Tales from a Loud Librarian

The beginning of school this year was unbelievable. First, the start date was delayed because of the pandemic, and then we were out three times for three different hurricanes. It was hard to keep any kind of routine going. Currently, our middle school students either are virtual or come to school everyday. The high school students are virtual or hybrid (attending school in alternating two or three times a week) with a much larger proportion choosing to be virtual. When things did finally get underway, I was told that the doors to the library would be closed to students. That has not meant that I have been sitting idle. I think that I have worked harder this year than any other.  Students can order books to be delivered on a Google Form This is the first time that I have displayed books in the library's windows I am providing lessons from my desk to whole classes, meeting individually with students to assist with research, and pulling books that students order and delivering those t...

That's me on the left. Older drew a dinosaur for this owner of a new book Happy Book Birthday to the  Dactyl Hill Squad !The author of this book, Daniel José Older, spent the morning of his book's birthday to explain to the 6th and 7th graders why they should read about Magdalys and her friends. Many authors are genre-bending these days, and this book really pushes the envelope by mixing a story about the American Civil War period in New York with dinosaurs. These dinosaurs are not man-eaters. They have been harnessed by the people for transportation and to move goods and materials. This may seem far fetched, but it does work. Older weaves historical accuracies into his fictional story to make for a bit of fun along with some history. All 6th and 7th grade attended the presentation Older works the crows The students were most interested in where he got his idea for the book and how long it took him to write it. It took three weeks! This first in...

Find links to many of the presentations here On Saturday, I attended a one day professional development sponsored by the Louisiana Association of School Librarians . I really enjoyed it and got some great ideas to use in my library. For my presentation at this event, I chose to talk about an activity that is relatively low tech. Technology is exciting. I love learning new ways to use it in the library, but I also don't want to concentrate on tech and not spread the word about the merits of reading and finding great books. I have three book groups that I run in my library. The middle school group meets monthly, but the other two groups for older students meet every week. It can be exhausting but also exhilarating. We have had some amazing discussions. I want to tell you now that you don't have to run a book group where every student in the group reads the same book. It can be very freeing once you decide to break the mold of book groups. Another big aspect of all of my...

In November, I decided to add some new items to the library makerspace . I dedicated $350 to buy materials and games that we did not already own. Everything would be new not just more Lego or more K'Nex. While I was in the process of compiling my list of items to purchase, everything I bought on Amazon, I was following tweets from the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) conference in Phoenix. I was intrigued by the session on green screens from prominent librarians Michele Luhtala, Jane Lofton, and Deb Schiano. I looked at their Google slides and realized that my students would really love trying out a green screen. These librarians inspired me to order the green screen with my new makerspace items. Open here for a link to the slide show they used in their session at AASL  maybe it will inspire you, too. Then I attended the LACUE (Louisiana Association of Computer Using Educators) conference and went to a session on green screens  with Janet Corder and ...

I have taken a short break from posting in this blog, but that does not mean that I have been negligent in the library. October and November saw many classes in all grade levels visiting the library for research for a social studies paper. Our students must submit a paper to receive honors' credit for any social studies course. I also spent $375 of library funds on new materials for our library makerspace. I will probably do a separate post about those new items, but I am definitely going to write about the new green screen. It was up in the library less than 24 hours before students started using it. I will write a post just on that.  For now, I thought it would be fun to post a bunch of pictures so that you can see what my students have been up to.  We are a 1:1 school but when laptops break down, students use the library computers This student is focused on building a bridge with K'Nex. It is still in the works,  The Keva Planks were a real hit and...

Every year, I conduct a lesson for the English I students to celebrate ALA's Banned Book Week. This lesson has grown over the years, and I am very proud with what the English teachers and I have done with the topic. I will introduce the lesson using the slide presentation below. Please feel free to make a copy and adapt it for your own library.  We want the students to take a stance by writing a well constructed paragraph using the resources that I pulled together for them as concrete evidence to support their stand. We also want this to be a real world experience. Meaning we want their responses to be published on the web for anyone to read. Last year, we had the students post their paragraph in the comment section of the BBW post on this blog. This proved to be an issue because some of the students' comments were posted immediately while others were sent to me to be moderated before posting. Students were frustrated not knowing where their paragraph had gone...

I love author visits either face to face or virtual. Authors are my rock stars, and I love making connections with them that I can then bring back and share with my students. On a recent face to face visit at our school by T. A. Barron, one of the teachers came to school the next day and explained her surprise when she went home to tell her son about our author visit. Her son was a fan of Barron and had read every one of his books in his school library. She had no clue that the author who was at our school the day before was nationally recognized. I only want the best for my students. I first met Ruta Sepetys in 2011 at ALA, but that was only for a simple book signing for her first book. In 2013 when her book that took place in New Orleans came out, I figured out a way to get her to visit school when she hit New Orleans on her book tour . She was a phenomenal speaker and had the juniors eating out of her hand. We met again in 2014 at the Louisiana Book Festival and at the...

Many months ago, I received an email from Octavia Books asking me if I wanted to host a visit with author T. A. Barron . I had met Barron two years ago when the International Reading Association was held in New Orleans. Penguin held a dinner for him and two other authors, and I got an invite to this intimate gathering. So I knew that my students, as lovers of fantasy, would welcome Barron to our school. They were a wonderful audience, but the visit certainly did not go as planned. This story is a lesson in the need to be flexible. Initially, our school would see him first, and then he would travel to two other schools before visiting the bookstore at the end of the day. I like morning author visits. Then I got an email asking if we could fit him into the afternoon. I agreed, but I was concerned because he was to arrive at 1:30, and our students leave school at 2:40. He would not have much time to set up and speak and sign books. In the weeks prior to his arrival, I aler...

A few months ago I found a website where students could post a letter expressing their opinions about how the next president should deal with issues plaguing American society. I shared the link with our English and Social Studies departments. I regularly send out links and websites of interest to my teachers, and sometimes I get a response sometimes not. In this case one of our middle school teachers of English language arts new to our school said that she wanted me to work with her on a lesson around the Letters to the President 2.0 . We batted around some ideas back and forth through email--face to face collaboration is nice but not always possible. She talked with her classes about the issues and the election on many occasions as preparation and asked her students to watch the debates and comment on them for extra credit. Planning and executing the lesson: We finally decided that students would weigh in on three different issues that we would select for them including...

Engrossed in a good book School opened for students on August 11th, so I have now logged in two school days of the new year. On the first day, I began the day helping 6th graders all who are new to our school find their classrooms. At the change of each period, I was  in the hall helping to guide the students to where they should be. The district asked schools to post on social media using the hashtag #JPPSS1stday. I ran around the building taking a few pictures to post on Facebook and Twitter. Then when I had a few minutes, I worked on the library catalog and getting the library ready to open. Also, seniors, who are taking online classes, were scheduled in the library. Oh, I am the school's laminator queen, and I had piles of posters and papers to laminate for the new year.  First book check out for 2016-17 school year He is gearing up for the Fantastic Beasts movie by reading the book first The district guidelines allow librarians to wait two weeks before...