What’s Going On

You may have noticed the sparse number of blog posts so far in 2011—the relative degree of “quiet” here on the blog is in contrast to the buzz of activity happening offline.

Writing, Thinking, Reflecting

Some exciting writing endeavors have occupied a good bit of my creative energies and time outside of the school day over the last three or four weeks; I’ll be sharing more about these efforts closer to publication times later this spring. While the writing process is sometimes quite stressful, it also leads to intense and thoughtful reflection; in some cases, the discovery of new resources to better inform current and future practice/projects.

The Unquiet Library Is Decidedly Unquiet: Projects

The school day and beyond have been jam-packed with a multitude of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors engaging in their late winter research projects (folklore, American authors, archetypes and popular culture, current/hot events, needs/causes and service organizations that work to address these needs on a local, state, or national level) through their English courses.  I’ve also been working with science teacher Mary Panik on a unit about natural disasters, which included students creating a wiki for their research findings as well as a Skype session with a research vessel off the coast of New Zealand.  In addition, I’ve worked with Criminal Justice studies teacher Jason Hubbard and his students to research natural or man-made disasters and lessons learned from those events; I’ll be posting student created “presentation zen” style slidedecks to the pathfinder later this month once presentations are completed.   One of my favorite collaborative efforts from the last few weeks is a research project Susan Lester and her seniors are engaged in about the role of social media in recent political uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran.  I’m looking forward to reviewing with the teachers what they felt worked well and suggestions for tweaking these research assignments later this month as we try to improve the effectiveness of our collaborative efforts.

Observations, Questions, Worries, Action Steps, Goals Evolving So Far in 2011

• Providing students scaffolding with tools like graphic organizers and “checkpoints” of research tasks to complete is essential, especially for underclassmen who may be coming to us with limited prior research experiences.
• I need to provide tools for to our teachers to better pre-assess student prior knowledge about research skills before beginning a research project so that we can better target those skills as part of our focus on process.
• I’m thinking about resources and strategies for improving nonfiction reading skills (periodicals, nonfiction books, essays in book chapters or databases, reference articles) for students.  While some students show great skill in identifying supportive details or evidence to develop a main idea, many need additional assistance in this area.  Even though some of the teachers did targeted practice in which they modeled and had students practice these skills with these types of texts,  many students need additional yet authentic practice with these kinds of reading skills and nonfiction texts. Nonfiction Matters by Stephanie Harvey (great for any age, really), Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, and Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman are three resources that come to mind; what others resources (print or virtual) would you suggest?
• How do we more effectively engage students who seemingly do not want help or choose not to use class/library time work on their projects in spite of multiple efforts from teachers and librarians to support their work and learning needs?  Whether it is a traditional text-based paper, a wiki-based project involving choice, or even a multimedia project, I’ve observed an increasing number of students this year who seem resistant to taking advantage of class time to work on a project.
• How do create more inquiry-oriented research assignments without overwhelming struggling learners with both content and process?
• I continue to struggle with feelings about citation processes—our students are definitely making strides in differentiating information sources, both print and virtual, this year, and NoodleTools has been instrumental in that process.  However, in order to better meet students at their point of need, I have started creating “information organizer” handouts for assorted information sources to help students jot down the essential publication information they will need for citing the source.   In the past, I have balked at using these kind of paper handouts and felt that it was more efficient and effective for students to enter the bibliographic information as they worked through the NoodleTools wizard.  However, I’ve changed my stance and realized that for many students, particularly those with limited research experience, this extra layer of scaffolding makes the process of using the NoodleTools less stressful and tedious.    While I’ve always provided print and virtual copies of directions for citing sources, I’m now using these “publication information organizers” to help students record the bibliographic information in the order they will need it for the NoodleTools citation.  I’m still in the process of uploading handouts and tutorial videos I have previously created or recently created to this new NoodleTools portal (in the past, this was included as a separate tab or page in individual research guides), but you can see the beginnings of this new citation help portal here.   The most difficult source for students to cite is Gale Literature Resource Center simply because there are so many possible combinations of possible information sources, particularly those with 2-3 layers of publication information–I am hopeful that some new updates to NoodleTools this summer will help us work through some of the more complex citation challenges.

For next year, I will work with department heads to devise a formal list of information literacy/research/inquiry skills each student should be able to successfully demonstrate at the end of each grade level so that we can have better consistency in the skills we are targeting since our state and district curriculum do not provide a comprehensive or sequential list of benchmarks.  We’ll also include options for formative and summative assessments that both teachers and students can use for demonstrating mastery of these skills.   I also  hope to get more teachers to include reflective pieces in research projects for student metacognition, particularly when thinking about what they have learned from the research experience and to more effectively articulate information source evaluation with more purpose and thought.  While some teachers are already working on this skill with me through blogging, annotated bibliographies, or information source interviews we’re doing with students, I think this aspect needs to be more commonplace in all research assignments across every subject area.  Finally, I think some teachers are now more receptive to my encouraging them to consider incorporating more frequent but smaller formal research assignments into their courses throughout the school year to better support student learning while tackling some of the challenges I’ve identified in this post.

