Classroom Book Recommendation Display

by Rebecca Moore and Kacie Simpson

Overlake’s seventh-grade English teacher, Kacie Simpson, is passionate about reading. “Establishing a culture of reading, where students are excited to read, has been something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” she says. One issue she considers is how students can find good books to read. She knows parents also wonder about this, as they often request book recommendations for their children. While Kacie loves reading, of course, she knows that, “collectively, my students have read more books than I have.” Thinking how she could harness this resource, she decided to create a classroom “display where students could give book recommendations and share the types of books they are interested in with their peers.”

For her display, she created a large wall poster of a bookshelf. Next, she printed blank book spine templates in different sizes, to vary the height of the “books” and make the shelf arrangement look more natural. Students copied or recreated the spine of a book they would recommend to their classmates, choosing the template that made the most sense for the book. For in-class work, Kacie provided scissors and colored pencils, though several students also worked at home to have more time and add more detail.

While the students worked in class, Kacie noticed a lot of “great conversations about books.” She heard many positive comments, like, “Oh, I love that book!” That worked well for her goal of instilling in the students the knowledge that “the best source of what to read is their peers,” because seventh graders know what other seventh graders tend to enjoy reading. In the finished spines, Kacie found it interesting to see that fantasy was the most popular genre by a mile, and that Rick Riordan scored as the most popular author. The titles that surprised her the most were the non-fiction titles Blue Chip Kids, by David Bianchi, and Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari, books that she doesn’t “always associate with 12-13 year olds reading.”

When students finished the spines, Kacie organized them roughly by genre on the poster “shelves.” To add to the display’s welcoming appeal, Kacie added a picture of her cat sleeping on a shelf, as well as some “additional decorative touches.” As a librarian, I love it, and think it was an amazing project!

Partial Booklist

Note: I couldn’t read all of the titles, which is why this is partial

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

The Martian, Andy Weir

Scythe, Neal Shusterman

Space Case, Stuart Gibbs

The hunger games, Suzanne Collins

Catching fire, Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

The ballad of songbirds and snakes, Suzanne Collins

Atherton: the House of power, Patrick Carman

One piece, Eiichiro Oda

The ultimate hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, Douglas Adams

Legend, Marie Lu

Foundation, Isaac Asimov

The lion of Mars, Jennifer Holm

The giver, Lois Lowry

Ready player one, Ernest Cline

Iron widow, Xiran Jay Zhao

Animal farm, George Orwell

Home body, Rupi Kaur

What if?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, Randall Munroe

Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

Little white lies, Gemma Townley

The naturals, Jennfer Barnes

The inheritance game, Jennifer Barnes

The final gambit, Jennifer Barnes

Spy school, Stuart Gibbs

One of us is lying, Karen McManus

Five survive, Karen McManus

A good girl’s guide to murder, Holly Jackson

The land of stories: the wishing spell, Chris Colfer

The Penrose Series, Tony Ballantyne

Wings of fire, Tui Sutherland

Throne of glass, Sarah J. Maas

The theft of sunlight, Intisar Khanani

The tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo

Keeper of the lost cities, Shannon Messenger

The school for good and evil, Soman Chainani

The hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

The Lord of the rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Harry Potter and the sorcerer‘s stone, J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the half-blood prince, J.K. Rowling

Summoner 3: The Battlemage, Taran Matharu

Red queen, Victoria Aveyard

Heartless, Marissa Meyer

The lost hero, Rick Riordan

The house of Hades, Rick Riordan

The lightning thief, Rick Riordan

The sea of monsters, Rick Riordan

The last Olympian, Rick Riordan

When you trap a tiger, Tae Keller

Two Degrees, Alan Gratz

The silent patient, Alex Michaelides

Ink and ashes, Valynne Maetani

Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown, Steve Sheinkin

Front desk, Kelly Yang

Seaglass summer, Anjali Banerjee

Out of my mind, Sharon Draper

Simon sort of says, Erin Bow

The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid

Far from the tree, Robin Benway

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello‘s library, Chris Grabenstein

