Divergent Day at Todd

Check out this cool Smore that my talented colleague, Wendy Rollins, made to promote Divergent Day at our school. Can't wait for all the fun and I am excited that so many students are becoming interested in the series.

Day 19 - Literary Research

Today I worked with Ms. Davis' 12th grade English classes (hard at work in the photos to the left and right). The students are writing an essay about symbolism in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". First I introduced appropriate database resources for their literary research and how to access them. Then I provided research and formatting advice. As Ms. Davis observed, these students are preparing for college and should be able to work independently.  Overall, most of the students did use Discus, Gale or Ebsco Host literature databases for their research. The essays are due tomorrow; as a fellow student, I wish them luck tonight!

 

 
I enjoyed reflecting with Melanie and Cathy about how they evaluate and design action plans for their program. Cathy also shared details about her American Association of School Librarians conference adventures last week. Check out her blog to learn more.

The best part of my day was talking and working with DHS students. I have come to know some of them and will miss their insights and great reading suggestions.  One of the student library helpers is reading #4 in Michael Grant's Gone series, Plague, and agreed with me that this series is addictive.  As I was leaving I got to meet Dorman principal, Ken Kiser, and he praised Melanie and Cathy for the great job they do.

Day 18 - Day of Reflection

Thursday was an unusually quiet day at DHS.  This provided a good opportunity to reflect on my goals and plans for my remaining week.  I met with a student teacher to share my New Teacher's Guide to the School Library presentation.  Another book order came in and, as usual, I loved looking through all the great new titles. I recognized quite a few books from my browsing at the Teen department at the Spartanburg Public Library. Even better, I was able to check out a copy of this hot title. Thank you Melanie! 

With Erika's help I put together a display of sports titles, both fiction and nonfiction.  At first I intended to only feature football books, but since basketball season is beginning we decided to feature all sports.  I will check on Tuesday to see if any titles are missing - meaning they are checked out!

Day 9 - PosterMyWall and Basketball fiction

Thursday was filled with lots of planning and working with students.  Cathy gave me more ideas for visual, creative student projects. PosterMyWall is a site that allows students to create collage posters that can be downloaded for free.  This can be used to combine text and images to represent a work of fiction.  This requires students to analyze and synthesize and work those higher order thinking skills.
Not your average book report!

In her capacity as a Tech Trainer for the district, Melanie is teaching a course on Google Docs.  The teaching role of the teacher librarian is not limited to instructing students.  TLs can and should be up to date on technology initiatives as we'll as curriculum content in order to provide professional development to school colleagues.

The Pinterest Nursery & Layette project continued and I enjoyed seeing the varied baby related gear the students pinned.  I helped a student find some basketball fiction - new category for me!  I made a note to read some YA sports fiction as well as to become more familiar with authors/titles popular with boys/young men.

Next week I take the PRAXIS II - Library Media Specialist area.  This is one of my last steps in becoming a certified School Library Media Specialist!

Day 5 - Student Interactions Aplenty

Day five was filled with lots of student interaction.  I helped two teacher cadets brainstorm on an interactive element to go with a literary unit.  The girls have written a story and are making it into a Big Book. Later this semester they will get to work with K-2nd grade students and actually use their story unit.  The students at Dorman have so many opportunities to explore their career interests - a big change from when I was in high school!

Every semester the library has a rotation of student helpers.  I got to help train some new helpers which helped me get a refresher course on all the sections.  DHS has such a big library (24,000 materials!) that I am still finding new sections after 3 weeks.

A government/econ class was making a group video project about college tuition and they recruited me to be interviewed.  I was impressed with their professionalism and got to express my humble opinion that, yes, college tuition is rising too rapidly.

During 4th block, Mrs. P-G's government class worked on a project about the Bill of Rights.  We suggested that the students use Discus and research databases instead of general internet search engines.

Next week is Banned Book week and the BYOB lunch club.  I look forward to more adventures with Melanie, Cathy, and all the DHS gang!