Reality Rules

Ann Richards School

Feb. 19^th 2013

8:30-5pm

Came in at 8:30 and experienced the chaos of early morning library time.  The girls club has open hours in the library before school starting at 7:30, but the rest of the school is also free to use the library during the time before the first bell rings at 9am and classes begin.  So, in that last 30 minutes, the library is a buzz of energy and activity.  

Mellen starts to round everyone up with a fifteen minute warning before the bell rings—and it takes just about that long for everyone to finish what they are doing, put their books in their backpacks and head for the door.  

Following that burst of energy we usually have a lull at the library until the first classes begin—but today was the all school assembly, so I trotted along behind Shawn to attend and see what the ASA was like.

On this day, several students were recognized for Art Awards and for running in the Austin marathon over the weekend!  I was totally amazed that the running club had sponsored the students in both the half marathon and the marathon and that nearly 20 of the students participated and finished!

They also announced that the 52 graduating Senior students had just cleared the $1 Million dollar mark in receiving scholarships for College in the fall!  What a huge accomplishment!  So exciting!! 

Most of my work in the library today was on the blogs—just tweaking them and showing them to Shawn for her feedback.  Things were going well.  I would take breaks every now and again to ask Shawn some questions.  

I asked her about School Librarian evaluations—since we had just had a class on this topic the day before and I was curious about how AISD operated.  Shawn told me that she and a group of librarians headed by Elizabeth Polk had just finished doing a complete overhaul on the evaluation process this fall.  They had worked to align the evaluation process more with the Power of Information book that we are reading.  There had been some difficulty with the previous evaluation process because it was not specifically suited to librarians—it was more of a support staff or counselor evaluation—and did not take into account many aspects of teacher/librarian work that was essential in the position.  Shawn said the new evaluation is still under review—but that she hoped it would be put into play soon because it would be very helpful for professional development.  

Toward the end of the day, I read a new professional text that came in: Reality Rules II: Guide to Teen Non-Fiction Reading Interests by Elizabeth Fraser.  I was really excited by this book which seemed to be well organized and offered a number of good and current titles in Non-Fiction.  Since I had just weeded out the 500’s and 600’s I was curious to see if there were any spots that we might need to fill at ARS.  So I checked the RR suggestions against the ARS catalogue to see what we might want to order in the future.  I was not surprised to find that Shawn had already done a pretty terrific job of including some of the most well known and well regarded titles.  The ARS library is already stocked with an excellent library of award winning books in all genres and subjects.  But I did find a number of suggestions that might be worth considering in the future and I established a list on the Follett site so that Shawn could go back and pull them as needed.  I am enjoying working in Follett—I can see how librarians come to rely on this source since it does a great job of keeping track not only of your existing catalogue, but of items you’ve already purchased as well as items you would like to purchase.  It’s a very helpful resource.

Breathless—the Author talk

Ann Richards School

Feb. 15^th 2013

Today was the “Breathless” author talk panel at ARS.  Shawn invited four Young Adult novelists to come and speak to the young women about their books and their experience as writers.  The women on the panel were:  Marie Lu, who wrote the Legend Series; Brenna Yovanoff who wrote The Replacement and a new book called Paper Valentine; Jessica Khoury author of Origin; and Andrea Cremer the author of the Nightshade Series. At first it was difficult to tell the authors from the students, since they were all so young and dressed in jeans and t-shirts.  But I think their casual approach to the discussion panel made the students at ease and made them seem exceptionally relatable.  And again, I was really impressed with the ARS students who just jumped right into the questioning, asking really great questions that the writers loved to answer.  The writers spoke on every topic from creating believable characters to their writing process to how they develop the background knowledge for each novel.  They offered personal tidbits from their own work and from their novels—they spoke to which characters were a little bit based on their friends or family members and which personal events in their own lives helped to inform the storyline and some of the quirky aspects of various characters.  I was so impressed with how well spoken everyone was in the room—both ARS students and the young writers.  They are all clearly deeply thoughtful and critically analytical thinkers and it was so refreshing to hear such a high level discussion with a room full of young women.  The students were totally engaged and so excited to have this opportunity to speak with writers who took them seriously.  It was a super fun and exciting event! 

