ETL402 reflection – conversations and community

Two key words spring to mind as I reflect on my learning during this course –conversations and community.

In my first blog post for this course I recalled my first teaching position and how we taught Humanities using themed units, supported with class sets of 5 different novels, (Bond, 2014). I saw the value of including literature in the curriculum; however, I did understand how to help the students make connections between what they were reading in the novels to the concepts and content of the course. If I had the chance to do this again (and I will be working towards this at my school) I would create opportunities for conversations. As students read and engage with concepts and content, they need opportunities to discuss their understandings with each other and their teachers. This can be done through scaffolded discussions – literature circles, one to one conferencing, blog posts and comments, book trailers and reading journals. One of the roles of the teacher librarian (TL) is in helping students make connections through their reading.

An effective way to help students make connections with what they are reading is to use questioning.  One skill I am developing as a result of the course is that of dialogic reading.  The key to this form of reading aloud is the open-ended questions the teacher is asking, (Bond, 2015). Dialogic teaching is a method of asking questions. Open ended questions bring deeper engagement with the text, further understanding and learning conversations (Leland, Lewison, & Harste, 2013, p.19). Another role of the TL is creating these questions then modelling to colleagues how to use this skill to encourage students to have a dialogue with the books they read.

As students talk about what they are reading they begin to see themselves as being part of a community of readers. This can add to the motivation to read, (Leland, Lewison, & Harste, 2013, p.21). It surprises me is that many of my colleagues are not readers of children’s literature. The “Teachers as Readers” programme was developed in the UK to address this issue. The teachers involved were invited to read children’s literature then meet and discuss what they had read. One of the results was that they had more success at matching readers to texts and texts to readers,  and thus increased the opportunity for children to enjoy reading and join the community of readers. TLs need to encourage the development of communities of readers. We need to read widely ourselves so we can match readers to texts, for students and colleagues alike. A key to a successful readers’ advisory programme is that you know the person you are making recommendations to and that you have read a lot of children’s literature, ( (Maatta, 2009, p. 87).  One way I have found to broaden my knowledge of children’s literature is our Istanbul Librarians’ Book Chat meetings. We bring three books we have read from our collection to share each month. Our conversations broaden our knowledge of children’s literature and encourage us to continue to read from within our own collections.

This course confirmed the importance of literature in the curriculum and challenges me to further develop my role in the creating conversations about reading and story in my school community.

References

Bond, A. (2014, November 16). Literature across the curriculum: Initial thoughts [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://abond.edublogs.org/2014/11/16/literature-across-the-curriculum-initial-thoughts/

 

Bond, A. (2015, February 1). Forum post 2 Enjoying reading brings great rewards [Online forum post]. Retrieved from CSU forums website: http://forums.csu.edu.au/perl/forums.pl?forum_id=ETL402_201490_W_D_Sub10_forum

 

Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Bearne, E., & Goodwin, P. (2008). Exploring teachers’ knowledge of children’s literature. Cambridge Journal of Education, 8(4), 449-464. Retrieved from EBSCOhost database. (Accession No. AN 35484024)

 

Leland, C., Lewison, M., & Harste, J. C. (2013). Teaching children’s literature: It’s critical! New York: Routledge.

 

Maatta, S. L. (2009). A Few Good Books: Using Contemporary Reader’s Advisory Strategies to Connect Readers with Books. New York, USA: Neal-Schuman.

Arrangement of print collections and existence of libraries

I was privileged to attend a one day workshop with Kevin Hennah last year. He was looking at library design – the most important part of his session was about the promotion of the print collection in our school libraries. Kevin’s background is retail marketing, in particular display and promotions. He maintains that our customers are our students and teachers and they need to be connected with the product – our library resources. The physical collection – mostly print needs to be seen. He maintains that shelves and shelves of book spines are not very appealing to the customer. He strongly suggests ensuring that the library has as much face out shelving as possible. As far as arrangement is concerned it is up to the librarian to know the needs of the customer. Each library will be different with differing emphasis and customer needs. The one thing that all libraries have that is the same is the high impact areas in terms of the layout of the library. Obviously the entrance to the library and the first things the customer sees are what will make the most impact. Kevin suggests having the best books, new books and hot topic books at these high use areas. No need for fancy displays with lots of writing let the covers speak for themselves.