Blended, Sharon Draper

If he had been with me, Laura Nowlin

The Explorers Academy: the nebula secret, Trudi Trueit

Restart, Gordon Korman

Darius the great is not OK, Adib Khorram

Imogen obviously, Becky Albertalli

Wonder, R.J. Palacio

Posted, John David Anderson

The summer I turned pretty, Jenny Han

Prisoner B, Alan Gratz

Projekt, Alan Gratz

Grenade, Alan Gratz

The book thief, Markus Zusak

Little women, Louisa May Alcott

Pride and prejudice, Jane Austen

World in between: based on a true refugee story, Kenan Trebincevic, Susan Shapiro

The downstairs girl, Stacey Lee

Between shades of gray, Ruta Sepetys

Flooded: requiem for Johnstown, Ann Burg

The enigma game,

Blue Chip kids, David Bianchi

Reading Culture Survey

At the start of the year, wanting to build our reading culture, a few teachers and I formed a reading culture committee. For our first action, we decided to survey the students about their reading. We would use their responses to determine our next steps. With the bribe of being entered into a raffle for homeroom cookies, over 70 of our 200+ middle schoolers responded, and here are their responses. For questions about “other” responses, if the responses were minimal or uninformative, I omitted the results here.

  1. Anything else you’d like to say about your reading?

• I love reading, and I read mostly young adult fiction, fantasy, or romance. I don’t read as much as I used to because of the amounts of homework.
• I love to read and it is fun to see all the different ways the author wrote the book.
• I love finding out the answers to the mysteries performed by the book and author!!!
• I love reading ([My friend] made me write this, but it is true)
• I like reading adventure books and mystery books.
• I read a lot and like reading! but sometimes other things get in the way.
• I love reading especially when I need a break so I might join the focus club.
• No but I want to know why we are doing this survey.
• I get thirty minutes of reading time, because I listen to audiobooks in the car. I get no actual reading time at home, because [of other obligations].
• I really like to read on my own, but when someone tells me to read, I feel like I don’t want to read anymore.
• I like reading, but do less if I have too much other work or activities.
• I like writing books.
• Nothing about reading, but I love cookies!
• I especially love historical-fiction/fiction.

Conclusions
We can see that for students who read, while regular print books are still the most popular reading material, they are also reading multiple other formats. I find that encouraging, and hope by listing all of those options as reading, students who might not have considered themselves readers will re-think that.

Many students do not read a whole lot each week. We found their reasons telling, as the top two were too much homework and too many other obligations. Based on this, we decided we needed to find them more time to read at school. We are planning a “drop everything and read” wellness event, in which they will all read in their homerooms for a block. In addition, students who choose not to join an affinity group will instead join a “drop everything and read” group during fortnightly affinity group meetings. We are also working on setting up an evening for student writers to read from their works, since so many are writers.

Building reading culture is certainly a marathon! It’s especially so when all of us are so busy that our reading culture group finds it hard to meet. However, we are moving forward bit by bit, and plan to keep at it. If you have some great ideas that have worked at your school, please add them in the comments!

Musings on Reading in Nature

Shortly before school started I sat on the outcropping of quartzite at Annapolis Rock along the Appalachian Trail and dove into the Wilderness Essays of John Muir. As reading and hiking are two of my favorite pastimes, the bliss I found perched on the peak was understandable. It might, however, have more universal benefits and appeal as well.

We are all aware of the benefits of reading, and of the benefits of spending time outdoors, but I’ve often mused to myself on what there may be to the particular benefits of reading outdoors

Provided that time outdoors is shown to improve memory and attention outside, it seems that compounding the benefits of nature and reading would lead to improved understanding and retention of what we are reading. LIkewise, other research shows how just 20-30 minutes spent outdoors leads to reduced stress. Our school has been surveying and assessing the mental health of our students over the last several years, and the kids are stressed. If your students are like ours, something like relocating to a natural environment that isn’t yet another activity to add to their long lists, might just help bring down those stress levels enough to boost the impact of the reading/school work they are doing. 

