January 25, 2011 by plemmonsa

Presenting Graphic Novels

Way back in September, a group of 2nd grade students began exploring graphic novels in their spectrum class. Their journey started in the media center with an overview of the elements of a graphic novel and how to read a graphic novel. The students then spent several weeks reading graphic novels and writing reviews. During this time, students also heard from cartoon experts such as Chuck Cunningham.

Next, students typed their graphic novel reviews, recorded them in audacity, uploaded them to our online catalog, and posted their reviews as blogs on our student book blog.

Simultaneously, these students worked with their spectrum teachers to write and create their own graphic novels. They used rubrics and checklists to ensure that their graphic novels contained the elements of published graphic novels.

Today, students held a showcase in our media center to share their graphic novels with teachers and classes of students. As visitors sat down at tables, the students read their graphic novels and talked about the process that they’ve gone through over the past few months. The media center was buzzing with noise. What a joy to hear the noise of student work being validated and showcased in such a public space! Bravo to these students for their hard work.

View a video of the event here.

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January 24, 2011 by plemmonsa

What a Media Center Looks Like

Today I offer you a glimpse into one moment in the David C. Barrow Elementary Media Center. I found myself stopping in my tracks today and just looking around at all that was going on in a moment in time. Here’s what I saw simultaneously:

A group of fourth graders with their teacher making a list of books to read in the future
A group of early learners with their teacher in the computer lab using Headsprout software to practice reading
A group of 5th graders with their teacher at tables and the computer lab writing scenarios for future problem solving
A class of 2nd graders presenting graphic novels they had created and sharing the process they used to create them. Parents, teachers, and other second grade classes were hearing their presentations.
A group of upper grade students was working with their teacher to find resources for a project in the media center while others in the group quietly read in the floor.
A small group of 3rd graders sat at a table with a timer and discussed their books for battle of the books.

In all, there were more than 125 learners in the media center fully-engaged in activities. Those are the moments that I love in the media center. Those are the moments that show the productivity and enthusiasm for reading and learning that can happen in a school library. I wish that legislators, school board members, and community members could have paused and observed this moment with me!

January 18, 2011 by plemmonsa

Student Book Reviews

A new series of student book reviews are now posted on our edublogs site. Many thanks to Savannah, Palmer, Natalie, Jake, Henry, Gabriel, Cate, and Ben for your posts about graphic novels in our library. Check out their posts here.

January 18, 2011 by plemmonsa

Penny Dreadful

In my adult life, I’ve watched a few people wish for an “everything change” in their lives, make a complete change in their career and location, and fall on their face and not get back up. Needless to say, it’s hard for me to imagine a completely successful “everything change” that turns out ok, but in my heart I know they can happen and DO happen.

In Laurel Snyder’s book, Penny Dreadful, Penelope Grey wishes for just that: an everything change. Penelope’s father is way too busy with his job and her mother is way too busy with her social life, so Penelope just wants some excitement and adventure for a change. Here’s where Laurel Snyder brings in the magical power of wishes and dreams. When Penelope makes a wish in a wishing well, everything changes. Her father quits his job in order to work on becoming a writer and their bills quickly become too hard to handle. Then, Penelope’s mother inherits a house in the country called the Whippoorwillows. It seems their luck is changing, but the Whippoorwillows brings with it a whole other set of worries (along with a cast of unforgettable characters). Will Penelope (Penny) and her family’s “everything change” turn out for the best or will they fall on their face like a few people you might know? You’ll just have to go on the adventure to find out.

From page one of this book, I was hooked. Penny is the kind of narrator that just draws you in, speaks to your heart, and makes you want to help her make her dreams come true. Laurel Snyder weaves in just a bit of fantastical magic in the way of wish-making, but the majority of the book is about the simple, everyday magic that happens in adventures outdoors, conversations with people you would never dream of speaking to, and unexpected friendships that could last a lifetime.

Two books came to mind as I read. Penny and the many other children that inhabit the Whippoorwillows make adventures out of their everyday interactions with one another. They tromp around through the woods and caves (something that many kids seem to be missing out on these days) and create their own magic just like the sisters of Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks tales. When I read The Penderwicks, I was overjoyed at what a wonderful story was created out of simple, everyday adventures between a group of sisters. Laurel Snyder has captured that same magic here. I was also reminded of Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie. In that book, a dog guides the main character Opal to all of the quirky characters of a community and Opal sees the uniqueness of each person and finds a way to connect them all together. The residents of the Whippoorwillows reminded me of the community in Because of Winn-Dixie. Laurel Snyder brings in so many personalities, lifestyles, and unusual hobbies and yet all of these people come together into a tightly connected community. I love that kind of magic in a story.