 I returned to my library after the conference and took lots of photos. I walked in as if I was new to the library, as if I was a customer and realized that as people walked in our doors what did they see? Shelves of books spines. I have worked over a few months to change the way we display our books – now as people walk in they see the same shelving units but instead of hundreds of books on it they see 9 – 12 books on display face out. The current display is books by the two authors coming to our school this month and in March. I put the display up yesterday and already I need to find more books to add to it. The display didn’t even have a sign – just the books. We are making do with shelving and furniture but I hope next year to purchase more display units and stands.

 I think arrangement of the collection should be as flexible as possible. At the moment we have the fiction collection divided into Picture books, I can read books, Primary years books, Young Adult and Adult as well as International Languages. Believe it or not this is a reduction on the number of collection in play when I arrived at the school. I think it is too many but with students from age 3 through to age 18 our entire collection has to cater for a wide range of needs. I hope to create more flexibility with the collection through adding mobile shelving and having shelving that can help create reading areas and collaborative spaces.

 I agree with the Winston Churchill quote Parkes uses “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Having attended the Kevin Hennah workshop I see the need for more flexibility in our library spaces as we serve school communities with changing and evolving needs. Our collections need to serve those needs and so does our library space.

So if libraries didn’t exist would we build them today?

The key thing about a library for me is all about SHARING. It is about sharing resources, sharing ideas and sharing space. I work in a school that has the word “community” in its name. This sharing environment is all about what fosters community and community fosters sharing – it is a lovely two way street. Even on social media we see people ‘sharing’ links, retweeting information. A few years ago an electronic library came into existence in Bulgaria. People were invited to upload work to it so others could read it. Two major things happened as a result – 1. people visited libraries or purchased the titles that people were uploading because they preferred to read the hard copies and 2. the Government shut the site down proclaiming it was a danger to the public (Masnick, 2010).

I think libraries would exist today – they seem to spring up in so many places without any organisational support. After the Christchurch earthquake in February 2011, old fridges with glass doors were used a local community lending libraries – created by the people in the community who wanted to share their books with each other (Nolan, 2013). These people did not have access to thier badly damaged public libraries so they created their own local versions. I think when you delve into the history of libraries you see that many modern libraries began with wealthy people donating their massive private collection to the community. Libraries are about community and sharing – they are bigger than the building, the staff and the collection.

 

Hennah, K. (2014, September). Rethink. Reinvent. Rejuvenate. Workshop presented at the seventh triennial ECIS librarians’ conference.,     Waterloo, Belgium.

Masnick, M. (2010, June 30). If the public library was invented today, would the Gov’t call it organized crime and shut it down? Retrieved January 10, 2015, from https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100630/12152310025.shtml 

Nolan, S. (2013, April 10). Out of the rubble: Christchurch still bears the 
     scars of earthquake devastation but is finding creative ways to get back on 
     its feet. Daily Mail. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ 
     article-2307011/ Out-rubble-Christchurch-bears-scars-earthquake-devastation-finding-creative-ways- feet.html
Parkes, D. (2010). Transforming the library – e-books and e-buildings. In D.Parkes & G. Walton (Eds.), Web 2.0 and libraries : impacts,technologies and trends (pp. 13-29). Oxford : Chandos.