When it comes to the connections between the content of our reading and nature, there are so many possibilities for added depth, new connections, or a more creative approach. Some English teachers bring students outside to connect with their readings. Richard Novack describes the joy of reading in nature– ​”after the winter’s first snow, we might scurry outside to read Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening,” witnessing, touching, and inhaling the crisp excitement of new snow” (Novack, 62)

Think of the possibilities of bringing students to a park or arboretum to read Romantic literature. Would students have more meaningful discussions and understandings of the sublime, for example, if they could read about nature in nature? What about spending time outside while reading texts for biology or environmental science?

The Wilderness Essays open with an introduction by Gibbs Smith, who did bring his “Nature Writers in 19th Century America” class to Yosemite to see nature like Muir and others had. While such a trip may not be possible for most, there are smaller ways we can tap into the distinct benefits of reading and nature as well as the unique alchemy that may come from doing both together. 

The Return of Summer Reading Bingo

Based on the fun that was had last year, we’re bringing back bingo! Graphic designer & educator Bram Meehan of Santa Fe created our unique bingo board and has updated it for this year. All AISL members are invited to take part – and yes, there are prizes!

Here is the bingo board:

And here are the guidelines (also on the board), but the main thing is to have fun!

  • 1 book = 1 box (no repeated titles)
  • Each completed row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) = 1 ballot in the draw
  • Completed bingo cards should be emailed to sstraughan@tcs.on.ca by Labour Day (Sep 2)
  • Multiple winners will be drawn, and gift cards awarded based on winner preference: local bricks & mortar bookstore or online bookseller
  • An optional Zoom wrap-up party will be held on Mon Sep 9th (5pmPST/8pmEST) where winners will be announced and an informal book chat will be held (winners not in attendance will be notified via email)

Share your ongoing bingo experience by DMing AISL socials!

Our First High School Book Fair

Every fall, when we do our big middle school book fair, my high school students tell me fondly of how much they loved the book fair and ask me why we don’t have one in the high school. The reason for that, of course, is that none of the big book fair companies offer a high school option and I was worried that working with an indie bookstore would require a lot more work on my end (let’s face it – Scholastic makes it pretty easy). When our on-campus bookstore decided it wasn’t going to purchase summer reading books for students, I decided it was the perfect time to try it out. My friend at our local indie was totally game, and it turned out she had just attended a bookseller conference session about how to do book fairs with schools! We did 3 days in the middle school at the beginning of the week then finished the week in the high school. My goal was to get students excited about books and reading before school ended in May and also have a convenient option for families to buy summer reading books.

Prep and set up was really easy. We made a list of titles that we knew students would like or listed genre-type things like “realistic fiction graphic novels,” “Karen McManus-style mysteries,” “romances like Caraval or The Selection.” Over a few days, we went back and forth with the store adding things to the list and changing up titles as needed, and we ended up with a list of 35-40 different titles for each division. I opted for a variety of titles with a few copies of each, rather than tons of copies of just a few books, to give our students lots of options. I also knew that we could easily order anything we ran out of and just deliver to students later. The bookstore ordered the books and set up a Square that we would use for checkouts during the fair. They also ordered some “treasures,” as Nicole so aptly described them a few weeks ago. I made a joke at one point about how we’d have fun pencils and bookmarks but nothing that smelled like chocolate, only for chocolate-scented erasers to show up – needless to say they were a hit. Once everything arrived, the bookstore rep brought everything to campus and we set up the books on a few tables, making levels with some display stands.

In addition to taking cash and card, we allow students to charge book fair purchases to their student accounts, which means a lot less handling of cash for all involved. In order to do this, we require students to have a form signed by a parent that gives them a budget they’re allowed to spend. All middle school students got a paper form to take home, high school students could grab a paper form in the library, and all parents in both divisions got an email with a link to an online form. We then keep a spreadsheet of purchases that we can turn into our business office and can pay the bookstore in one lump sum. The Square app that the bookstore set up allowed us to put students’ names in the purchase notes, so we could easily keep track of who purchased what, and the Square also made it really easy to pull a quick report and make sure our spreadsheet matched actual sales.

