No Shhing Here

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...

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.