THE LOCK IN

Ann Richards School

Friday, Feb. 8  6:00-8:00

Shawn invited me (and Emerson) to attend their minnon lock in.  A time honored ARS library tradition, the student helpers, love to spend the night in the library!  They each brought lots of snacks and goodies to share, while Shawn ordered pizza and drinks.  Then the students used the time to bond, chat, do karaoke, laugh, sing, tell secrets, play games, watch movies, and a few read books in the corner—but seemed to be happy to be surrounded by all the chaos.  Emmy was in heaven.  Surrounded by so many big girls!  Middle school girls!  They even asked her what she was reading.  She was proud to say that she liked “Sophie” books and she was reading “June B. Jones” at the moment.  The girls all recognized these titles and said how much they had liked them when they were her age.  I think Emmy felt like a rock star and was very happy to know that her reading choices were validated.  Meanwhile I was impressed that the students were so kind to her and acknowledged her presence and invited her into their bubble.  They really are such sweet girls.  The night was less about library “work” and more about spending time with the students – which I really appreciated.  I feel like I haven’t been getting out into the library and meeting as many students as I would like.  And I definitely feel like I’d like to do more library instruction and reader advisory.  But I am keeping my eyes and ears open.  Whenever I hear students talking about books that they love or asking Shawn or Mellen for more reading suggestions—I take note of what the students like and what the librarians suggest.  It also makes me think that I need to really focus on my Young Adult Reading list! So I will be able to speak their language and really understand the titles that they love to read.

Crashing with Stephen Krashen!

Ann Richards School

Tuesday, Feb. 5^th  9am –9pm!

Today was a LONG day!  I spent the entire library day between weeding and genre tagging.  During lunch, Shawn and I had a quick conversation about her thoughts on genre shelving.  She is in favor of it—but wants to see how students will react.  She’s been asking small groups for their feedback for months now.  She has also been asking her colleagues and tells me that Bonnie Hauser at Aikins has had great success with this model, finding that her circulation has definitely increased since switching to genre shelving.  Shawn pointed out some hesitations—like the difficulty in accurately interpreting the genre of every book.  She is also nervous about the impression that she is limiting students to a particular genre.  But overall, I think she’s ready and willing to embrace this change.  What was so interesting was that this topic was actually addressed later in the night when we attended a talk given by Stephen Krashen!!  Somehow, AISD got Stephen Krashen (yes, the famous, Stephen Krashen!) to speak to a group of educators on the topic of literacy and bilingual education.  He spoke that night at Sanchez Elementary school on the east side from 6-9pm.  And he was brilliant!  The first hour of his presentation was a discussion of his research and findings on how free voluntary reading leads to overall improvement of literacy.  He touched on a number of scholars and other researchers who support this view too including a Texas educator and the author of The Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller.  I concur it was a terrific read and the research certainly supports how important it is for students to have access and time to read.  He spoke against skill building and in favor of whole language.  And he addressed how most students read narrowly in their favorite genre and how reading narrowly and completely is a real strength and building block of overall literacy.  The second hour and then some was dedicated to the debate on bilingual education and again how students perform better if they comprehend what they are reading and thus he supports bilingual education that scaffolds students in their native language.  It was truly an inspiring night.  Krashen was very engaging and thoughtful and I truly enjoyed every minute of this very long day.

