Research process model

                                        
After a two-year process led by our librarians, our school is getting fairly close to adopting a common research process model.

Our intent is to develop a recursive model that may guide our students through the process of becoming effective researchers. 

We've incorporated four Cs that are important to our school:  to think Critically, Communicate effectively, Collaborate purposely, and to Create meaningfully as well as the Practices of Definitive Preparation and the philosophy of the writing process.

The model will be used K-12, but younger students will use only the verbs and the guiding questions.  We're hoping to come up with a graphic design that will better illustrate the recursive nature of the process, but for now we're concentrating on getting the wording just right.

What do you think?  Is the model clear and easy to understand?  Does it accurately reflect the process of research?  Have we succeeded in the right amount of detail--not too much or too little?  Your comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome!

Little Free Library book drive

Our upper school book club members hosted a book drive with the sixth grade recently with great results.  We collected almost 2,000 books to benefit Little Free Libraries.  Probably more important, our upper school book club members started the seeds of a relationship with sixth graders who absolutely worship these older readers.

We have about 17 upper school students who regularly attend our monthly book club meetings at lunch.  They've been wanting to do a service project for a while, and finding Little Free Libraries was a happy serendipity. 

Over the winter break, one of our teachers built his own Little Free Library and plans to place it near an urban community center.  About the same time, I got approval from my neighborhood's HOA to place a Little Free Library in our community center. 

Our book club had the idea to collect gently used children's books to stock these libraries. Each book club member was assigned to a sixth grade advisory and the upper school students went to sixth grade advisory meetings several times to promote the book drive and encourage participation. 

Both the upper schoolers and the sixth graders are happy with the results, and we hope to be able to sponsor our own Little Free Library next year.

Rounding up readers

In the last post, I bemoaned the fact that we have readers in our middle and high schools who never darken the library door.  In this post, I'll share what I'm doing to try to round up these readers.

In no particular order, here are a few ideas that I'm trying:
*Display New York Times bestsellers that we have in the library for middle grade readers and teens (see photos).
*Go to Barnes and Noble on a regular basis to grab lots of brand new books to minimize the lag time from when the books hit stores to when students check them out (I check reviews in the store using my phone).
*Simplify checkout by eliminating the library card.  Students now self-check using their lunch number.
*Email the middle school and high school reading/English teachers to ask for help in spreading the word about great books and friendly policies in the library such as no fines.
*Beef up the digital eBook collection.
*Make school-wide announcements asking students to save their cash and come to the library to request the book they want to read instead.
*Recruit students to recommend books for our library blog.
*Greet every student who comes to the library.  Engage them in conversations about new books and reading if possible.

What other ideas have worked for rounding up readers at your library?  Please share!

Epic fail

Not long ago one of our high school English teachers brought his class to the library for research.  Covering two large tables near the back of the library was a display of new young adult books.  One girl walked over to the table and started pointing out books.  "I've read this one, and this one, and this one.  Oh, and I've read the sequel to this one."

To say that I was surprised was the least of it.  While I had seen the girl before, to my knowledge she had never been in the library on her own.  I didn't know her name, and I didn't think she'd ever checked out a book. 

"You sound like you're a huge reader," I managed. 

"Oh, yes, I read constantly, she smiled."

"Where do you get your books? And who gives you suggestions on what to read next?" I queried.

"I pretty much live at Barnes and Noble," she replied.  "The people who work there know me by name."

Epic fail, as the kids say. We have kids in our school who love to read but never come to the library. Ouch.

So I set out to see what I could do about it.  After talking to lots of teachers and kids, here's what I'm finding out:

Some Reasons MS/HS Readers Don't Come to the Library (in no particular order):
1.  I'm too busy/my schedule doesn't allow time to come when I'm at school.
2.  I didn't know the library had the books I wanted.
3.  I thought checking out books was mostly for the younger kids.
4.  I go to Barnes and Noble when I'm at the mall.
5.  I get lots of Barnes and Noble gift cards for my birthday, etc.
6.  I'm afraid I'll lose library books.
7.  I thought you had fines in the library.
8.  I thought you had to return library books in one week.

Stop back by next week for part two of this post about the things I'm doing to try to get more middle school and high school readers to check out books from the library.

Have you experienced something similar in your library?  I'd love to hear about it here!

The Reader's Bill of Rights, Daniel Pennac

Have you read Daniel Pennac's wonderful book on creating readers, Better Than Life?  It was published in the '90s, and it's a gem. 