So how did it all work out? Our middle school fair was pretty par for the course – lots of traffic from 6th grade, less from 8th – but I did have one kid come back in the afternoon to say how much he was enjoying the book he bought that morning! For me, the high school was the really fun part. See, my fiction and narrative nonfiction books are in a “Reading Room” on the opposite side of the building from the Research Library where I spend most of my day, so I don’t often get a chance to have impromptu conversations about just-for-fun books with students. I loved being able to have these readers advisory conversations, and both students and teachers were excited to come shop for books. I had conveniently read most of the books on offer, so I was able to make lots of recommendations, and I had several students who would just sit and talk to me about what they’d been reading lately. We have a lot of discussions about how our students aren’t reading, and there are plenty that aren’t, but a lot still love it and just lack the time to read during the busy academic year. This was a nice reminder of that.

The only thing I would change is scheduling the fair during the high school field day. Our Research Library, where the fair was set up, is right off the football field, and my plan had been to be open during the field day powderpuff game as a nice break from being outdoors. However, it rained all day, the powederpuff game was postponed, and students were dismissed early, so I had very few visits that day. In a perfect world, I’d also move the fair to May, but that’s up to my business office and not me.

I loved working with our indie store, and we plan to make this an annual fair. It was so much easier than I was anticipating, and I left with all the warm fuzzy feelings, plus a few new books for the library. Have you worked with an indie bookstore for a book fair? How did it work for you, and what else would you recommend to those looking to try it out?

Book Bingo

Hopefully, you are all enjoying some meaningful (or not!) summer reading. For those interested, let’s check in on AISL Summer Reading Bingo:

Click here for the bingo card & guidelines:

Check out this shared doc for recommendations – intriguing and helpful on its own but also supportive of one of the bingo squares

Look at the AISL Instagram page for additional inspiration, particularly the #aislfridayfeature

Mark your calendars – live bingo on Monday, September 11 (at 5:00pm Pacific, 6:00pm Mountain, 7:00pm Central, and 8:00pm Eastern)

Yours in reading,

Shelagh (with shoutout to my bingo-planning partner, Catherine 🙂

STEM and Writing

In January 2023, NCTE posted a Position Statement on the Role of Nonfiction Literature (K-12), pointing out that nonfiction is “a rich and compelling genre that supports students’ development as critically, visually, and informationally literate 21st century thinkers and creators.” During NCTE’s nonfiction webinars this summer, several notable nonfiction authors expressed a concern that nonfiction works are often compartmentalized into a once-a-year topic report. Challenged to expand and deepen the use of nonfiction in our libraries, I have been incorporating nonfiction in literacy skills projects and exploring ways to encourage students to read and write more nonfiction. Here are some initial projects and future musings to enhance nonfiction reading and writing.

Launch Writing with a STEM Experiment
Patricia Newman, author of Plastic Ahoy and Planet Ocean, shared a fascinating STEM demonstration about ocean acidification at a TLA session (April 2023, Austin, Tx.). I adapted this STEM experiment to launch a writing activity with 7th grade creative writing students. 

Step One: (See experiment details in “A Tale of Two Acids” by Meg Chadsey)
A purple cabbage solution was used as an indicator solution in three containers. Students added lemon juice to one container and noted the dramatic color change as this citric acid reacted with the indicator solution (cabbage solution). 

Step Two:
Students watched a short clip from this Smithsonian video about the effect of carbon dioxide and ocean acidification on coral reefs. Students were asked how they could add carbon dioxide to one of the solutions to mimic the effect of carbon dioxide on oceans. Students guessed that their own breath could be added to the solution, and a student used a straw to blow into a second container of cabbage solution to see how carbon dioxide would affect a base. A color change again happened. 

Step Three:
Students were shown two photos of coral reefs, one healthy and one damaged by ocean acidification.