The future of children’s literature

If we were to believe Neil Postman’s vision of our future with the proliferation of media and multimedia the impact on society will mean that our children will no longer be children but small adults. The barrier that was created by print and literacy in print will disappear. Information is accessible by children regardless of skill in reading (Elwell, 2013). I disagree with this position. While children do have access to many forms of information and entertainment their understanding of it and ability to question it, critically examine it and even relate it to their own worlds is limited due to their intellectual development.  There are groups that are actively working to protect children from the influence of many of these forms of media. An example of this is Common sense media with their parent advisory on movies, television and  books  (“Common Sense Media Top Picks,” n.d.). Parents and teachers are aware of the access children have to all media but are working to help them make choices about selecting things they can relate to, that are age appropriate in terms of learning, development  and world experiences.

I see the future of children’s literature as being multimedia. Take for example the Youtube video of B. J Noval reading from his book entitled The Book with no Pictures (Penguin Kids, 2014). I found this video on Facebook – a friend posted in her timeline. After I watched the video I ordered the book. This book has no pictures but the entertainment value is that adults have to read some of the nonsense it contains. The book plays with the idea of text being read aloud and how text works. The characters become the person reading the book and the people listening and enjoying it. The point is – you still need the text in the first place. Who posted this video to Youtube? Not a teacher, not a member of the audience but the publisher. Publishers are realizing that promotion of books comes through multi media and social media.

Some stories are now what are called born-digital. One example is Inanimate Alice which is being written and animated through the web over a period of time (“Inanimate Alice a digital novel,” n.d.). Children are invited to read text and view the video and illustration online. This website was awarded best website for teaching and learning in 2012 by American Association of School Librarians (“Classroom Resources,” n.d.) What is interesting about this example is that while it is an example of the media that Postman says will erode barriers between adults and children it still follows the definition of children’s literature in that it is created by adults for children (Winch, 2006, p. 398). The intended audience is children. It has supporting teaching materials, badges for the readers, so many multimedia expressions yet it requires children to read and view simultaneously.

 This method of reading may be what Zipe is referring to when he writes about young people reading texts much differently to their teachers (p. 42). Indeed there is quite a discussion continuing in many education circles about multiple literacies and how students today read not only print  Zipes argument is that children are being targeted as consumers in our modern society and what they bring to their reading experiences include their consumerism and worldview as viewers/readers of multimedia (p. 44).  I agree that children are influenced greatly by the world around them, the media and their own experiences. I am interested to learn more about how we as librarians and educators can assist the students we work with develop as readers of all forms of text. The future of children’s literature is rich and challenging involving print and electronic forms.

 

References

Boyd, B. (2012, October 29). E-Books and Beyond: The Future of Children’s Literature. [Blog post]. Retrieved from Bill Boyd – The Literacy Adviser website: http://literacyadviser.wordpress.com/2012/10/29/e-books-and-beyond-the-future-of-childrens-literature/

Classroom resources. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://www.teachersfirst.com/single.cfm?id=12641

Common sense media top picks. (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Elwell, F. (2013). Neil Postman on the Disappearance of Childhood. Retrieved November 17, 2014, from Rogers State Univeristy website: http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Essays/Postman1.html

Inanimate Alice a digital novel. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2014, from Inanimate Alice website: http://www.inanimatealice.com/index.html

Penguin Kids. (2014, September 30). The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cREyQJO9EPs

Winch, G. (2006). Literacy: Reading, writing, and children’s literature (3rd ed.). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Zipes, J. (2009). Misreading children and the fate of the book. In Relentless progress the reconfiguration of children’s literature, fairy tales, and storytelling (pp. 27-44). London: Routledge.

 

 

 

 

Why read? Change the world and change yourself

The phrase 21st century literacies still has momentum even though we are 15 years into the new century and there are diverse opinions as to what should be included as one of these literacies.. One example of this discussion comes from the USA where teachers and teacher librarians (TL) are working with multiple literacies – visual, digital, textual and technological (SLMS Role in Reading Task Force, 2009), and having to implement them from curriculum documents into their classrooms. With the expanding demands on time teachers and TLs are using flipped classroom techniques to cover all the learning content their students need. The question “why read?”does seem to be valid.