The front cover features a quote by Regie Routman that sums up the essence of the book well. "Anyone who loves to read and wants our young people to develop a similar passion will savor Better Than Life--an enchanting, beautifully written, and wise book."

"The Reader's Bill of Rights" is one of the best and most quoted parts of the book.  Many versions exist online, including an illustrated one that has changed the original wording, but I like Pennac's version the best.

If we are to develop the love of reading in young children and teens, it is critical to allow them the freedom that these rights afford. 

The Reader's Bill of Rights, Daniel Pennac

1.  The right not to read.
2.  The right to skip pages.
3.  The right not to finish.
4.  The right to reread.
5.  The right to read anything.
6.  The right to escapism.
7.  The right to read anywhere.
8.  The right to browse.
9.  The right to read aloud.
10. The right not to defend your taste.

Happy reading, friends!

Old dogs can...

I have a sign in-sheet in our library now. That may not seem too strange, but for me it's a little like admitting our library is quiet (see previous post).

In my former job as a library coordinator, I remember (with a bit of a red face) that I encouraged our librarians to get rid of sign-in sheets. I thought that signing in might be a barrier for kids to come to the library. Maybe it would send the message that we don't really want them to come.

Our head of upper school recently suggested a sign-in sheet here. Our building is huge--over 300,000 square feet and four floors. Sometimes an administrator on the third floor is looking for someone. It's handy for them to call the library (we're on the first floor), and I can look at the sign in and see that the student was here last block, for example.

What I have realized is that signing in is not so much a barrier, but that it's simply a procedure. It only takes a minute, and our kids don't mind it. It hasn't cut down on library usage.

What I didn't expect is that it has a couple of benefits. First, it helps me learn kids' names, which is great. It's also good data to use for promoting the library.

As I count the names on the sign in at the end of each day, I realize that I have underestimated how many students use the library. Yesterday I was excited to see that 92 students came to the library on their own. With 400 students in upper school, 92 is great. That doesn't count the classes who came with a teacher, and it doesn't count the kids who forgot (or just didn't) sign in.

This morning an administrator remarked that the library must be pretty empty with the upcoming holidays.  When I told him that 92 kids came on their own yesterday, he was amazed.  

A sign-in sheet is a little thing, but it's nice to know that old dogs like me can still learn.

Save the date--Naomi Nye

If you live in the Dallas area, I hope you will join us for the Parish Literary Festival on Thursday, January 17 from 4:00-5:00 in the main library.  Parish Episcopal School is located at 4104 Sigma Dr., Dallas, TX 75244.

Acclaimed poet and author Naomi Nye will be featured speaker at the event.  Books will be available for purchase, and Ms. Nye will sign books at the close of the event.

The Parish Literary Festival is free and open to the public.  If you're in the area, I hope you'll come and bring a friend!

What happiness smells like...

Here's a conversation I overheard from two middle schoolers entering the library this morning:

Student one: "Aahh.  The library smells like happiness."

Student two:  "No, that's just a vanilla candle."

For a split second there I was in librarian's heaven.  Because you know what?  The library does smell like happiness.

Happy day in the library to all!

Dia de los Muertos connections in the library

Our library has looked particularly festive for the past couple of weeks due to a project by one of our Spanish III teachers on Dia de los Muertos.

The teacher brings her students to the libray to research Day of the Dead and the associated customs. Students choose an artist or performer and create an altar to this person that accurately reflects elements of traditional altars. Students come to the library to give a presentation on their altar, and the difficult part is it's totally in Spanish!


All their altars and a beautiful one dedicated to Frida Kahla are on display in the library for the week prior to Dia de los Muertos.

In additions to great connections with the Spanish classes, the displays have generated a lot of traffic for the library in the way of parents, administrators, teachers, and other students who want to see these beautiful projects.

Do you have similar connections that you'd like to share here?

In the beginning...leads in the library.

I was thrilled when one of our new middle school English teachers came to me recently and wanted to connect their classroom learning on writing leads to the library.

After the class arrived, we recapped what they have been learning about leads.  Leads come at the beginning of a piece of writing.  They are designed to hook a reader, set the tone, and/or provide background information.  They may vary in length and style.  All types of genres have leads, and the writer should keep the audience and purpose of writing in mind when crafting the beginning of the piece.

Next I read the one-page prologue from Kay Honeyman's The Fire Horse Girl (Scholastic, 2013) because it so beautifully talks about how the author carefully chooses the first words of a story.

