Category Archives: time

What to Read Next???

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I find it harder and harder to keep up with finding, reading/reviewing and buying new books for our Library collection. The number of books for YA have grown each year and I just don’t find the time to keep up. (I am still about 6 months behind is reading Booklist – a magazine book buyer/reader advisory publication)

So when I saw another Librarian posted the question? “How do you keep up-to-date on the best and trending children’s and teen books?” to a Library Listserv I was interested to see the results – and oh there were many.


Some go traditional and use print media (also available digitally) targeted at Librarians and Booksellers: The Horn Book, School Library Journal, Booklist, Bookmarks, Gale/Cengage, Salem Press, Greenhaven, Lerner or Cavendish Square


Use digital media targeted at Librarians and Booksellers:
 Netgalley, Edelweiss, Titlewave, Kirkus reviews, Junior Library Guild


Some use publisher’s lists, print or digital media targeted at the everyday reader:
NY TImes Books, NPR, Paste Magazine, Publisher’s Weekly newsletters, 
NYTimes book supplement, and Indie Next list.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgtorOQ4j79YmD-Rggl04XlLetU9M_c37


Some use the blogs and listservs written by Librarians or Library groups:
VOYA
YALSAHub http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/
yalsa-bk https://lists.ala.org/sympa/info/yalsa-bk


And then there are those who are just passionate about books and reading and want to tell the whole world through :

Edi Campbell’s blog https://crazyquiltedi.blog/
Lee & Low, #weneeddiversebooks https://www.leeandlow.com/
Bookish
Rich in Color
BookRiot
2020 YA/MG Books with POC Leads https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/124900.2020_YA_MG_Books_With_POC_Leads
We Need Diverse Books
The Brown Bookshelf
American Indians in Children’s Literature
Reading While White (on this blog, there is a list in the right-hand column of “Kindred Spirits”–other blogs with a similar purpose)
Pinterest lists


And some have time to keep lists that they share with others:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12-HyFGc5xQB7yigy0J8L1RVnh9jvWm02L27FpLhpaW4/edit#gid=744337181


Personally, I just can’t keep up with it – sad to say that I bought one of these books a couple years ago (after hearing Michael Cart speak at a conference) and I still haven’t finished it, and it’s only 105 pages!



When I was in Library school I was reading 4-5 Young Adults books a week minimum, now I am lucky to finish 1 book a week – where has all my time gone! I am like our students, I took a stack of books home over Christmas break and they are still there – unread in a pile in my living room – and then feeling guilty that I am keeping them from someone else reading them. So now my goal is to spend 30 minutes each day reading one of my advisory magazines, books or blogs and hoping that I can get back into a daily routine of staying just a little up to date on what is going on in bookland. 

Student-Centered Good Times

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Students in my honors English 1 class are writing research papers and they will present a rendition of the TED Talk based on their papers. During the last two weeks, students were tasked with teaching their peers different skills needed in order to start these research projects. The different skills taught are 1)what makes a good TED Talk 2) public speaking skills 3) Nuts and Bolts (paraphrasing, synthesizing and MLA rules) 4) using reliable sources. These are all the skills needed in order to create a successful research paper and TED Talk. Different groups were assigned different skills that they taught/presented to the class. After each student-centered lesson, the students individually assessed the group that had just taught, and immediately “shared” the assessment with the group members. Here is a link to the peer assessment doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ka2eKoDo6QlpiThQQQzLd5e77VrBHcNmbfdp9G_gkcU/edit.

My biggest critique of skills teaching with a student-centered approach is that it takes forever. Students in each group needed to learn the information pertinent to their skills; they had to create a lesson for teaching the information; and, they had to teach their lesson to the entire class. What I could have taught in a fraction of the time, took two weeks for students to complete. Plus, two weeks ago, I had a ton of students out sick, which put off the student-centered lessons as well. The second critique that I have for this type of student learning is that students didn’t always explain the material that they were assigned to teach in a clear and coherent way, so for those situations, I have to take more time to reteach the material.

However, a couple of the groups’ lessons were awesome, and I couldn’t have done a better job myself. The public speaking groups, in both of my two honors classes, killed it! The lessons were fun, engaging and informative. They were what I assume student-centered learning is supposed to be. Students left class that day really happy, and you could tell that they fully enjoyed class.

I conducted a survey at the end of this lesson. Here is a link to the results:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VxlhniHoV6VNF6cgprPqR3xlsgmF41YbmaeEDZ5uNFk/edit#responses. The results are across the board. Most of the students seem ambivalent to this style of teaching/learning.

Stressing the Point

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“Stressing the Point” by Joel Penner is licensed under CC BY 2.0

My daughters call me the Stress Enhancer, and with good reason.  I am a worrier, and I like things done now.  Two traits that are not conducive to relaxation.* And traits that held me and a class back recently.

Christina Ditzel and Kate Cutright had invited me to work with them on their project using Scratch,  to code interactive scenes from Pride and Prejudice. Christina planned the lessons, but I would lead one section of the class on their journey, because she was teaching her own class.  I spent several hours over a few days with Scratch, drawing, uploading, causing movement and interaction and felt comfortable enough with my knowledge to be a demonstrator. My plan, developed under Christina’s guidance, was to demonstrate the basics of creating a stage and sprites and conversation the first day and then let students explore.  The 2nd-4th day would be used to show backgrounds, how to share,  and allow students to discover on their own the way to switch backgrounds and have sprites move, and create animation/game. Scratch has several elements, but the element react in similar ways, so once you understand one element, you are on your way toward understanding another.

Alas, an emergency came up and I discovered I would only be able to attend 2 days with the class.  The first day went fairly smoothly as I introduced the tool, students explored and asked questions.  Several students had already used the tool, and were able to act as guides for others.  All the students  were able to create a sprite, and understood the concept of the stage.   On the 2nd day,  the not-so- better angels of my nature came forth, and I started panicking that I was setting this class up to fail by demanding too much without grounding them in  knowledge first.  They needed to know about backgrounds!  They needed to understand costumes!  They  needed to understand the  X/Y axis and how movement occurs!  They  need to know the tricks of saving and sharing!  They needed to know sources for costumes and backgrounds!  And I only had 45 minutes for all this!

I jumped sternly in.  “Listen as I show you this”. “I need to show you this”!  Those lovely students soon recognized my stress, and were kind to me as I showed this tool and that tool. They said things like, “That makes sense, Mrs. Tracy” and, “Yes, I see how to do that now”.  Kate reassured me several times, and de-escalated some of my panic.  But what had I done? I had taken some of  the joy of self discovery away. I had enjoyed learning Scratch on my own, with a few sidebars with Christina.  I didn’t let that happen with these students.

The worst part of this experience for me was the why.  My family emergency was changing  the structure of this project.  That was a given – I could not be there for 2 crucial days.   I decided I, and I alone, needed to fix the structure.  I didn’t place my trust in the nature of Scratch, the joy of learning, the students, Christina or Kate – all variables in this project that were NOT changing.  I placed too much emphasis on me, and I only had the now.  A painful event.  Not my best moment as a teacher/librarian, but a lesson learned.  Trust is a much better atmosphere for learning.  And it will not happen NOW for everyone.   Give it the opportunity to happen WHEN.

* My daughters  have been saying this for years 🙂