want to be in the Library and enjoy themselves.   I spent a lot of time (and a few failures) and a couple of years before I hit upon the perfect solution that’s been successful.  At least so far…

We read.

I know.  Totally radical, right?

Here’s how we do it.

On the first day of rotation (I have them for 4 or 5 days), I talk about how I order all the books in the Library and what a great resource book reviews are to me.  I then show them 2 books reviews, one professional and one written by a young adult.  Then I tell them to go and get any book they want.  There are some guidelines I try to have; it must be a book they haven’t read before, preferably a genre outside of their comfort zone, it can be a fiction or a non-fiction book.  After they choose, we all (including me) sit down and read silently for the rest of the period.  At the end of the period, they get a bookmark and put the book on a designated book truck.  They cannot check out the book until the last day.

On day 2, the students open a word document and write the title, author, publisher and copyright date of the book, as well as a brief summary of what the book is about, at least so far in their reading.  Then they read until the end of the period. Silently.

On day 3, their opinion of the book is added.  However, I encourage them to explain and write with some details as to why they like or dislike the book.  None of this “it was good, I liked it” or “this was bad, I didn’t like it”.  When they are finished adding this information, they continue to read. Silently.

One day 4, they put all the information together, perhaps add information they have since they started reading and create a book review. No special embellishments, just a paragraph with the information and their opinion. The book reviews are printed out and placed on one of the display windows that has a sign that reads “Book Reviews, 9th period Rotation”.  The books are displayed on the shelf, if the student chooses not to check it out.  A lot of students stop by to read the book reviews.  Some are former students and some are current 6th graders who are “showing off” their work.  I’m happy that the display gets a lot of traffic.

There has been a lot of success with these book reviews.  The students are meeting some of our Scope and Sequence goals; opening, saving and printing a Word Document, subject analysis and searching for information. I read each review before it’s printed out and make minor (or sometimes major) editorial comments to help them write more effectively. In addition, I get to hear things like “I didn’t like this book at first, but now I like it” and “why can’t I take it home, I want to continue reading?”.  It’s great that the students sit and read, I’m not sure if they get time for that in their daily, busy lives.  I also find that after the first day, they come to the class anxious to get their book and continue reading.  In every class I have done this activity, every student reads and enjoys it.  Sweet.

It doesn’t hurt that I get some silent reading time, either!

Happy Friday!

 

 

 

 

 

 

on “just” browsing …

Screen-Shot-2015-04-23-at-9.09.20-AMIn one of my favorite movies, 1989’s Raising Arizona, Holly Hunter’s character tells Nicholas Cage’s character, “We have a baby now, everything’s chaaaaaanged!!!” What does this have to do with life in our library? Well … While working on our EBSCO periodical renewal list recently, it occurred to me that when it comes to periodical browsing, indeed, “Everything’s chaaaaaanged!!!” as well!

Katie Archambault launched us into a really interesting discussion on periodicals with her Staging My Own Intervention post from January which I recently revisited.  It made me realize that when I first started working as a librarian here 14 years ago, we subscribed to just about 100 periodicals.  In the coming school year, that number will probably be somewhere in the neighborhood of just about 40.  My recent and completely un-scientific survey via the AISL listserv two days ago indicated that at 40 titles, we are fairly typical.  22 respondents indicated that they subscribe to 0-39 titles and 20 respondents indicated that they subscribed to 40 or more titles.

In evaluating how our periodicals get used (or more realistically, don’t get used), I came to the realization that even perennially favorite titles like Sports Illustrated, People, and Teen Vogue just aren’t attracting middle school eyeballs like they used to.  Interestingly, Mad, Mental Floss, Mac World, Make, and Surfer’s Journal seem to continue to attract their niche audiences based on how often I find myself picking those magazines up from around the building and on the physical condition of the magazines themselves.  Overall, however, periodicals just don’t seem to play the same role in the lives of the well-informed student that they used to.

As a child, I had the great fortune of growing up in a print-rich home.  We had subscriptions to both of the city’s dailies–The Honolulu Star-Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser.  We also had subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Ranger Rick, Sports Illustrated, People, TV Guide, and … Soap Opera Digest (LOL!).  Even as a young child, I remember flipping through the news weeklies and reading headlines.  I also remember flipping through National Geographic and trying to read the captions on pictures that captured my fancy.  Looking back on the habits of mind that grew out of those experiences, I have really come to appreciate how browsing of all of that curated content helped to bring shape and structure to the way that I interact with information and the way that I attempt to try to understand my world.