Students read a poem by a first grader at our school. The poem described the beauty of coral reefs, the coral resembling “underwater flowers in an ocean breeze.” Using the second photo of the damaged coral reef, students created a word bank to describe the contrasting appearance of the coral. Some words included “cemetery, white bones creeping out of the ground, and brittle branches.” The word bank inspired individual poetry writing, then collaborative writing to combine their best poetic lines about the damaged coral. Poetic imagery included “a coral city turned cemetery,” “spindley winter trees,” and “what used to be rich in color, rapidly changed to ghostly white and night black.”

Read to Write: Environmental Poetry
As a follow-up writing activity, students browsed nonfiction books about a variety of environmental topics of concern, and used database articles and online news stories. After identifying an environmental topic that interested them, students cited the nonfiction source and created a Word Bank from words in the article or book; these were words that resonated with them as important.

Here is an example of one students’ planning template, and following is the poem inspired by an article about the Colorado River water crisis.

River Run Dry
Sylvie C.

A coming quarrel of a river run dry
The basin on which seven states rely

A craggy, cracked channel soon to be empty
Used to be a source of plenty

The futile fight for conservation
Is an endless conversation

Aridification of the West:
Overuse of water on human’s request

The carver of a canyon grand
Now barren bones atop the land

Putting the A in STEM
As a final art activity themed to environment and nature, this video by artist and designer Raku Inoue demonstrated creating Insect Art out of garden clippings. Using garden clippings from my home garden, students selected leaves, twigs, berries, and flowers to create their own insects. Students loved designing nature insect sculptures, and the textures, shapes, and colors of the garden clippings inspired distinctive insect “personalities.” Below is a sampling of their insect art.

Encouraging Nonfiction Reading and Writing
Each year the library and creative writing teachers co-sponsor a literary magazine, and writing contests have been a popular way to generate writing and art submissions. This year’s writing contest will be themed to the environment (in praise of our natural world and ways to be better stewards of our environment). Creative writing students will be challenged to create a promotional video for the environmental writing contest by using their colorful insect nature art. These insects will be animated in a promotional video using the Puppet Pals app.

The library will be displaying nonfiction titles themed to environmental conservationists and activists, endangered animals, environmental concerns, and national parks. Suggested reading lists for environmental books have been created in Destiny Collections so that teachers and students can browse library titles available in print and through our digital SORA collection. To highlight nonfiction book checkouts, stuffed toy birds will be “nesting” at our circulation desks, and when a student checks out a nonfiction book, they can celebrate their nonfiction book checkout by pressing the stuffed bird for an authentic bird song.

Future Plans
Here are possible ideas that will be explored further this coming school year:

  1. Recycle/Upcycle Fashion Show
    Student-created designs would be paired with informational displays highlighting environmental concerns. Creative writing students have already interviewed Tina Davis, the owner of a Houston vintage clothing store, and the interview generated several creative ideas to possibly pursue. Tina Davis stressed the importance of “buying less and choosing more.”
  2. STEAM Literacy Event
    Nonfiction library books displayed with related STEAM activities.
    Students would facilitate STEAM demonstrations as visitors browse the display tables.
  3. Environmental Podcast
    Our creative writing students may be collaborating with our STEM teacher and her Digital Design class to create podcasts highlighting environmental concerns.

The goal of these STEM and writing activities is to spark students’ curiosity and deepen their awareness of environmental concerns through thoughtful reading of nonfiction writings. Please share the ways you enhance students’ reading of nonfiction and incorporate nonfiction in your literacy skills programming and collaborations with teachers.

The Joys of Book Juggling

As I sit at my desk trying desperately to focus between questions, printer drama, and the need to tell that student that he can’t surf wheelie-chairs in the library, all while trying to will away the constant din of conversation on the the silent floor, I’ve decided to write this post about something a little further from my day to day. Today is the last day of regular classes here, so the real day to day is ending for the year. We are moving into exams and then those year-end traditions that transition us into summer, off to college, up a grade level. So I’m taking a moment to pause, and invite you to my reading realm.