One reason for students to read is that it can change the world or at the very least their standing in the world. The Organisation for Economic and Co-operation and Development (OECD) has as its mission statement “to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world”, (“The Organisation for Economic,” n.d.). The OECD is not a group of educators but it is revealing that one of the activities this organisation undertakes is a regular assessment of educational growth in countries. Even more so one of its reports states  “Reading skills are more important than ever for economic and social interaction in the modern world”.  (“OECD Reports Emphasise Reading,” 2002). The report also recognizes the importance of reading proficiency for employment “despite the development of other new forms of oral and visual communication”  (“OECD Reports Emphasise Reading,” 2002). In the research conducted on behalf of the OECD students age 15 years from participating countries are tested in reading and also surveyed about their social-economic backgrounds and whether they read in their own time. Obviously the degree to which teenagers are engaged in reading varies from country to country but the OECD research found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds who read a lot get higher reading scores that those from more fortunate backgrounds but who do not read. Their conclusion was that “finding ways to engage students in reading may be one of the most effective ways to leverage social change,” (“OECD Reports Emphasise Reading,” 2002).

 Another reason for students to read is that is enables the reader to grow as a person. Through reading students gain enjoyment, develop imagination and gain inspiration. They can experience emotions, circumstances and events vicariously, they develop empathy though identifying with characters, (Lynch-Brown, Tomlinson, & Tomlinson, 2005, p.4). They can connect with their own heritage and gain an understanding of the cultures and values of others. They can develop moral reasoning. As they read they develop personal preferences and tastes in literature. In fact as the student develops as a reader they become more motivated by self selection of materials and critical of the literature they read.  (Lynch-Brown, Tomlinson, & Tomlinson, 2005, p.5). All of these attributes are qualities and strengths educators and parents would want for their students.

So with the OECD’s call to find ways to engage readers and Tomlinson’s description of the personal benefits of reading why is it that students do not read? Kelly Gallagher, author of the book Readicide: How schools are killing reading and what you can do about it, states that students lose interest in reading at school because they are forced to “jump through hoops” once they have read the books they have been assigned, (White, 2009). Stephen Krashen asserts that the only way students can become good readers is to let them read (Krashen, 2004. p. 37). He states teachers should allow the students to select what they want to read without giving them assigned work once they have read it,. He calls this Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) and research has shown that FVR reading leads to better reading comprehension, writing style, spelling and grammatical development and FVR in school leads to students reading for pleasure outside of school time (Krashen, 2004. p17).

One of the best resources to encouraging students to read is a library. Research findings in the UK have seen that, “non-library users were found to be more than three times more likely to only read when in class, and more than three times more likely to state that they cannot find anything to read that interests them, and almost three times as likely to rate themselves as not very good readers compared to library users,” (Education standards research team, 2012, p.27). In fact “the research found a link between library use and reading for pleasure; young people that use their public library are nearly twice as likely to be reading outside of class every day,” (Education standards research team, 2012, p.27). Students with access to school libraries do more reading than students who had access to a book collection without a librarian (Krashen, 2004. P 59).

 So why read? To change the world, to change yourself and because it can be fun.

 

References

Education standards research team. (2012, May). Research evidence on reading for pleasure. London: Department for Education.

 

Gallagher, K., & Allington, R. L. (2009). Readicide: How schools are killing reading and what you can do about it. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse.

 

Krashen, S. D. (2004). The power of reading: Insights from the research (2nd ed.). Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.

