It's a good thing I wasn't being graded or quizzed on my summer reading list because I didn't accomplish much. The idea was to read 10 books before today. My list was supposed to help me on my job as well as expand my own horizons.
I'll start with the good. I did read:
Gentlemen--A bizarre, scary book about teenage boys and the teacher that freaks them out into jumping to conclusions.
13 Reasons Why--I can see why the teens are attracted to this book. You want to keep reading to find out why...
Year of Wonders--Not as good as People of the Book or March, but I still enjoyed this story of the plague and the village that isolated itself.
Dog On It--Probably, my favorite on the list. Recommended by a fellow colleague I wasn't sure I would enjoy this mystery. But it was a fun read with the dog's voice narrating this mystery.
I didn't read:
Guns, Germs and Steel--I don't know if it's size of the book or the topic, but it was just too much for a "summer read".
Tale of Two Cities--I tell students that I'm not a "literary" librarian because I don't read a lot of literature. While I remember liking this book in high school, I couldn't force myself to slog through Dickens' language.
A Classic I'd never read--I started Walden Pond by Thoreau but again, it was too much "work" for my summer vacation.
Did I read more? Sure I did and enjoyed many of them...Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Darkside, My Life in France, Summer Kitchen, No Reservations...and many more I can't recall at the moment.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
School's Back in Session
The second week of school is well underway and I am back in the library! It was an interesting spring as I prepared to teach social studies this fall, but the middle school librarian that was bumping me is teaching 4th grade instead. While it's sad that our middle schools have no credentialed librarian, I am grateful to have my job. I know I will feel the impact next year when our 9th graders enter with little or no prior library instruction.
The new year has started with some exciting initiatives. We have had a schoolwide SSR program that was being implemented in a haphazard fashion. This year, we are trying to reinvigorate the program as we take on literacy as a schoolwide focus area (formative assessment and differentiation are our other areas of focus). To that end, our English department lead and I met over the summer to put together a structured component one day a week. 56 teachers out of 120 volunteered to participate in this structured reading. Each week they receive a different reading activity to do with their students. The first two weeks were read-alouds from Gary Soto and Funny in Farzi. Next week is a cloze activity created from a Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul book. So far feedback has been positive and I had a senior checking out a library book tell me "they're taking SSR seriously". I've booked multiple classes in for Book Talks and checked out 282 books in the first week of school.
I'm also doing a library orientation with my freshman English teachers. Last year, two teachers asked for the activity. So far this year six teachers are bringing their students. I do a "scavenger hunt" type activity, but each component involves a resource that they will need to use during their time at the school. For example, our seniors have a word etymology project that requires the Oxford English Dictionary. On the scavenger hunt, students have to locate the book and find a word as a preview of what's to come down the line. They use the library database to look up some simple country data so they see it before they come in for formal research with their history classes. The students have been engaged.
Ok, enough bragging for now. It's only the second week...there may be more to come.
The new year has started with some exciting initiatives. We have had a schoolwide SSR program that was being implemented in a haphazard fashion. This year, we are trying to reinvigorate the program as we take on literacy as a schoolwide focus area (formative assessment and differentiation are our other areas of focus). To that end, our English department lead and I met over the summer to put together a structured component one day a week. 56 teachers out of 120 volunteered to participate in this structured reading. Each week they receive a different reading activity to do with their students. The first two weeks were read-alouds from Gary Soto and Funny in Farzi. Next week is a cloze activity created from a Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul book. So far feedback has been positive and I had a senior checking out a library book tell me "they're taking SSR seriously". I've booked multiple classes in for Book Talks and checked out 282 books in the first week of school.
I'm also doing a library orientation with my freshman English teachers. Last year, two teachers asked for the activity. So far this year six teachers are bringing their students. I do a "scavenger hunt" type activity, but each component involves a resource that they will need to use during their time at the school. For example, our seniors have a word etymology project that requires the Oxford English Dictionary. On the scavenger hunt, students have to locate the book and find a word as a preview of what's to come down the line. They use the library database to look up some simple country data so they see it before they come in for formal research with their history classes. The students have been engaged.
Ok, enough bragging for now. It's only the second week...there may be more to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)