Looking Ahead to 2011-2012:  Shift Is Happening Now

As if all of these observations,  action steps, questions, and goals aren’t enough to think about, I have been working with a team of teachers to propose some shifts in our library program and how the library supports teaching, learning, and student achievement at Creekview High.   I’ll be blogging later this week about this new initiative that has our administrative support and that I believe is going to help The Unquiet Library take a huge leap forward in better supporting both teachers and students in 2011-12.  Not only I am thrilled about the new initiative we’ll be officially launching in August 2011 (although the groundwork is already in progress), but the teachers are equally excited and passionate about this new initiative as well—that in and of itself is energizing!  I look forward to sharing the details of this new initiative with all of you on the blog later this week.

2011: The Year of Artists and Art

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In Linchpin:  Are You Indispensable?, Seth Godin shares his working definitions of art and artists and why art and artists matter more than ever in today’s world.

Who/What Are Artists?

I’m going to quote liberally from the book and share a compilation of Godin’s descriptors for artist:

“Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done…An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally..The artists in your life are gift-focused, and their tenacity has nothing at all to do with income or job security. Instead, it’s about finding a way to change you in a positive way, and to do it with a gift. There’s a strong streak of intellectual integrity involved in being a passionate artist. You don’t sell out, because selling out involves destroying the best of what you are.”

What Is Art?

In Linchpin, Godin describes art as:

“…a personal gift that changes the recipient…I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace..Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people..Art is unique, new, and challenging to the status quo. It’s not decoration, it’s something that causes change…Most of all, art involves labor. Not the labor of lifting a brush or typing a sentence, but the emotional labor of doing something difficult, taking a risk and extending yourself. It’s entirely possible that you’re an artist.  I call the process of doing your art “the work.” It’s possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that’s how you become a linchpin.  The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin.”

In his blog post “Making Art“, Godin asserts “By my definition, most art has nothing to do with oil paint or marble. Art is what we’re doing when we do our best work.”  He identifies three key qualities of art:

1. Art is made by a human being.
2. Art is created to have an impact, to change someone else.
3. Art is a gift. You can sell the souvenir, the canvas, the recording… but the idea itself is free, and the generosity is a critical part of making art.

Why Art and Artists Matter to Librarians

So what do art and artists have to do with librarianship?  To be a linchpin, the person who can “bring it together and make a difference”,  Godin says we must:

“Stop settling for what’s good enough and start creating art that matters. Stop asking what’s in it for you and start giving gifts that change people. Then, and only then, will you have achieved your potential.”

Not only does framing our work as art and seeing ourselves as artists re-envision us as library professionals, but treating our patrons as artists and providing them learning experiences to help them see themselves as artists cultivates their participation literacy.  If our mission is to help others learn and for the library to be a place and experience of creating art and sharing that gift, then “..the ones you freed to be artists, will rise to a level you can’t even imagine.”

As I reflected last month on my what I learned and how that was reflected in my work and the learning of my students and teachers, I posed these questions:

1.  What did they (your patrons or those you serve) learn through your library program and the conversations for learning you facilitated?  What do you hope they will learn in 2011?
2.  How do we know what they learned?  What tools did you use for assessment?  Did the patrons engage in metacognition and self-reflection on what they learned?
3.  How are you privileging and honoring what they learned?   Where are their stories of learning shared in your physical and virtual library spaces?

I think those questions dovetail perfectly with these essential questions:

• How will you create art in 2011?  What are the gifts you have to share as an artist?
• How will you help those you serve, whatever setting you are in, create art and nurture their growth as artists?  How are you and those you serve purposefully cultivating and reflecting on your art?
• How are you spreading your gifts and your art?  How are your empowering those you serve to share their gifts and privileging their art?

Not only will I continue to try and share the answers I’m discovering along with my students and teachers to these questions here in this space and through my library’s virtual spaces, but I also hope that you will use social media and cloud computing in 2011 to share how you and those you serve in your library are creating and sharing your gifts of art.

How will you invite participation for art and artists through your library in 2011, and how will you participate as an artist in your learning community?

Take Away the Tests. How Do We Then Measure School Success?

"Jubilant Winners Enjoy Success" CC Image via http://goo.gl/rjQYj

Once we strip away the test scores and all the traditional data (quantitative) measures of school success—how do we define and assess successful schools?  If you are a principal, a teacher, a student, a parent, a community member—how do you describe what a successful school looks like without referencing standardized test scores?

