Call Numbers and St. Patrick

Today I talk about the meaning of St. Patrick’s day and read a few Leprechaun-themed storybooks to the Kindergarteners and second graders. I even did parts of the stories in my best Irish brogue, which was little embarrassing, but I’m technically trained to do it (I was in The Cripple of Inishmaan in college and we had a dialect coach). A lot of the books I put up on the March display got checked out, so I found more to put out. I think I’ve touched every single book in the collection related to Ireland, like even books that have nothing to do with Ireland but were just written by Irish people like Roddy Doyle or W.B. Yeats. Here’s a picture of the display (which, I didn’t create, but just filled in with books):

For third grade, I carried out my “Call Numbers Practice Session.” For what I think are obvious reasons, my second class went way better than the first one. The first time you try a new lesson plan is always hard. Each time you do a particular lesson you get exponentially better (until you get bored with it, that is). The first class seemed to think it was too easy for them, but they had plenty of difficulty locating call numbers quickly. I checked all the kids’ notebooks to make sure each of them had answered my basic question (“If you wrote a picture book, what would the call number be?”) correctly. For a few of them I had to track them down during check-out time and point out their mistakes (e.g. one child inexplicably picked random letters for his call number). I took some pictures of the journals, too:

Anecdote: One of the Kindergarten kids asked me, “When is it white-skinned people’s month?” I told her March is actually Women’s History Month and she got so excited. She ran over and threw her arms around her friend and started jumping and chanting “girls’ history, girls’ history, girls’ history.”

Wednesday in Readers’ Advisory:

• Knights (Young Arthur, Young Lancelot)
• Even MORE St. Patrick’s Day stuff (Ireland forever)
• Rapunzel (ran out of picture books, so offered last girl the movie)
• Mexican hairless dogs (one entry in a big dog reference book)
• Star Wars (always)
• Wakko’s America (not a single Animaniacs item is owned by Bush, though)
• Princesses (Paper Bag Princess!)
• Piano (instructional specifically, but we didn’t have anything of that nature)

In between classes today I worked on compiling books for my fifth grade book talks tomorrow. Marcia requested I talk non-fiction picture books. Here is the list I’m working on.

Erin Go Bragh

I’ve been working on an assignment for my School Library Management class of late, and today I asked Jody and Lisa for some feedback in regards to the direction I’ve been headed in with it. My assignment is to create an action plan for the Bush School library to somehow make it better. Some of my classmates working in different school libraries have their work cut out for them, but the Bush library happens to be in a very enviable position. So how can I make a great library better? Well, part of my assignment is to incorporate the new AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner, which the Bush library doesn’t currently use. So that was one new thing to include in my plan. But what else could I do? As of now, I’m recommending that the library create more learning artifacts as evidence of what they teach and that they publicize their value to the school more aggressively (using the ALA “@ your library” promotional tools). But I’m still working on it…

Getting back to my DFW duties, today I helped fill in the St. Patrick’s Day display (a picture is forthcoming).  I also helped Jody collect books for the Kindergarteners on gardening and collect more St. Patrick’s Day picturebooks. Then Jody and I talked about my lesson plan for the third graders on Wednesday. I’m working on a lesson plan that reinforces my previous lesson (on how to use the catalog) and also gets the kids thinking about their inquiry process. I’m going to have them sing “Plan, Do, & Review” (a Mike Eisenberg hit) and then write about their experience in their journals.

Today at the desk I helped two girls with known-item reference questions. They were fifth graders, so I expected them to be able to use the catalog, which they could. But I was a little disappointed when they seemed lost as to where to find the book on the shelves. So I guess it certainly won’t  hurt the third graders to get in more practice.

There were some major technology problems today (and one or two non-major problems). I accompanied Lisa on  a trip to help a teacher whose projector wasn’t projecting so I could get a taste of what it’s like to be the school-wide go-to person when gadgets misbehave. It turned out to be an easy fix, but there were bigger problems waiting in the library when we returned. No one was able to log on to the computers! For this size of a problem, Lisa calls in the technicians-by-trade (as opposed to the librarians-by-trade/technicians-by-default). They came and fixed it, but we were out of touch for a while. We had to write down check-outs by hand! The madness!

Prepping

I spent most of Monday preparing for things I’m doing later in the week:

3rd Grade Readers’ Theatre

We’ll be using new digital audio recorders to capture the performances on Wednesday, so Jody and I practiced using them. I read (most of) the instruction manual and we recorded ourselves and successfully uploaded the Windows Media file onto a computer. From there I hope to put it up on my blog. Jody and I had a discussion about the copyright issues inherent in sharing performances of plays. We agreed that posting the play on my blog would most likely constitute Fair Use, but Jody is still considering contacting the author of the play for her permission. An alternative to this (for future reference) would be taking the time to write my own version of the play; because it’s an Aesop’s Fable, it’s in the public domain.

5th Grade Poetry Book Talks 

I’d already gathered a stack of books for this, but when I looked at it on Monday I thought it was imbalanced (too much funny stuff and not enough serious stuff) and too much (if I talk more than 15 books it will take too long). So I took some books out and put some new books in. I also made a sign for the display I’ll put up on Friday and typed up my list.