Penny Dreadful is a delight and is not to be missed. Check it out today in our media center or your local library (or at your favorite bookstore).

David C. Barrow Elementary is so fortunate to have Laurel Snyder coming to visit our PreK-5th grade students on February 24th. I know that her talent as a writer will inspire our young scholars to dream up the most magical of stories when she leaves.

January 13, 2011 by plemmonsa

Yes We Can!: Using Donors Choose to Locate Additional Funding « Georgia Library Media Association

Yes We Can!: Using Donors Choose to Locate Additional Funding « Georgia Library Media Association.

January 12, 2011 by plemmonsa

Sharing Massive Content: A Collaborative Strategy

Every year, I’m amazed at the amount of content that our 5th grade teachers have to teach in just Social Studies. Not only do these teachers have to concern themselves with the Reading and Math CRCT scores, they also have to teach a massive time span in history with many intricate details.

This year the 5th grade team began talking with me about a project they wanted to try this year to hand over some of the content of their “Bigger, Better, Faster: The Changing Nation” unit. Students will work in teams of 3-4 students. The groups will be mixed across the grade level with students of varying abilities in groups. Teachers will assign topics from the unit to the various groups. In the media center, I’ll do a lesson on note taking and gathering information from a variety of sources. I’ve also made a pathfinder with resources connected to each topic as well as all of the standards covered in the project. I’ll introduce this pathfinder and how the various resources work in my introduction lesson with students. My paraprofessional has worked to pull print resources from the library and sort them by category. These will be checked out to the 5th grade and placed in a central location in the grade level for students to use. The teachers have booked both computer lab and laptop cart time as well as media center time for me to assist students with their research.

Once students get going with their research, the teachers and I will share a variety of options for final products. The teachers want to use a variety of technology along with more traditional kinds of final products such as brochures. The tools I will share with students include Glogster Edu, Animoto, and Photo Story.

Finally, students will showcase their work in the media center. This showcase will allow the 5th graders to learn from all of the projects in an effort to allow students to help teach and take ownership of the 5th grade GPS standards. It will also allow students from other grade levels to see their work as a preview of what is to come in 5th grade. Students will have an authentic audience for the work and will hopefully retain the content better as they share their learning with others.

We’re giving this a try this year, and we’ll fine tune it as we go. I hope that this grows into future kinds of projects like this one for other 5th grade content and other grade levels as well.

January 4, 2011 by plemmonsa

December Monthly Report

January 4, 2011 by plemmonsa

School Libraries Cultivate Digital Literacy

School Libraries Cultivate Digital Literacy. Our media center was featured in this article in Converge Magazine. The article discusses how libraries support digital literacy, the challenges faced by libraries in doing this, and how librarians are overcoming these challenges.

January 4, 2011 by plemmonsa

Leader Librarians: A Reflection

Today I received feedback from a survey that was given to the students who participated in leader librarians. The students were asked:

What did you enjoy most? Almost all students in the group listed “buying books” as what they enjoyed. They also listed things like using Animoto for the school to see what was done, ordering and unpacking books, and bringing more books into our library.

What did you learn from Leader Librarians? Students said they learned how hard it is to spend the amount of money that you have to buy books. They learned how to use money wisely and that it’s a big process to order books for a library. They learned how to be a “good librarian”.

If you could change something or do something differently, what would it be? They wished that they could have bought more books and checked more of the books out to read before other students got to read them. They also wished that more people could have come to the enrichment fair to see what they accomplished across our 9 weeks together. Most of all, they said they really wouldn’t change anything.

It was such a treat to hear what these 12 students had to say about being a part of the budgeting decisions in the library. We ran out of time to sit together and reflect on what we had accomplished, so I was thankful that our enrichment cluster coordinator found time to collect data from all students in the school about their clusters. Hearing these students’ voices confirmed for me the importance of giving students the opportunity to be a part of decision-making in the library.

January 3, 2011 by plemmonsa

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,200 times in 2010. That’s about 10 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 73 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 222 posts. There were 343 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 349mb. That’s about 7 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was April 16th with 476 views. The most popular post that day was Poem In Your Pocket Day 2010.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were clarke.k12.ga.us, facebook.com, Google Reader, theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com, and google.com.