My middle schoolers spend a lot of time online.  We are a 1:1 BYOLaptop school and just about all of our students have smartphones which they are allowed to use in school during the school day. I have grown concerned that even with all of this connectivity, many of our students don’t seem to be developing information habits that promote the serendipitous discovery of seemingly random stuff that might possibly come in handy some day.  This was the role that Time, Newsweek, and National Geographic played for me back in the day.  I remember, for example, seeing pictures and reading about the Buddhas of Bamiyan in one of these publications long before they came back into the news when they were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. I didn’t learn about the Buddhas of Bamiyan as part of a course curriculum, as much as they were artifacts that lived in my consciousness simply because they looked neat in pictures that I had seen in a magazine edited for a general audience. In a world where students don’t seem very inclined to pick up print magazines, what plays that role in the lives our students today?

School information services can’t just be about searching. Database searching is a valuable skill, but I would argue that even in a world as abundant with information as our world is today, there is a really important role that is played by regularly browsing well curated content. As a middle school librarian, much of my energy goes into looking for ways to help students be better searchers.  I’ve realized recently, however, that we also need to be focusing more of our energy on how we might better promote the regular browsing of high-quality curated content.

So … Here are my driving questions:

  • In an information landscape increasingly populated by personalized search algorithms, how do we help students to escape their filter bubbles?
  • How do we introduce students to online tools and help them to develop information habits that can help bring them into regular contact with high quality curated content?

And … Here are some of the tools and strategies we’re considering employing:

  • RSS Feeds and Feedly–I’d like to try to get Feedly (or some other browser-based RSS reader) in place, then get content area teachers to recommend carefully selected feeds (Scientific American, Los Angeles Times editorials, or Wired Magazine for example) to which we could have students subscribe.
  • Scoop.it or Pinterest–Scoop.it and Pinterest are content curation services with image-based interfaces that allow users to create a “topic” then curate content on it.  Scoop.it and Pinterest both automatically generate a RSS feeds to which students can subscribe.  Ambitious teachers might like the ability to curate their own course appropriate content that would then be pushed out to student RSS readers. In case you’re interested here lives my Libraries in the Middle Scoop.it page.
  • Introduce Them to Good Old Print!–I still believe that there is a role to be played for print periodicals.  I teach a debate class for 8th graders and we bring students into the library and have them browse a topic as it is covered in the Economist, Mother Jones, the Weekly Standard, and Reason.  Students are typically intrigued at the way that subtle choices of semantics and word choice change the color and tone of coverage and therefore the perspective one takes away from the reading of an article.  Our science teachers also bring kids in and have them browse some of our science oriented titles.  We find that even after the assignment concludes, a small, but persistent percentage of kids will continue to pick-up and browse some of the titles.
  • Flipboard and Zite–We aren’t an iPad or tablet site, but for those of you who are, you might consider working use of Flipboard or Zite into you curriculum.  I find great content on Zite for my personal use, but Flipboard allows users to subscribe to specific RSS feeds which is probably a distinct advantage over Zite for employment as a curricular tool. A note for those who may be interested, Flipboard recently purchased Zite from CNN so you may want to keep an eye on on both tools to see how they are further developed and supported–or aren’t.  As a fan of Zite, I’m hoping for the best, but as a bit of a cynic, I tend to expect the worst.

Well … Those are some of the things tumbling about in my head on browsing.  How are you promoting browsing?  I’d love to hear what you’re doing!

National Poetry Month

As part of my work as the Lower Division Librarian, I give presentations on various topics at our morning meetings. With each passing year I have come to own certain topics for the morning meeting schedule. As an example, I create a presentation on the Caldecott and Newbery winners just after they are announced in January. I see these presentations as an opportunity to create a lesson for a wide audience since attendance at morning meeting includes our Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students as well as faculty. These presentations are also an opportunity to promote the Library and the resources I carefully select for the collection.  