Then I read leads from 4-5 books.  Although these varied from period to period, a few were as follows:
Brain Jack, Brian Falkner (suspense)
What Jamie Saw, Carolyn Coman (repetition for effect)
Notes from a Midnight Driver, Jordan Sonnenblick (humor)
The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp, Rick Yancey (author speaks to readers)Full Tilt, Neal Shusterman (one sentence lead)

I also included two informational books about Issac Newton.  One was a standard series biography with a pretty standard lead.  The other was Kathleen Krull's much more interesting lead to her Issac Newton book from the Giants of Science series.

Afterward, students were given a few minutes to find a good by going to the stacks and perusing books of their choice.  Then they partnered up, shared the leads they found with the other person, and decided which they felt was the better lead. 

Finally, they paired up with another duo to make a group of four.  After reading the four leads aloud, they selected the strongest from the group. We reconvened the class, and the student who had selected this lead read it to the large group. 

The kids were engaged, and they seemed to enjoy sharing what they found. Best of all, several students wanted to check out some of the books. 

Cool tools: Ikea display stands

Sometimes cool tools can be low tech (and inexpensive), as evidenced by these great display stands I found at Ikea for .99 each (search Tolsby on ikea.com).

I'm using them right now for several things, as you can see in the photos. 

Last week I used them as table numbers for the book pass activity (see previous post).  The numbers are clip art that I re-printed in color this morning to spiff them up a bit.

The students of one of our Spanish teachers are getting ready to do a big Dia de los Muertos project in the library, complete with a large altar to Frida Kahlo and smaller, individual altars to relatives and personal heroes.  I put related pictures in the display stands and will set these on library tables to compliment their projects.

Finally, I'm working on a new display, Read Any Good Movies Lately? After poking around on IMBD, I discovered that we have almost all of the books that correspond with the top 40 or so books-to-upcoming movies on their site. I'll display the books themselves, the IMBD list, and a handout of the books.  I'm including the display stands with 4 x 6 color copies of the book covers so the display won't be bare if (hopefully when) the books are checked out.


What other uses have you thought of for these low tech cool tools?

Book Pass

In the spirit of Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon, another of our summer professional reading books, I have happily borrowed a wonderful idea from a neighboring teacher.

Kay Honeyman, brand new author of The Fire Horse Girl, blogs about holding a book pass in the library.  Her librarian is a friend, the terrific Jill Bellomy.  Their book pass sounded like so much fun that I decided to give it a go.

A book pass is just what the name implies.  Students come to the library to pass around books set out for them to examine.  They make a list of ones that sound appealing and add to the list throughout the year.  The goal is for this "to read" list to contain lots of books that they will enjoy reading for pleasure.

I did a book pass with sixth graders today, and it went really well.  Even the pickiest (er, most discerning) reader left with two or three books they want to read this year.

I modified yesterday's book pass due to a short period with the sixth graders, and I'm including the steps here:

1.  Set up enough tables so that your class will be sitting in groups of three or four.
2.  Number each table.
3.  Make a book pass sheet for students to write down the books they want to read. 
4.  Place 8-10 books at each table of various genres.
5.  Before the students start, ask them how they choose the books they read for fun.  Ask them to use these strategies for the book pass and to write down any books they might like to read.
6.  Give students 4-5 minutes at each table, rotating tables until each group has been to each table.
7.  If you see a group that's not really interested in the books on their table, walk by and add a few different books to the mix.
8.  Ask students to star books on their list that they are most excited about, and then give them the opportunity to check out books from any table.  If more than one student wants a particular book, place holds.
9.  Allow students to share what interests them about the books they have selected.
10.  Tip:  Since the tables will be mostly empty after one period, use books that the previous group has just returned to the drop box or good books from your shelving cart to replenish the tables.

Let us know how the book pass worked for your students!  Happy reading...

The Poetry Friday Anthology: Poems for the School Year with Connections to the TEKS

The Poetry Friday Anthology is a great book to infuse poetry into your elementary classroom or library. The book offers one poem each week for each grade level K-5, or 216 poems in all. Each poem is accompanied by a short, lively Take 5! activity designed to engage students. For Texas teachers and librarians, TEKS correlations have been helpfully provided. Short on time? The book is well organized, easy to use, and the compilers suggest that a five-minute poetry break is an effective way to use transition time on Fridays or any other day. An excellent volume for elementary teachers and librarians by well-known compilers Dr. Sylvia Vardell and poet Janet Wong.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

ShelfConsumed has been on a bit of a hiatus as none of you has probably noticed!  May was a blur with all those things we do in the library at the end of school.  The summer was a wondrous time of grandsons, books, and doing just what we wanted when we wanted.  Bliss!

