Biographies & Databases Tic-Tac-Toe

With the newly genrified biography section (see earlier blog post), it was time to get students into the shelves. . . but for what purpose? Knowing that research and database work was part of the Literacy Studies class, why not combine the two? Thus, Biography/Database Tic-Tac-Toe was born!

Before students actually began work on their tic-tac-toe page, we spent class time talking about how biographies are shelved and how we've modified that with our biography categories. One class period was arranged around a sorting activity where students identified into what category a book should be placed and why.

Intentionally, I chose books about people who could easily fit into more than one of our new biography categories. Does Anne Frank belong in World War II/Holocaust? Authors? Perseverance? Famous Women? What about Sally Ride? Astronaut or American History? The most surprising revelation to come out of the activity was related to a biography of Louis Braille. Only 3 of the 18 student groups placed him in the Perseverance category where the book was shelved. Instead, groups overwhelmingly put him in the Scientists/Inventors groups. Since the point of genrifying the biographies was to make them more accessible to students, I made the switch. If students believe Braille is more recognized as an inventor, then the biography should be relocated.

Next, it was time to introduce the actual assignment. Students first took a look at what was expected of them:

As a check for understanding, students completed a 3-2-1 think-pair-share activity. After reading through the handout, they wrote 3 things: 

• 3 main ideas about the tic-tac-toe assignment,
• 2 kinds of things they’ll need to find about the person they’ll be using for this project,
• 1 question they have.

Next, it was time to explore the biography bookshelves and the databases themselves. This gave students some time to browse the new arrangement of the biography collection, in addition to some time in databases they may not have used previously. Classes broke into two groups, and students had directions to follow as they worked in both groups. 

Finally, it was time to work. Students recorded their work on a handout in Google Classroom, and over the course of several days visited a variety of databases, becoming familiar with its search results and how to find and use provided citations help.

As students finish their work later this month, we'll have a day where they share their learning with a classmate and reflect on their database work. More learning to come!

Celebrating Black History Month

February is Black History Month, so in an attempt to "up" the passive programming in the library, we're using QR codes in our new display. Many thanks to librarian Erin Londregan-Berens who posted an image of her own library display that inspired this one.

Each image features a different person along with the QR code that students and staff can scan to learn more about that person. Want to know more about Katherine Jackson? The QR code links to her biography on NASA's website. How about Kehinde Wiley? The code links directly to his website where you can learn more about his art and life.

Stop by and feel free to scan the QR codes--and maybe while you're in the library you'll want to check out a book about a famous African American!

January Jackets

Over the holiday break we received dozens of new books--and the question was, how do we promote them? Since we had this cute speech bubble from Scholastic, it seemed like a good idea to use it in some kind of display.

And January Jackets was born!

Each school day in January a different book is featured with a small teaser on the speech bubble. Students are welcome to access our Instagram and/or Snapchat accounts (@DCGLibraries) for the "full" book talk if they're interested.

 Some of the books include those new titles we received over the holiday break, like Lifeboat 12 and The Benefits of Being an Octopus.

Other books are titles we've had in the library but students maybe aren't as familiar with, like The Night Gardener and Thornhill.

The interest in the books--both from students and teachers!--has been great, and most days students ask to check out the featured book. Some even step into the library before school starts just to see that day's January Jackets title. Stay tuned--we're only half-way through January!

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!