Huck Finn and the Canon

I got to school early today to sit in on an interesting discussion. Lisa Keller visited Andy’s 10th grade English class to talk about why they read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and why they maybe shouldn’t. Mark Twain’s classic novel has been required reading in many high school English classes for decades, but it’s also controversial because of its use of racial slurs and its portrayal of Jim. Lots of important questions got asked, such as:

• Why is it important to read classic literature?
• What is it about some books that makes people want to ban them?
• Why is it important to read things that may make us uncomfortable?
• Who decides what we “should” and “should not” read in school?
• What if Young Adult novels were added to the English curriculum?

It was great to see Lisa advocate for YA literature. At the end of the class she offered to send the teacher a bibliography of great YA books. Maybe he’ll consider adding one (or two or three) to the curriculum? Time will tell. In the meantime, here are a couple YA books that would be worthy of being taught in IMHO:

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin
• The Pigman by Paul Zindel

Today was also my day to teach 3rd grade classes how to use the catalog. It was much harder than I thought it would be, particularly because the kids seemed to have a bad case of the wiggles. Still, I got through it. I’ll look at their worksheets on Friday and go over things they didn’t get next Wednesday.Jody and I talked about Groundhog Day with the Kindergarteners and 2nd graders. I read aloud several different books about groundhogs (including a book from the Fluffy series that was a big hit). Because of the Kindergarten bake sale, we had quite a few interruptions, so it was a bit of a challenge to keep the kids focused on the stories.

I have noticed that I haven’t been asked many true reference questions since I’ve been working at Bush. The most common question I answer is how to find a particular book (which we call a “known item” question at the Engineering Library at UW). It’s usually a matter of looking the book up in the catalog and then locating it on the shelf. I make an effort to demonstrate to the younger kids what I’m doing so it will be more familiar to them when they learn it. And for the older kids, now that they’ve had their lesson I’ll be asking them to try to find the book themselves before I help.

The other kind of questions I get are readers’ advisory, which means suggesting something to read for fun (I never get to answer these kinds questions at the Engineering Library!). I tend to automatically suggest books I myself have enjoyed, but I’m trying to train myself not to jump right into “Oh I just love so-and-so” and instead ask more questions and think harder about what would be best to recommend. So far I’ve pushed:

• Encyclopedia Brown on a 3rd grade mystery-seeker
• Clarice Bean on a boy looking for a picture book about a girl
• The Stinky Cheese Man on a kid in search of fractured fairy tales.

Happily, a lot of the Batchelder Award winners I book talked have been checked out. Jenine and I filled the display table up again with more award winners today.

Visiting Grade Five

I got to Bush earlier than usual today so I could visit the Fifth Grade classes at 8:30 and tell them about those Batchelder books I’ve been reading. I was a little nervous, and I felt like I wasn’t really connecting with my audience. But afterwards I asked one of the teachers who observed me how she thought it went and she told me I did a great job. I still think I can improve, and I’m encouraged by the compliment. When I got back to the library I made a display of the Batchelder books so the kids will be able to find them if they want to check them out. We’ll see!

Now I’m working on my lesson for the Third Graders. I’ll point you to the documents I’m working on here and here.

It’s very quiet in the libray today.

Wednesdays

My Wednesdays at the Bush School are spent with Jody, the Lower School Librarian:

The Wednesday schedule includes visits from two Kindergarten classes, two Second Grade classes, and two Third Grade classes–so the day is pretty full.

Last Wednesday, Jody had all the kids introduce themselves to me individually. They each told me one thing about themselves and were allowed to ask me one question. In response, I told them my favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, my favorite color is blue and my favorite animals are my mom’s Border Collies (Max and Maggie). They also wanted to know how old I am (25) and what I’m learning in school (which was difficult to explain in brief).

Usually after we met in the story room the kids spend time finding books to check out. This is fun because it gives me a chance to exercise my readers’ advisory muscles and helps me get to know the library’s collection.

Today with the Third Graders we started teaching them how to use Bush’s library catalog. Jody taught a brief lesson about the different kinds of searches they could do (keyword, subject, title, author) and then the kids each picked a subject to search for. Some of them had some trouble when they got to the catalog. The big issues are:

1. Typing and spelling
2. Understanding their results
3. Locating specific books on the shelf

(I’ll try to address some of these problems next week when I teach a lesson on using the catalog.)

After the Third Grade classes, Kindergartners come in. Jody had me read them stories today. I picked Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears and The House that Jack Built for the first class. For the second class I did Mosquitoes again and then Epossumondas. Jody praised my story reading, which felt great. Here are some of the things I try to keep in mind when reading aloud to a group:

• Practice before you get up there so you can look away from the book sometimes.
• Looking at the kids regularly is important because it lets you know how you’re doing and keeps them from misbehaving too much.
• Use a clear voice and try to create character voices.
• Involve and engage the kids by asking questions like “What do you think is going to happen next?” or “Why did he do that?”
• Absolutely pick books that have big, dramatic illustrations (so the kids in the back can see them) and not too many words on a page (Mosquitoes is actually pushing the limit for Kindergarteners).

I had so much fun reading to the Kindergarten classes. Before I’m done at the Bush School I’m going to try some storytelling (i.e. telling without books) as well.

When the Second Graders arrived, Jody taught a lesson about classic tales and their variants. To illustrate her point, she showed the kids different versions of I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and The Three Little Pigs. Then, as usual, I helped the kids find books to check out.