Making Connections
The Rockwood Library Newsletter - February 2019
Curate: AASL Shared Foundation #4
Librarians & Curation
What does a librarian have to do with curating? It's what we do every day! From the selection of library materials to the teaching of database use, we are sharing resources so that students can find personal relevance. There’s nothing that makes a librarian happier than to have a student smile and say, “That’s exactly what I needed!”
When a teacher comes to us with an idea for a new unit of study and requests help for the students, we develop lists of resources, gather web addresses, search our databases for additional information, and prepare a lesson to demonstrate how to use each resource.
Alison Smith, STRETCH teacher at LaSalle Springs Middle School, collaborates with Carol Bauer, the librarian, in challenging her students to make a documentary about conspiracy theories and other projects. When asked how the librarian and resources enhance her lessons, Mrs. Smith commented, “Mrs. Bauer has been a vital resource for my students and I as we have researched everything from conspiracy theories to diseases to looking for biographies on industry leaders. She has taught lessons on using databases, which has been invaluable. Students have had access to so much more information and resources improving the quality of their work dramatically.”
Bridget, a 6th grade student at LSMS student said, “The library has really helped me find the right information for any research project. You can always find what you are looking for on databases because there is such a variety of them and huge amounts of information about everything.”
Anyone with research questions will find their librarian a wealth of information regarding where to find great resources!
Curating With Input From A Colleague
Several years ago, the school counselor, Tina Kilpatrick, asked Owens to purchase some books by Julia Cook, which are stories that highlight social skills and common behavior challenges that children in elementary school often face. Kilpatrick says, “I love how Julia Cook writes books that are so relatable to helping meet the needs of our students. She writes in a way that helps the students understand some of the challenges we have without making someone feel they have done something wrong. My personal favorite is Personal Space Camp.”
Owens uses the books in her lessons with students. Recently she read But It’s Not My Fault to a kindergarten class. Owens says the students were captivated by the story and engaged in a heartfelt discussion following the read-aloud. The classroom teacher was delighted because the book focuses on personal responsibility, which the class has been working on.
Curating to Support A Specific Assignment
Famous Americans Project
Second grade students at Ballwin Elementary completed their Famous Americans project in February. Librarian Kristin Clark collaborated with second grade classroom teachers on the project by curating a variety of print and electronic resources about each student’s chosen famous American. The students did research in the library utilizing library’s biography section as well as electronic databases PebbleGo! and World Book Kids. The students presented their final projects to their peers and families at the end of the month. They did a fantastic job!
Novels With Multiple Narrators
Themed Reading Assignments
MHS librarian Lee Mitchell is constantly updating and revising curated lists of books that support various projects and assignments. For instance, Mitchell has created resource lists of memoirs, multicultural novels, readable (narrative) nonfiction, adventure/hero stories. She says these curated lists are a good way to introduce our students to resources they might not have considered and to help them evaluate those resources.
Language Arts teacher Missy Burger agrees, saying, "Besides fostering different voices and perspectives, these curated lists of texts encourage students to delve into new genres and explore different themes, styles, and authors of merit. As a teacher, listening and engaging in the librarian's book talk (over these texts) is among my favorite classroom activities; for students, there is also a direct impact upon student learning."
Curating For A Special Event
Bridget DuMont, the librarian at Crestview Middle School, curated 275 books by popular African American authors in preparation for her school's participation in the NCTE African American Read-In. To make sure each student had an engaging book for the event, six of the seventh grade Language Arts classes visited the Library on February 1 for a speed-dating activity featuring books by popular African American authors, including Kwame Alexander, Jason Reynolds, Sharon Draper, Walter Dean Meyers, and Derek Jeter.
The activity was a success. DuMont says, "Students loved this activity and it exposed them to many African American authors they may not have otherwise read. Many students were excited to see their names used as characters in some of the books we were 'dating.' They expressed they had never read a book with their name in it before which reiterated to me how important it is to connect kids with books they can relate to and see themselves in whether it be through a character's name or actions!"
Students also enjoyed the Read-In later in the month, when time was set aside to read their books in class. This was the first year that CMS has participated in the African American Read-in but, according to DuMont, it will not be the last.
Teaching Students to Curate
Kindergarten Students & Curation
Teaching students about curation begins with talking about book classification as early as kindergarten. Because good readers set a purpose for reading, they need to be aware of the different types of books available to them. Being able to differentiate between fiction and nonfiction is a first step in this process. Ridge Meadows librarian Lisa Molengraft recently read kindergartners classes Hello, My Name Is…, the story of a newly discovered octopus. Students then debated the book's classification as fiction or nonfiction, stating the story has talking animals, making it fictional. However, the factual information in the back of the book classifies it as nonfiction. After much discussion, students determined that even though the book contains some factual information, it belongs in the fiction section because most of the story came from the author's imagination.
Second Grade Students Curate "Good Fit" Books
To start, students took personal interest surveys. In addition, Swoboda gave numerous book talks and introduced the class to Destiny searches and call numbers. Using this information, students created lists of “good fit books” based upon interests and ability. Finally, with a little assistance from their librarian and their teacher, the students located books on the shelves and checked out five or six to keep in their book boxes for the week.
As the year has progressed, students in Sumner’s class have grown in their reading achievements, in their capacity to self-select books, and in their ability to navigate the library. What started as almost two-hour lessons are now about thirty minute sessions due to the power of collaboration and curating!
RSHS Students Curate to Deepen Understanding
At Rockwood Summit, Language Arts teacher Jon Frank and librarian Margaret Sullivan recently collaborated to help students find, analyze, and explain primary source documents related to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter From A Birmingham Jail."
Frank explains, "In the course of our study, we generated several questions about the historical context for this text. I knew primary sources would help students understand the occasion for this seminal piece of writing and also the mood of the country at the time of its publication."
Sullivan curated a list of specific collections from the Library of Congress and the National Archives for students use in the research and demonstrated effective search strategies. Students then looked for a compelling primary source they could connect to the text and share with their classmates.
Abby, one of the students, found and shared a video clip of African American business leader Percy Sutton, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement. Abby says she chose the video because "seeing [it] clearly showed the strong emotion related to the Civil Rights Movement not as clearly evident in a written letter."
Curating to Support New Curriculum
Lori Countryman, Bowles Elementary Librarian, has been curating a resource list of books to teach Digital Citizenship. Besides read-alouds, Countryman is also using curricula (which includes lessons, slides, and videos) from BrainPop, Common Sense Media, and Google's "Be Internet Awesome." She often learns of new picture books and resources through School Library Journal, Twitter, and her fellow RSD librarians. Countryman is looking forward to implementing ideas gleaned from Rockwood's new K-5 Digital Citizenship Curriculum. The Enduring Understandings from this curriculum are:
- Digital Citizens practice the same safe communication skills in the digital world as they do in the non-digital world.
- Your actions in a digital world can have an impact on your health.
- Effective Digital Citizens are aware of their digital identity and its impact on their digital and non-digital worlds.
- Digital Citizens must understand the cause and effect relationships associated with managing personal and private information in the digital world.
- Digital Citizens carefully evaluate digital resources and are respectful of the property of others in the digital world.
Countryman's goal is to help students become informed, responsible, respectful digital citizens who have fun learning about digital citizenship along the way!
Margaret Sullivan, Rockwood Lead Librarian
Email: sullivanmargaret@rsdmo.org
Website: https://goo.gl/nfCm3X
Phone: 636-891-6842
Twitter: @mm_sullivan