I never used to be a book juggler. I get so invested in each book that I don’t want to be reading anything else until I’m done with the characters, ideas, and worlds that I’m so immersed in at the moment. Over time though, and for a variety of reasons (children, long commutes, competing desires), I’ve shifted to being someone who is often reading at least 2 books at any given time. Right now I find myself in the delicious early pages of two pleasure books, while also slowly eking my way through one “work” book.

One aspect of book juggling I have come to appreciate is how the mental hangover from one to the next can sometimes lead to interesting connections and insights. Because I’m still mulling through the as-yet-unresolved thoughts and threads from one book as I shift to pick up the others, I bring those muddled thoughts to a new context and I often apply the same questions there.

Looking back at my reading list since the start of 2023 I’ve been on a real fantasy kick: Bardugo, McGuire, Roanhorse, and Clarke.There are other books mixed in, but fantasy easily sweeps me up. Rarely is a new world contained in just one book, there are trilogies and series to fall down the proverbial rabbit hole into. So, it was, in fact, a bit of a surprise to myself, when this week I paused and realized I was juggling 3 non-fiction books for the first time in a while.

I picked up Gathering Moss: a Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, by Robin Wall Kimmerer when my kids brought me to the bookstore for Mother’s Day. A few days after I started reading, I was not entirely surprised to find out that our Environmental Science teacher is also reading it currently. Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass has been a book that clearly made an impact on our school in the past year. The only book at all mentioned in our weekly Meeting for Worship, it has actually moved students and teachers to speak at three different Meetings with entirely different queries. Given how infrequently our community has been moved to speak at Meetings this year, it is clear that this book has power. Beyond that, it has also been one of the most frequently shared books by faculty on our “What’s We’re Reading” display. I myself managed some strange hybrid of both devouring and savoring Kimmerer’s words when I read it last year. Gathering Moss has been on my to-read list ever since.

Also sitting on my list for several months has been Katherine May’s Wintering: the Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. After reading an old NPR review sometime last fall, I’ve been intrigued by the narrative and mildly anthropological exploration of wintering, which May describes as “a fallow period in life, when you’re cut off front he world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.” As someone whose personal “to-visit” list is topped by northern destinations, May’s inclination to also turn north for strategies to manage the cold and dark times in life piqued my interest (and also makes me want to make time for a sauna).

Meanwhile, on my desk at work, sits Attention Span: a Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, by Gloria Mark. I find no shortage of irony in my inability to focus on reading it between notifications on my laptop and students dropping by. I often intend to read something professionally useful in the earliest part of my mornings, between opening the library at 7:30 and the end of first period. While most of this year those have been books more specifically on pedagogy, Attention Span caught my interest to perhaps help me to understand our student’s device dependance (and that deep discomfort they feel at being physically separated from their phones when I have to confiscate ones being used against our device policy) and also think through those tensions of student stress at just how much homework they have, declining mental health, and simultaneously large amounts of free time during the school day used in academically unproductive ways. Perhaps understanding a bit more about attention will give me some insight, too, into how to physically structure our library space to serve the real needs of our students.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Right now, in the early stages, there are threads from each that I want to tease out. I see the importance of cycles shining through. Nature and people cycle through seasons, we need dark and light, joy and sadness, energy and rest. Mosses thrive in moisture and go dormant in drought, only to reemerge healthy when the conditions are right again. Our attention needs both focus and distraction in order to maintain balance–we cycle out of deep focus to periods of rote engagement in order to restore our ability to enter periods of focus again. The restorative and calming power of nature is there too. Pause, look closely, notice the details. Kimmerer describes how her world changed upon first seeing a snowflake through a magnifying glass–that experience taught her that there was more to see if we look closely. Observation is akin to mindfulness in ways that appear through May’s writing, from nature walks to mid-night watches and restorative baking. I also see threads of a need for acceptance. May finds power in accepting winter as part of life. One cannot simply avoid that cold dark season, by accepting winter one can prepare and embrace the unique parts of that season. So too, with our attention. Times of distraction restore our ability to focus. Accepting that not all our time will be focused we can better consider how to be distracted well. These are some of the threads that seem to connect from all sides. As I turn the last page in these and the juggling act shifts, I look forward to where else the interleaving of pages will take me.