In recent years I have created a poetry themed presentation to coincide with our lower school poetry recitation contest during National Poetry Month. For this year’s presentation I began by describing my morning commute to school while listening to an NPR program Here & Now and coverage of the National Cowboy Poetry gathering in Elko, Nevada.  What struck me about this story (what literally almost made the car veer off the road!) was the straightforward, relaxed way Gail Steiger described the tradition of cowboy poetry and the incredible recall he had in reciting, singing, and playing examples of the genre. He describes cowboy Poetry in this way:

“Well, yeah, cowboy poetry, it’s kind of a broad brush. I mean, there are purist who think it’s all about, you know, cowboy hats and boots and spurs, but there are a bunch of us who realize it’s a lot more to do with just what a gift it is for all of us to come here and get to live on this planet, you know, where life just grows up out of the ground.”

In the segment, Steiger recites Wendell Berry’s “Her First Calf” which is utterly mesmerizing. What I especially loved about sharing this poetry with my students was its distinctly American roots! And in my research reviewing the plethora of resources available on the internet, I found this video of Joel Nelson reciting Lasca at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada in 2013. My work in researching content for morning meeting presentations demands that it reaches a wide, yet juvenile audience. And although it would not have worked for my students primarily based on the 7 minute length, I found Joel Nelson’s recitation captivating.

Our poetry recitation contest has evolved in the eight years I have been a part of the event. Our students have embraced the work of some of the most famous poets contributing to this form of literature. I have showed video from Poetry Out Loud the National Poetry Foundation’s recitation contest for high school students and we discuss our observations about the students and their performance. This year we viewed a video of the 2013 Tennessee  state champion Whitney Baxter reciting [i carry your heart with me (i carry it in] by E.E. Cummings. Students made the observation that while the orator was passionate about the poem she did not provide a dramatic rendering of it for the audience. She did not use props or hand gestures, yet we could still feel intensity that she conveyed in the way she said the poem.  This was an interesting point to illustrate as sometimes our students make their poem a dramatic art form!

Finally, in the poetry presentation, I wished my students good luck with their recitations and that as faculty we all recognized what hard work and effort went into this assignment on their part. And I asked them to not limit the presence of poetry in their lives to the month of April. Poetry is a wonderful literary form for our students to work with as it demands to be read, re-read, shared, and enjoyed. The Writer’s Almanac provides a simple pathway for accessing a new poem each day – even when you are not required to memorize it.

Our Lower School Museum

We have a wonderful piece of equipment in our library that gets year-round use out of the students and staff. That is a pretty cool feature in and of itself. It is also beautiful. The features include a glass and wood combination with pot lighting from above. It is our Lower School Museum, a display case dedicated to the life of our lower division, and which sits besides our main entrance to the library. Its location is pretty perfect and its stature helps to make anything inside it grand enough to reflect our pretty wonderful school population.

As our students walk by, they look at the items inside for a few seconds and carry on on their student ways. If I can grab their attention with pretty cool items inside, then I know I have had library success. I have come to learn that there are some pretty fundamental elements to making the displays work.

  1. In thinking about the displays in the library, I am conscious about bringing the themes from the museum into the rest of the library. It feels magical when the museum pieces relate to our boards, shelving and counter displays, although that does not always happen. Sometimes it is fine to have the theme running along on its own steam, and the rest of the library progress happening on its own.
  2. Our most successful museum themes are those with the most concrete application. Remembrance Day (in the US it would be Veteran’s Day) is a huge part of our November school culture and is very applicable in terms of uniforms, photographs, letters and memorabilia from being stationed overseas. Sports was a big deal one year, and we will be having a Soccer themed one in May this year as the weather warms up and soccer is revisited out on our school fields.
  3. It is helpful not to become too controlling about the displays. Initially I made up schedules and timelines and sign up sheets. These days I make a general invitation to the whole school and invite students to contribute anything during the whole time period of the display.
  4. Get the signage options ready, and have help in setting them up. They are the most time consuming element of the museum. I also have evolved in my use of signage, and now use printable table cards for weddings and type up the name of the item onto it. It makes for a quick and effective display.
  5. Hunt down the students when it is time for them to take the displays apart and deliver the items to them personally if they forget to pick them up. Some students are very protective of their items and come the moment I advertise that I am taking apart the display. Others are less observant – these are the students that I find in class to return their items to. I also save grocery bags to slip each piece into so that it makes for easier delivery.

Displays play such a huge part of our work in libraries. I hope you enjoyed the insight into one fairly large part of my yearly programming in the Lower School.  

Have a great Wednesday!

Elizabeth