A Bit of Biography Genrifying

Recently in a librarian group post online, a middle school librarian described genrifying her biography section in the hopes of increasing the circulation for those particular books. The librarian established several broad categories for her biographies, rearranged books into those categories, and in just a short period of time, she saw increased circulation.

Our own biography section also sees limited circulation, and even with new titles added each year, biographies remain one of the lesser checked-out genres in the library. With the sixth grade biography project approaching later this spring, the holiday break seemed like a good time to try a little biography genrification ourselves.

First, we needed to create those broad categories that our biographies could fall into. These included some "obvious" piles, like Sports/Athletes, Authors, and American History. Other categories included World Leaders/Politicians, World War II/Holocaust, and Native Americans. All told, 12 broad groups covered all of the biographies in the collection, as well as some of the collected biographies.

Once all of the books were sorted into piles, it was time to reconfigure their places on the existing shelves. With a bit of rearranging to condense books from the reference section, the biographies are now expanded on the shelving. Some of the section appears below.

The only piece of the genrification process that remains is signage, so stay tuned! We're also in the planning stages of literacy studies class activities to reintroduce students to the biography collection. More to come!

2nd Quarter Library Projects

Each quarter in literacy studies, students work on a project related to their reading classes. Last quarter, sixth graders created Slides presentations showing their understanding of genre by choosing an independent reading book they'd read, identifying the genre, and providing supporting examples. Seventh graders also created a Slides presentation to show their understanding of different literary terms, including protagonist & antagonist, point of view, conflict and theme.

In the new quarter, students are again working on different projects. Sixth graders are developing better book talks based on a poster from www.middleschoolmind.com.

LINK to access full blog post

Students chose a book they could enthusiastically recommend, developed their book talks, then used the Unsplash add-on in Google Slides to add an image to also grab the listeners' attention. Finally, students recorded their work using Screencastify. This will allow students to take part in a gallery walk, of sorts, after the holiday break and listen to multiple book talks.

While sixth graders worked on book talk presentations, seventh graders again this year completed an author study project. Over time the project has undergone several revisions; this year, those revisions included using Thinglink as the basis of the project and adjusting the written requirements to include both required and personal choice items.

LINK to site

Students used Google Drive to write and present information about an author of their choice--they wrote about the author's publishing life and included an analysis piece of a passage of their choosing, and they also included one of the following: a personal narrative about their interest in the author, a creative interview, or a scene rewrite.

Library Breakout--Digital Style

With the success of our first ever physical breakout at the start of the school year (you can read about it here), it's time to try a digital breakout!

Students in the Literacy Studies classes worked in small groups to problem solve their way through four clues to decipher the locks for a color lock, direction lock, 4-digit lock, and 4-letter lock. The premise had students imagine that they were part of a panel to determine the best series books for middle school readers. Their work wasn't accurately represented, however, so they need to go back through their work to find the missing titles.

Each scenario used different resources: Common Sense Media's Best Book Series list, an EdPuzzle video, YALSA's Teen's Top Ten list, and a Slides presentation relating to recent Iowa Teen Award nominees. Working together, students used different strategies to determine lock combinations and solve each of the locks.

Now that students have tried both a physical and digital breakout, our next step is to blend the two types! More breakouts to follow!

STEAM-y in the Library

As we neared the end of the quarter, students in Literacy Studies had the opportunity to choose from a variety of STEAM-related activities to explore, play, create, and just be curious! Some of the items appear below:

Included in the picture are 3D Magic Pens, Sphero SPRKs, IO Blocks, K'NEX, Stik Bot green screen, Snap Circuits, and Cubelets. Students could also choose to use the Do Ink app for other green screen opportunities.

After a quick "tutorial day" to hear about what each items was, students filled out a Google Form with their top 4 choices, and over 2 days' time, students were able to use the items they'd selected. Such great times ensued! So much planning & trying, building & creating, failing & redesigning! 

Students using the Cubelets first accessed information from Google Classroom to learn about how to use them before creating their own robots.

Students using the K'NEX and IO Mini Blocks could also access Google Classroom for creation card ideas, or they could design and build what they liked.

Students could also refer to included circuitry projects or create their own pathways.

With so many activities from which to choose, students will have the opportunity to explore all eight options throughout the year. More creating, imagining, and designing to come!

It's Book Fair Time!

Conferences are next week, so that means it's time for our book fair! This year we're using a different vendor--Follett Book Fairs. We already purchase many of our books from Follett, so it's a great fit to bring them on board for our book fairs. Take a look!

Students voted early in the school year to choose different bundles of books that would be available at the fair, and they chose things like sports fiction, graphic novels, young adult literature, and popular series books to include. All of that--and a lot more!--are available, and you can even order online at www.follettgift.com if you'd like an even broader selection.

The fair is open daily for students to make purchases, and families are invited to stop in during conferences on Tuesday and Thursday. Teacher wish lists will be available if you'd like to make a purchase for a teacher's classroom, and if an item is out of stock, we can drop-ship titles within a day or two of your visit. We're excited to show off our new fair and hope to see you there!

#MGBookTober, Part II

We're half way through October, so it's time to update our #MGBookTober progress. Students again worked on a Google Slide that showcased their answers to today's prompt, What MG character would you want to be?



Also, students have responded using Flipgrid:

Want to see all of Mrs. Ellis's tweets for #MGBookTober? You can see them below, and if a book looks like one you'd like to try, GREAT! Please stop by to check it out! Hope to see you soon! Happy reading!

It's #MGBookTober!

It's now fall and officially October, so that means it's also MGBookTober, a time when we celebrate middle grade fiction. Here's the list of daily book questions/ideas to support #MGBookTober:

We're off to a strong, two-day start with my advisory group! We all brought our "currently reading" books for a book selfie on Oct. 1.

And we're ready to share our "want to read next" ideas with a Google Slides presentation. You can CLICK HERE to see what my advisory is excited to read next.

Stay tuned! There are lots and lots of days in October, and we've only just begun! Want to follow us as we work? You can follow Mrs. Ellis on Twitter: @ccls531, or you can follow the MS library on Snapchat and Instagram: @dcglibraries. Happy reading & sharing!