In the meantime, I’m really excited for the change in our cycle that comes with the end of classes. In my reflective mood, the exam period feels like an important liminal moment in our year. Soon we will have various ceremonies, formal and informal, where our students will transition. Our juniors become the senior class of 2024, our graduates become alums. The academic cycle moves us all into summer. And I, for one, am ready to accept the summer.

Building Knowledge in the Age of AI

I was tempted, but this blog was not written by AI or any Chatbox, one who loves me or not. But this piece is all about AI and its implications for librarians and education.  It seems we can expect a flood of texts written by AI from now on.  The question is how reliable will they be? Will the program pull from authoritative sources?  

As of now, AI  has no access to the “invisible internet” of database resources or print books that have not been digitized.  Nor, does it have materials uploaded after 2021.  When these programs scan sources, how will they determine the value of the sites? Just look for similar language and phrases? These questions have important consequences: for example, a  recent Nature article noted that scientists were fooled by such texts.

The increasing usage and acceptance of AI, presents challenges and new opportunities.  Perhaps the most important skill or students will need going forward will be to assess the accuracy and relevance of texts.  Yesterday, for example, the International Baccalaureate (IB) program announced that it would accept AI  generated material if cited properly. Matt Glanville observed that “When AI can essentially write an essay at the touch of a button, we need our pupils to master different skills, such as understanding if the essay is any good or if it has missed context, has used biased data or if it is lacking in creativity.” So, assessing content will be vital.  Granville states, “These will be far more important skills than writing an essay, so the assessment tasks we set will need to reflect this.” This approach is fine as long as students have time in school and home, to acquire this content in the age of distraction.

Emphasizing skills rather than content has become a trend lately. Memorizing facts is seen as boring and unnecessary.  The idea being students should learn the skills to “do” history and science like  the professionals..  Content could be learned later, or just by “googling” something as the need arose  But if you don’t have a solid foundation of basic facts, how you can judge the credibility of AI-generated content?   Will readers take the time to assess each fact?  Of course, these demands were present with human-generated content, but now the need is greater.  Perhaps it will help that the National Council of Teachers of English is placing greater emphasis on reading nonfiction.  

Of course, the role of librarians is clear: acquire and highlight noteworthy, human-authored background content and nonfiction so that students can build this important reservoir of background knowledge when they encounter new texts, regardless of who or what created it. Encourage the idea that reading for information can be fun, especially if connected with previous knowledge and interesting facts.  It will be essential in a world dominated by texts produced in 5 minutes by AI.

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Creating a children’s collection in a high school library

I don’t think our high school library is unique in getting requests for children’s materials from time to time. Whether for young families living on campus or our students tutoring young kids from our local community, we’ve had a number of picture and chapter books on hand for years.

This year, 2 members of our library team decided to formalize this collection and did so by harnessing the power of  Week Without Walls (WWW), an annual event when all Senior School students & staff perform volunteer service in our area, including some sites on campus. 

One month prior to WWW, a team member emailed staff & posted a notice in the parent newsletter, asking for donations of books suitable for up to 12 years of age; 10 families donated a total of 203 books.

When the week arrived, 4 students were assigned to this WWW group based on their shared passion for reading & children, and over the course of 8 hours:

  • Reviewed donations; a handful of books didn’t make the cut based on physical condition and appropriateness
  • Created a variety of materials to support the collection including identification stickers (items aren’t barcoded so the stickers highlight where they are to be shelved) and dividers noting their creative and unique categories, such as “Kids in Charge” and “Interactive” (pop-up books and I Spy), “Guide for Life”, along with some traditional genres.
  • Colourfully painted book ends (seen above)
  • Bookmarks that celebrate and encourage reading 

Initially, the students were keen to catalogue the books so that they’d be searchable in our database but time didn’t allow for this, although it was great to have students get a glimpse of how much goes into this detailed behind-the-scenes work.

I’m grateful to work with colleagues who created such a meaningful initiative for our students and for students who enthusiastically embraced the opportunity!