But today was the first day back at school, so I think it's time to get back to thinking about libraries.

One of the best books I read this summer is Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.  Whether you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert, I think you'll enjoy what Cain has to say and that you'll find yourself applying her words to situations with friends and family.

I didn't expect was to find implications for education and for the library.  Cain's book made me realize that not all students want to "share good books" with friends.  It may be hard for some students to go around the table and talk about an author they enjoy.  Many students may prefer to work alone rather than in a group.  In our rush to collaborate and share, we may be isolating many students who prefer quiet.

I hope you'll find time to read this powerful book and also to find a bit of quiet in your hectic schedule this new school year.

Confessions of a shusher

Marc Levin Creative Commons License 2.0

For the first time in a good while there are no classes scheduled for research in the library. You might think it would be empty, but close to 10% of our upper school students have been here in the hour and a half since I opened this morning.

My desk is behind the circulation area, so I can’t see the main library when I’m at my computer, but I can usually hear what’s happening. At the moment there are 26 students in the library, and it’s not silent, but it’s pretty quiet.

It took me the better half of the year to realize that a quiet library is the preference for most of the students who come here. They have lots of work to do, and the library is quieter and more structured than the cafeteria or the commons area.

How did I come to this realization?  I started asking kids why they come to the library, which yes, I know I should have done at the beginning of the year.  But when I finally got around to asking, just as many said they were seeking quiet as those who needed to use a computer or other resources.

This preference for quiet was surprising to me.  Quiet is not what I'd expect kids to want.  Quiet school libraries appear unpopular in professional literature, and it seems that school librarians who help maintain this quiet are deemed out of step.

But it’s our job to provide what our patrons need. And I’ve realized that a quiet library and a welcoming library are not mutually exclusive.

So, yes, I occasionally shush kids in the library. I know. I know. But I also smile at kids, try to call them by name, and ask about their activities, their tests, and their weekends. And when they come back to the library by choice, it’s a pretty good feeling.

ShelfConsumed has moved to shelfconsumed.org

Apparently my domain name has been swiped, and I am not able to find a way to redirect traffic from the old address to the new one.  Ack.  Aargh.

ShelfConsumed may now be found at http://www.shelfconsumed.org

I would appreciate it if you'd help spread the word!  Many thanks.

TASL thanks

Many thanks to Texas Association of School Librarians (TASL) for naming ShelfConsumed as the best professional blog during the Texas Library Association (TLA) conference last week!  TASL is awesome!

The Wise Man Said it Best...

Fotalia

John Green, amazing YA author and YouTube sensation, recently tweeted the following,

"50 million Americans haven't read a book in the past 12 months. As a business, THAT'S our #1 problem--not format or distribution models."

Of course we have to think about format and distribution models.  It's our job to provide for our patrons in the most friendly, useable, cost-efficient, and sustainable ways possible.  It's our job to meet their information and reading needs. 

But if our patrons don't have reading needs, John Green is right.  Helping to create readers should be our priority.

Author, author!

I'm feeling a little behind the curve in lining up authors for next year, so the last couple of days I've started making some initial inquiries.  We're planning on hosting an author for our first through fourth graders and another author for our middle schoolers.

After hosting many authors over the years (see tags for previous post) I've decided that a successful visit is due to lots of advance planning and a little bit of good luck.  Selecting the right author is half the battle, so I'll offer a few tips that seem to work for me.  I'd love to hear your tips as well.  Please comment!

Choosing the right author for your school:

1.  Browse your shelves for ideas.  Look at which books circulate frequently.

2.  Talk to kids (Granted they will probably say Rick Riordan or Suzanne Collins, but it's great to get their ideas).

3.  Ask teachers for input.  This builds collaboration and buy-in for the visit.

4.  Browse author websites to get a feel for their body of work.

5.  Try to choose an author that may appeal to a range of readers.

6.  Watch author interviews on YouTube to see the author in action.  Is he/she engaging?

7.  Listen to authors at conferences.  

8.  Ask other librarians for recommendations.

9.  When in doubt, just go for it.  Trust your instinct and book that author!

10.  Low on funding?  Avoid the authors who will come to your school for free unless you've heard them and know they're really good.  A bad author visit is counterproductive to your cause.  Better to Skype with an interesting author for free or at a reduced cost.

What's worked well for you?

What would Seth (Godin) say?

 Conventional wisdom says the rich get richer while the poor continue to struggle.  Physics says a body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest.

So does it follow that people who are motivated tend to get more motivated while the unmotivated generally stay that way?