Day 20: Loathe to Leave

Though I'm glad this day has come, I'm also disappointed the time has gone so quickly. You know it is a good place to be when you have given up your employed school's spring break and are still enjoying being at a different sort of work! I'm taking this as a sign that I am headed towards the right career!

We expected today to be a little crazy with students checking in/out books before the long holiday; however, the library was mostly quiet. Students had been checking in books they knew they wouldn't need or choosing books to check out that were a little bit longer or more complex in preparation for the ten days away from school. I have really loved to see how excited the students are about taking books home and reading them. This is so foreign from my experience of reading at the high school level and one of the most attractive things about the elementary level LMS position. I think this largely has to do with student choice. When I give my students choice novels, there do talk about the books more and actually read the books more. Less read than at the elementary level, but I am gladdened to give the high schoolers the opportunity to be engaged in reading again even just for one unit.

Even as we were completing the final evaluation and paperwork, I was still asking Cindy questions about how or why she has implemented certain behaviors and practices in the library. Especially details about finances and ordering priority are still something I am learning. As she was filling out the evaluation, Cindy said that some of the details I really won't be able to have a full handle on or a full opportunity to do until I am in the LMS position itself. Having gone through a practicum/student teaching in undergrad, I know that this is the truth. From my English teacher perspective, I learned that classroom expectations, grading on assignments, order of curriculum, and other classroom-specific details were all left to me unlike in my practicum experience. I was the end of the line in the classroom. I imagine I will feel the same way as I enter into a LMS position: I will be the end of the line! While in both situations, teacher and LMS, there are guidelines, expectations, and other decision-makers involved, the sort of daily routine and habits are really established by the teacher/LMS herself. I am looking forward to being "in control" of the library I serve but am certainly grateful for the patterns of paperwork and procedure that Cindy has shown me and that she told me to call and keep her updated!

I think I've grown the most with my understandings of procedure and protocols of the LMC. Going in, my biggest goals were to understand the catalog-circulation-ordering-weeding relationship, text selections, and financial practices. I have certainly learned about many books appropriate for elementary, both for specific titles and for how the books are supposed to "feel" in length and content. I have practiced using the Follett software to generate varied reports, update the collection, order resources, and run varied aspects of circulation. I have generated a wish list for a section of nonfiction after completing inventory and weeding the section based on age, relevance, and circulation. I have been introduced to texts the students love to listen to and are appropriate for varied seasons and ages. I have read children's books I'd never heard of and loved them. I have met with the school's bookkeeper to discuss account use and balancing. I have created an order on a limited budget, learned how a Book Fair works and affects the library, and used filing systems to maintain transparency and order in the library. I think I've certainly met my main learning goals for my library practicum and done more activities than I ever expected to accomplish in twenty days.

At the heart of the library, of course, is sharing the resources with the students. I was less worried about this aspect because of my teaching background, but I was so glad when I got to step in today to read to the kindergartners one last time. Cindy had to step out to address a teacher need and wasn't back when the first class arrived. I stepped in and pulled out the book she had chosen: Betty Bunny Loves Easter by Michael B. Kaplan. This is a story where Betty Bunny "is a handful!" She loves Easter so much that she wants to grow up to be the Easter Bunny. In her frolicking finding eggs, she realizes that her older brothers and sister help her find eggs! She had always found the most eggs at the hunt, but now realizes it was only because of her family's help! So Betty Bunny is determined to find eggs by herself, but only finds three. They "mean more to her" because she had found them on her own, and she still has the dream to be the Easter Bunny one day.

What a lesson for me to keep, too. I'm about to (hopefully) run a LMC as its leader and director. I've had help from Cindy, from Toni, from my professors, from my family...and will continue to have their support in my career. But now, I'm going to be taking a determined step and making the decisions myself. I hope that even if I have three "eggs" of success, I'll see the growth and continue to build a LMC program that best serves its school community.

Day 16: Puzzle Pieces, Teaching Destiny, and Biography Inventory

I am so excited and sad to start this final week of my internship! I can’t wait to receive the degree and be available to take a position in a school library near me.

Today started with a reading advisory project that is being sponsored by the art teacher and an initiative unique to Ravenel: Artists on the Green. This program brings in local artisans to share their craft and work with the students, organized through the art teacher. She asked each of the teachers to create a giant puzzle piece to represent their area of the school. For the library, we decided to use some book jackets that were sent by the distributors to create a collage of reading and new titles. At first, I was super hesitant to cut up the covers but chose to recognize that the book jackets would have been destroyed easily over a few circulations and the books themselves already have versions of these covers embedded in their hard back, shelf editions. Once I got over the initial “heartbreak” and my own nerves about creating the piece, I actually really enjoyed picking out some of the fun and engaging artwork from the book jackets’ front and back covers and inner flaps. To maximize the amount of material on the puzzle piece, I used the spine labels for the book titles and authors/illustrators to add reference in minimal space. Overall, the collage turned into a modge-podge of fiction texts that spans all elementary grade levels. I titled the piece “Characters Around” as the cover art focuses largely on a diverse set of character illustrations.

As I was finishing this project, one of the first grade classes came for library time. Cindy had planned a lesson using the school’s new Chromebooks to teach these students how to use the online Destiny catalog. I was glad to see that the lesson was structured much like my own collaborative lesson with the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders. The first half of the lesson was largely focused on learning terminology and location of buttons on the catalog screen. Then, Cindy used some interactive, formative questions to test if the students had paid attention to which search button they should use (keyword, title, author, series) and what section the call number belonged to (easy, fiction, biography, nonfiction). Lastly, the students worked with a partner to find four call numbers that Cindy had specified on a small worksheet addressing the four search functions they had just learned from the catalog.