This is seemingly a simple question, but it is one weighing heavily on my mind when I think about alternate forms of data to tell the story of learning in a school.  It’s a question that begs to be asked when you are trying to convince the Advanced Placement teacher whose students typically score 4s and 5s on their AP exams that you as a school library program have valuable learning experiences to offer his or her students.  While data driven collaboration is certainly important in today’s educational climate for school libraries, I still believe a bigger vision of how we measure success beyond test scores (that are often flawed or misleading) is needed when articulating the mission and purpose of education and what a successful school looks like without referencing the latest AP exam or SAT scores.

How would your administrators, school board members, students, teachers, parents, legislators, and community members describe a successful school in the absence of standardized tests?  What does a successful school look like to you?

Wee Small Hours of the Morning Worries

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In the last two years, I’ve done a better job of tackling challenges with patience and optimism.  Every now and then, though, a tsunami of worry, frustration, and questioning crashes upon me (as I  know it does many of you, too), typically in the middle of the night.  Around 1:00 I literally woke up thinking about an array of fundamental educational issues that impact my work as a school librarian and The Unquiet Library program.

So for the last two hours now, I’ve been contemplating and worrying about problems with teacher-librarian collaboration and within grade levels/departments, public education in general, and the blinders that NCLB and Race to the Top have imposed/are putting on our ability to have a larger vision for learning and the purpose of schools beyond test scores.   I’m feeling a sudden and intense wave of impatience with piecemeal progress; I’m also sad and angry that as a profession (and by that, I mean educators in general), we have acquiesced to a vision of teaching and learning that ultimately has done more harm than good to students, teachers, and our communities.   Also worrisome: these concerns are not even on the radar of so many because they don’t perceive these problems exist.   This is one of those times I want a box of dynamite, not a plastic spoon, to move these mountains.

I’m sipping warm skim milk and thinking now about better ways to tackle these challenges; writing will come later out of these wee small hours of the morning.  Sometimes just articulating the worries, even in a short blog post or series of Tweets, is the first step to re-visualizing the problems and finding more effective solutions or at the very least, inviting conversations to help us think through these challenges together (yes, everyone has challenges!). Maybe I need to sleep with my superlibrarian cape on at night?

Missing in Action: School Librarians and the Digital and Media Literacy Plan of Action

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If I have completely misread this report, then I apologize right now for putting my foot in my mouth, but I’m wondering why school librarians are generally absent from the “Digital and Media Literacy:  A Plan of Action” (A White Paper on the Digital and Media Literacy Recommendations of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy) report written by Renee Hobbs, someone whom I hold in high regard.    Why are Hobbs and the Knight Commission overlooking school librarians as  critical and essential stakeholders who could help leverage this plan into motion through public schools?  School librarians are perfectly positioned in terms of knowledge and skills to help implement the recommendations outlined in the report.

Recommendation 3, which advocates the creation of a Digital Media and Literacy Youth Corps, has some language that I find somewhat disturbing:

Congress should dedicate 10 percent of Americorps funding for the development of a Digital and Media Literacy (DML) Youth Corps. The DML Youth Corps would be a service outreach program that offers training and professional development in digital and media literacy to a group of recent college graduates and places them, in teams, to work in public libraries, school libraries and technology centers, local public access centers, and other community non-profit organizations.”

While this DML Youth Corps is a lovely idea, I would suggest a better idea is Congress providing funding for every public school in America to have a highly qualified and fully certified school librarian.    Instead of outreach in “school libraries and technology centers,” how about providing funding not only to put a school librarian in every building, but to provide funding to build a team of school librarians for every school where we can be embedded in grade or content level teams to truly infuse and integrate these literacies as a seamless and essential part of every student’s learning experience on a daily basis throughout the school year?     Is a “recent college graduate” really someone who is best qualified to provide the kind of instruction and learning experiences on an extended basis to infuse these literacies in the lives of children and teens?  I think it is already well established that “youth” does not necessarily correlate with one’s competencies in these literacies.  I would also say the same for public librarians—while the idea of a digital/media literacy core is admirable, you already have a corp in place with our talented peers in public libraries to serve populations of all ages.

I am normally a huge fan of Hobbs as well as the Knight Foundation, and I do like several of the recommendations and find them meaningful.  However,  I think that this report, while driven by noble principles, misses the mark in overlooking school librarians as an obvious and existing resource in helping cultivate these literacies in more powerful and consistent ways and as sponsors of these new media literacies to help close the participation gap.  Perhaps if there were more of us in place already and if our programs were not being cut across the nation at an alarming pace, we would not be dealing with the gaps we are seeing now with youth in terms of effectively cultivating these literacies  in conjunction and collaboration with classroom teachers.  I’m disappointed that Hobbs and the Knight Foundation seem to be overlooking school librarians as a ready, willing, and able resource who could be powerful facilitators of this plan.

What do you think?  Have I misread this report, and if not, why have Hobbs and the Knight Foundation made this glaring omission?

Respectfully,

Buffy Hamilton