MS/US Library Buzz
Tips, Tricks and What's New: Issue 5: September 2015
--Mig & Justine
Back by Popular Demand! WorldBook Online
Revisit the Research Hub! Comprehensive guide to online research!
The library's website library.cfsnc.org is host to Justine's excellent Research Hub!
Curated with Upper School researchers in mind (though anyone can use it!), the Research Hub is a compilation of online resources for credible information relating to seven broad areas: General Research & Reference; News & Current Events; Data & Statistics; Primary Sources; Arts & Humanities Research; Science Research; and E-Books & Books Online. Besides our subscription databases, there are a lot of outstanding websites your students may not know about, such as NCPedia (encyclopedia of all things NC), the World Bank Data Catalog (sooo much data!), and Europeana (digitized collections of museums, libraries and galleries across Europe).
We hope you will check out the Research Hub and encourage your students to check it out, too! If you have any additional resource suggestions, please let Justine or Mig know.
pbs learning media: Cool Tools!
Create a Storyboard for your classes! Or have your students create Storyboards to show what they know about a subject. Storyboard is a tool for teachers to combine text, images, videos. Here's one Mig made for To Kill A Mockingbird:
http://unctv.pbslearningmedia.org/tools/storyboard/view/83953d7a-c1c2-47cd-b37f-5fbd65b7a278
PBS Learning Media provides over 100,000 videos, images, documents and lesson plans. If you haven't done so already, create a teacher account, and you can save your searches in folders, share those folders with students, and use the teacher tools: Storyboards, Lesson Builders, Puzzle Builder and Quiz Maker.
pbs learning media featured video
EasyBib has a mobile app for iPhone/iPad/Android!
This week is Banned Books Week! September 27-October 3
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
Pulled from the Meridian, Idaho, high school supplemental reading list (2014). Challenged at the Cedar Grove Middle School in Wilmington, N.C., (2014). Suspended from the Highland Park, Tex., Independent School District’s approved book list (2014) by the school superintendent -- but later reinstated after the decision sparked a backlash and drew national attention. A National Book Award winner (and one of Justine's all-time favorites!), it tells the story of a teenager who grows up on the Spokane Indian Reservation but leaves to attend an all-white high school in a farm town.
Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, May 2014, pp. 80-81; July-Sept. 2014, p. 119; Nov. 2014, pp. 162, 174-76; March 2015, p. 47.
Little Brother
by Cory Doctorow
Cancelled as the approved reading assignment in the Pensacola, Fla. (2014), One School/One Book summer reading program by a high school principal because it promoted hacker culture. The principal “made it clear that the book was being challenged because of its politics and its content.” In response Doctorow and his publisher sent 200 complimentary copies of the book directly to students at the school.
Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, July-Sept. 2014, p. 119.
Two Boys Kissing
Challenged by a parent in the Fauquier County, Va., public high school library (2014). The book tells the story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS.
Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, May 2014, p. 80.
The Fault In Our Stars
by John Green
Pulled from library shelves at the Frank Augustus Miller Middle School in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. (2014), because the subject matter involves teens dying of cancer who use crude language and have sex. Removed from the Riverside, Calif., Unified School District middle schools (2014) after a parent complained the teen love story was inappropriate for that age group. The New York Times best seller was released in June 2014 as a PG-13 movie. In 2014 Green was included in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Nov. 2014, p. 159; AL Direct, Sept. 24, 2014.
Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley
Challenged in an Advanced Placement language composition class at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, Del. (2014). Two school board members contend that while the book has long been a staple in high school classrooms, students can now grasp the sexual and drug-related references through a quick Internet search.
Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, May 2014, p. 80.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
by Marjane Satrapi
Challenged, but retained on the Glenwood High School reading list in Chatham, Ill. (2014). A parent condemned the images of dismembered bodies and a guard using urine as a form of torture. The book tells the story of a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution of 1979 and the reintroduction of a religious state. The graphic novel has been praised for teaching students about diversity and different points of view, but it also contains intense language, images, and themes.
Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Nov. 2014, p. 171.