Weeding

Ann Richards School

Monday, Feb. 4^th  9am—2pm

Today when I arrived at ARS I could tell Shawn had a lot to do and little time to do it, so I decided to stay out of her hair.  Luckily she had a great project for me.  She needed help weeding out the 100’s, 500’s and 600’s.  They were all somewhat small sections and didn’t take too long to review.  She gave me the passcode to the Follett site and their catalog, and she showed me where the assessment pages were that indicated age.  In each section all the titles that were in excess of 10 years old were identified and marked for review.  Then it was up to the librarian to compare the recommendation with the actual book and make a decision on whether or not the book was still useful.  Since the 500’s and 600’s are science books, it was highly likely that many would be obsolete – no longer containing pertinent or correct information.  As I took to the shelves to touch each book and make a call on its removal, I felt a conflicting sense of responsibility and power.  I didn’t want to remove anything that might otherwise be useful for students, but I didn’t want to leave anything that would reflect poorly on the overall collection.  To guide me Shawn pointed to the State Library and Archives weeding manual: CREW https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew/index.html  Shawn also mentioned that she would prefer to remove a book from the library than to have an outdated and under utilized book on the shelf.  She says that she likes for her shelves to appear “empty” that way if students, parents, or administrators think that they need more books in the library, they will be more motivated to find the funding. 

So, I weeded out the sections.  And as I proceeded, I found myself reluctant to take out any large series.  I was also reluctant to take out anything that had relatively stable information—like books on alligators or lions—this information isn’t generally updated all that often.  But I readily removed books on space, planets, micro-science and nano-technology that seemed out of date and incorrect.  It was an awesome power to remove books from the library and when there was a question, I took a look at the shelf to see if there were any other books on this subject that were better, more up to date and in better condition and there usually were better books.  When all was said and done, I ended up with a roller cart full of books for removal.  I think I was a middle of the road weeder.  Not too aggressive—leaving some items on the shelf that were still relevant and useful, but not too passive either and removing items that were past their application. 

Blogs

Ann Richards School Practicum

Tuesday, Jan. 29^th 10am – 6pm

Today my main focus was to work on the blogs that we discussed as being part of my major contribution for my practicum.  I researched other library blogs mainly and I took notes on what they were doing—what seemed effective and what I wanted to avoid in our blog.  I found a blog written by Terri Lesesen (the author of READING LADDERS).  Her blog is called: “The Goddess of YA Literature” http://professornana.livejournal.com/

The content on this site is great!  She really knows what she is talking about and guides young readers to a host of wonderful new books.  She is also very fun and enjoyable to read.  But Shawn and I both agreed that the “look” of the blog was somewhat lacking and that the tagging system was limited.  We agreed that we would like to improve on these items in our blog.  I also thought that if this was going to be a student generated blog, we should probably include some guidelines for them—so that they know what our expectations are for a good blog entry and some guidance for how to write a good book review.  I found two great sources for leading questions to ask as you write a book review for both fiction and nonfiction works.  I then incorporated these questionnaires into a word document which we will include either on the top navigation bar or on the side navigation bar (again, I need to do more research on where to place blog support items for best viewing).  I also noticed that a few blogs that conducted book reviews had a thumbs up and thumbs down icon that gave readers an immediate impression of the book.  I liked this and I plan to do further research on how to develop this icon and include it on our blog.

During the course of the day, I was also able to continue in my observations of the Ann Richards School community and the general day to day activity in the library.  During this day, the library was in use by the sixth grade language arts class.  They were not receiving library instruction, but were using the library resources as a class for a class project.  In the course of the class, one student became ill.  Its flu season and she was trying to make it to the bathroom, but didn’t quite get there in time.  I was impressed by the quick action of the staff, including the librarian to comfort the student, get her sent to the nurse and to clean up the mess.  I was equally impressed that the girls did not exacerbate the mortification that the young woman must have felt in this instance.  Her colleagues and classmates (once assured that she was ok) just went back to their work and everyone carried on just the same.  It was a very mature response to what might have been a very distracting occurrence.

A second and equally impressive event took place later in the day as I was signing out for the day.  Again, a sixth grade girl came into the office and said, “did anyone turn in $20?” To which I thought—yeah, right!  Good luck with that! But to my surprise, Barbara, the school administrator, said, “what did it look like?  Was it two tens?”   The young woman answered, “No, it was a twenty dollar bill.”  And Barbara said, “Yes, just a minute,” returning a second late with the twenty dollar bill!  I am so impressed with this honorable school environment.  They truly take their commitment to be honest and responsible young women!  It strengthens my belief in human kind!