No Shhing Here

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...

I love booktalking, but I always find it frustrating; I prep 3-5 booktalks, go into classrooms for the day, and pitch the book. It's great for a couple periods, but after a while, I run out of copies of the books I'm promoting. It feels silly to booktalk books that aren't available to be checked out, and creating booktalks is a TON of work, so it's not practical to just switch to different booktalks in the afternoon.  The "Sell Your Book!" activity is my answer to this problem. It's a fresh, new alternative to speed-dating or book-tasting selection activities.  This book selection activity asks students to "sell" a book by working collaboratively to create a booktalk they present to the class . The lesson takes 40-45 minutes, requires both independent and collaborative work, and harnesses the power of student voice and student choice.  Because STUDENTS are creating NEW booktalks every period, it solves my booktalk problem; we never run out of boo...

I found this fantastic idea from @MonteSyrie, shared by @teacher2teacher on Twitter. It provides students with scaffolded support to help complete missing assignments, but also requires students to take ownership of the process.  The idea's all his -- I just tweaked the wording and threw it into Canva so I could print four to a page. If you're looking for the Canva template link -- click here .   

Looking for the posters and stickers we used for our reading challenge?  Here's a link to the Canva template for the poster.  And here's a link to the Canva template with all the individual sticker graphics. Please note: I've got some fair criticism about featuring "Black Characters" vs "Hispanic Authors" and "A.A.P.I. Authors," so going forward, I will be changing my version to: "Black Voices," "Hispanic Voices," "A.A.P.I Voices," etc. You may wish to do the same with these templates before printing. Want to have stickers printed? I had good luck with this company , ordering through the Amazon website. My ordering specs were: 1) Shape = Contour Cut, 2) Size = 2", 3) Quantity = 100, 4) Lamination = no. Each pack of 100 stickers came to $35.91. I am happy with the quality and size -- we'll see if they hold up well once kids stick them on laptops, etc.