Overall, I thought the lesson went as smoothly as possible for students both new to Chromebooks and still developing skills like spelling and reading. Thankfully, my presence as well as the teacher returning a bit early to the library made troubleshooting and answering student questions much much easier. I think I would keep this in mind when I teach the younger-grade students something complex or foreign to the students: enlist help! Maybe even pairing upper-grade students during these lessons would be helpful to the students. I have seen older students help younger students with finding a book in just this way. It would be really cool and rewarding to the older students to mentor the younger students as a potential program for my own library. Even still, the lesson as is seemed to make sense to the students.

Lastly, I started conducting inventory on the biography section of the collection. This is the section that Cindy wants me to weed and analyze for assessment and potential growth. The inventory was super easy to set up. Follett has a program feature in Back Office that allows you to set parameters for the section. From there, I went to the biography section with a laptop and a hand scanner to scan the books present. Boom! That’s it (for today)! I had to put on some latex gloves after the first row of the first shelf as my fingers were becoming caked with grime from the books themselves. I knew that it would be easier and better for my hands if I finished the collection scanning with gloves. Though there were students participating in circulation, I was fortunate enough to just focus on inventory because Cindy and Toni were present to run the standard library functions. I imagine that, again, volunteers could be beneficial to this process or designated time would need to be assigned to complete the inventory process most efficiently in my own library.

While weeding, a few books immediately stood out to me as potential weeding material: some old and yellowing texts and some outdated “pop icons” (like Enrique Iglesias and N*sync). I went ahead and pulled those aside as I will be working on weeding later this week. Otherwise, there were only a few titles out of place (Es in the Bs) and a few missing over-barcode tape strips. The real problem came when I had less than ten books left in the section. Whoosh! The power dropped due to heavy rains and winds in the area. In fact, the power is still out as I type into Word on a laptop—how ironic! The power just resumed as I typed that sentence! Being the end of the day, though, and with the network still down, I will start my inventory analysis tomorrow, looking to weed and to fill any curriculum gaps in the biography section. We did get to hunker down in the non-lit, no-windows closet for a while and generally relax as all technology and power halted projects needing completion. Thankfully, this laptop was available to continue working on my Practicum Learning Outcomes and this reflection.

Overall, I’ve learned that flexibility is the key to success in this environment: especially on crazy, unexpected days like today!

Battle of the Books: Promoting Literacy

Oconee County holds an annual "reading incentive" program called the Battle of the Books. This program is based on the national program as a tournament of knowledge and experience with a set book list. The Oconee program uses ten of the South Carolina Children's Book Award Nominees for the year as a reading list for these teams. This year's list included a range of titles, of which I read The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.

The tournament in Oconee works that several teams are formed in September-ish by volunteers from fourth and fifth grades. Each team is made up of five students, chosen by the students themselves. Ravenel had about five teams by the time I began my internship, but some teams had already been eliminated through lack of participation and readership. Throughout the first semester, these students read the books listed, completed Accelerated Reader tests on the titles, and met on occasion for practice questions and discussion of the titles.

In January, the students competed at the school level to decide which team would be competing at the district level. This is a big readership and literacy night for the school, as the competition is very much a point-based "sport" that results in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams. Once all of the elementary schools in the district have competed within their schools to determine a winner, each schools' #1 team is sent to the district competition, held at one of the elementary schools. On the day of the competition, the student teams go for two rounds against a different randomly-drawn team each time. Once all the teams have competed two rounds, the total number of points earned determines the top three competitors for the final round. Out of ten schools, this three is rather elite! Finally, the three schools compete in the final round to determine the overall winner of Battle of the Books and to receive a trophy for the library and medals for each student.

This program is a huge community event for the librarians at each of the schools. The librarians and students have been prepping for months: first selecting the books and generating questions to the final moments of team practices and the school-level competition night. Yesterday after school, the librarians all met at the assigned elementary school (Blue Ridge Elementary) to set up rooms, chairs, paperwork, and other details to ensure the success of the event today. Once we all arrived this morning at 7:30, we finished set up of snacks for volunteers and technology for presentations and record-keeping.

The students were clearly excited to compete, arriving to their team t-shirt and waiting coaches/librarians. The rounds themselves were respectfully tense, in a good way, and very few teams were overly upset about the results. One reason for this is the hidden nature of the scores for each of the teams. You really only know how you and the team you are singly against are doing. Though Ravenel's team lost both of the individual rounds, we ended up placing fourth in the competition overall. I really like the ambiguity so no one gets so down feeling in last place or feeling so far behind. After these two rounds, all of the teams were given a participation medal before the emcee announced the final three teams competing. I was a little disappointed that so many of the "losing" schools left after the announcement of the final three, but I suppose busy lives with children can only allow for so much.

In the end, Orchard Park Elementary won the competition for the first time since the Battle of the Books Inception six years ago. I only saw one with tears and too many of the others were still excited for having read the books, competed, and won their own school's Battle. During the practices at Ravenel, you could clearly see the students discussing the books and the experiences they had reading each title. Overall, this seems like a giant win for promoting reading and literacy on a recreational, extracurricular level.

After the event, the librarians were discussing potential improvements for next year's program. I began taking notes on this document for the clearly exhausted librarians. They will be discussing this (and other topics) at their next district-level meeting within the month. One of the biggest areas for improvement I saw as an outsider is the limited use of the questions, reading, and effort put into each year's competition. For each year, the librarians have entirely changed the booklist based on the SCASL awards. At their meeting, I would like to suggest two from each of the previous years, cycling in two new titles each year. This way, the titles are still rotating, but good books and hard work are still used and reused for the program. Ultimately, the list could become strong with high-interest novels that would even further promote literacy and recreational reading.