No Shhing Here

In a reading slump? Looking for a little extra motivation? Not sure what to read next? Join us in the Teacher's Printz Reader Challenge! Calling all teachers and school staff! Join my building and some of my favorite teachers in the Printz Reader Challenge! It's a perfect option for ELA teachers, librarians, or anyone that enjoys reading YA - bonus if you also work with the target audience for YA - teenagers! The challenge is super simple:  Print off a copy of the challenge badge. If you have a button maker, turn it into a button. Here's a PDF of printable badges , and a link to the original Canva template . Read the 5 young adult books that won the Printz Award or were designated Printz Honor books: All my Rage by Sabba Tahir, Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei, Queer Ducks by Eliot Schrefer and Jules Zuckerberg, When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb, and Scout's Honor by Lily Anderson. Your goal? Finish before your school year ends. Every time you finish...

  As librarians, we cover so many different standards. Information literacy? Check. English Language Arts? Check. Reading? Check. STEM? Check. Computer science? Check. Over the last year or two, I've added social-emotional learning to the list of skills and competencies I teach through library instruction.  Some strategies are super obvious - like direct instruction as part of my teaching, but other methods like book displays and bulletin boards are more subtle. One primary focus of my library program is supporting students' mental health, which is directly tied to the SEL strand of emotional regulation.  Emotional regulation refers to the ability to manage and express emotions in a healthy and appropriate way. Emotional regulation is essential for secondary students, who are navigating the challenges and complexities of adolescence. During this time, my junior high kids feel a huge range of intense emotions, from excitement and joy to frustration and anger and everything...

One of our diversity, equity, and inclusion goals is to increase students' exposure to diverse voices. Although we strive to do this all year long, history and heritage months are good opportunities for a special focus.  Black History Month, celebrated in February each year, recognizes and honors the contributions and accomplishments of African Americans throughout history. It also serves as a reminder of the ongoing struggle for civil rights and racial equality, and it provides an opportunity for education and reflection on the ways in which black history has shaped and continues to shape the United States. Additionally, it helps to combat the lack of representation of black history and achievements in mainstream education and media. My go-to method for history and heritage months is to create a slide deck celebrating noteworthy individuals. I share the slides with my teachers, who then can utilize them at the start of every class period. Black History month's slides are avai...

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This is a time where we come together to celebrate all that we are grateful for. For many of us, that includes our families and friends, good food, and plenty of warm memories. But what about our favorite book characters? What do they have to be grateful for? To celebrate Thanksgiving and the month of November, I've put together a special book display featuring YA characters who are grateful for everything they have in their lives. Like most of us, these YA characters are grateful for friends, family and their health, but UNLIKE us, they're also grateful for things like newfound magical powers and recent escapes from serial killers. Interactivity is a key feature of this display. Not only does it include gratitude reflections for each YA character, but it also invites students to use provided post-it notes and add what they're grateful for. This interactive aspect is a great way to get students engaged with the material and thinking about what ...

As a school librarian, I often create resources for teachers, but I don't always know if they have the desired impact, as they might be utilized when I'm not in the classroom. Case in point:  the daily agenda slides I created for Hispanic Heritage month .  This resource took a ton of time to create and was one of my big summer projects before the school year ramped up. I thought they were an accessible way to introduce diverse voices into our curriculum, and I liked the tie-in to national heritage months, but I wasn't sure if my teachers felt the same. Then, last week, I started getting emails asking if I had daily agenda slides to share for the upcoming Native American Heritage Month -  teachers were reporting it had become part of their classroom routine, and that students would remind them if they had forgotten to introduce the "person of the day." Happily, I had a slide deck ready to go, and now our social studies teachers have a month's worth of daily age...

My building overhauled the schedule this year, and with the new changes, my opportunities to hold a student book club during the school day were significantly impacted. I was extra disappointed because I'd worked really hard to develop and establish our new Reader Challenge , which required a monthly book club-style meeting for kids to earn their challenge badge. I was lamenting to some ELA colleagues how book clubs were my only opportunity to address these NYS library standards: Grade 8: Participates in literary discussions, special literary programs, and book clubs Grade 9:  Shares reading experiences and responses to literature in multiple ways (e.g., face-to-face conversations, technology presentations, posters, creative products) Unlike classroom teachers with rostered students, I don't have DEDICATED time to work with kids, so a schedule change meant that I wasn't able to cover these standards during the school day. Eighth-grade ELA teachers to the rescue! While we we...