 

Lynch-Brown, C., Tomlinson, C. M., & Tomlinson, C. M. (2005). Essentials of children’s literature (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

 

OECD Reports Emphasise Reading Skills, Teacher Supply as Keys to Educational Success. (2002, November 13). Retrieved November 22, 2014, from http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/oecdreportsemphasisereadingskillsteachersupplyaskeystoeducationalsuccess.htm

 

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2014, from http://www.oecd.org/about/

 

SLMS Role in Reading Task Force. (2009, July). What Every SLMS Should Know about Teaching Multiple Literacies Strategies [Microsoft powerpoint]. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC8QFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ala.org%2Faasl%2Fsites%2Fala.org.aasl%2Ffiles%2Fcontent%2Faaslissues%2Ftoolkits%2Fslroleinreading%2Frrtfmultipleliteracies.ppt&ei=lppwVOmBGIrjywOxuYGgCg&usg=AFQjCNFoozLpK9k3PxGpEnQnqLXNybS-4g&sig2=7fyuT5QinOroMYwNAPAW-w&bvm=bv.80185997,d.ZWU

White, A. (2009, July 1). Kelly Gallagher Readicide Part 2 [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6t09DxXO4

 

 

 

 

 

Why read? Richard Peck’s answer that question

I love this poem and have used it often as a prompt when asking students why they love to read.

4O

I Read by Richard Peck

I read because one
 life isn’t enough, and 
in the pages of a book I can be anybody;

I read because the 
words that build 
the story become mine, 
to build my life;

I read not for happy
 endings but for new
 beginnings; I’m just
 beginning myself, and 
I wouldn’t mind a map;

I read because I have
 friends who don’t, and
 young though they are,
 they’re beginning to
 run out of material;

I read because every
 journey begins at 
the library, and it’s
 time for me to start 
packing;

I read because one
 of these days I’m going
 to get out of this
 town, and I’m going to
 go everywhere and meet
 everyone, and I want
 to be ready.”2H I read because

–Richard Peck, author
, Zihuatanejo, Mexico, 
1990 (Peck, 1991, p. 120)

Peck, R. (1991). Anonymously yours. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: J. Messner.

 

Literature across the curriculum – initial thoughts

In my first year teaching, many years ago, I worked at Rutherford High School in New Zealand. One of the subjects I taught was called Humanities – that was a posh name for ‘Social Studies’. I particularly loved the curriculum they had then at Rutherford High. Each unit had about four or five novels (with multiple copies of the titles) linked with it. One unit was on Industrialism and there were some great novels linked with it set in Victorian times showing the impact of this phenomena on society through story. The students were expected to read at least one of the associated novels, more if they wanted to. They kept a reading log and were invited to complete a reading response. I found this way of teaching a particular period or concept in the Humanities curriculum very empowering. The students not only had the opportunity to learn facts, skills and concepts linked with Social sciences they had them come alive in their imaginations as they read story. When I saw the title of this course I immediately though of that curriculum and the success I felt it had for my student’s learning.

Many years later I am working in a school that runs all three programmes of the International Baccalaureate.  The Primary Years Programme which is for children age 3 – 12 is Inquiry based and in my role as librarian I bring literature links to the units of Inquiry as well as Information literacy links. Our students come from a range of cultures and backgrounds and many of them have English as their second language. We use picture books and stories to proved links with curriculum. This often also helps students develop vocabulary and concepts around the unit. An example of this is our students in Prep (age 5) were Inquiry into water. We used the story Rain School by James Rumford to show how rain can be destructive in some communities. The story is set in Chad and the children have to make their school from mud bricks. Their first lessons are how to build the school. They then learn how to read and write over the next few months until the end of the school year. Then the rains come and wash away the entire school building. This really captures their imaginations and we begin to use vocabulary like floods, monsoon, and develop some of the degrees of rain as well, showers, deluge and so on.

I am hoping that this course will enable me to understand the value of literature for children’s learning and develop strategies to help my colleagues at Istanbul International Community school to integrate literature in their curriculum areas.

References

Rumford, J. (2010). Rain School. Retrieved November 16, 2014, from James Rumford website: http://jamesrumford.com/jamesrumford.com/Rain_School.html

Rumford, J. (2010). Rain school. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.