Over the summer School Library Journal floated out the idea that many children’s authors would consider doing a free 20′ Skype author visit.  That sounded just great to a third grade teacher and me.  We scoured the list for the authors with the most appeal to our kids and sent a few Tweets to inquire.  No dice.  (But we’re not giving up!)

But in the meantime, I had also heard from Michelle Bayuk, head of marketing for Albert Whitman, that Whitman was going to launch five Twitter feeds: one for the narrator of the Boxcar Children and one in the voice of each of the four characters. 

AND, as I’ve mentioned before, I learned that the Boxcar Children (which remains a favorite with our second and third graders) is now a graphic novels series!

There was just one hurdle: how could we connect our young learners with the five Twitter feeds without having them log into Twitter (which restricts access to users over 13) and with all the feeds appearing on one page? We just wanted the Boxcar Twitter feeds, not everything else.

Leave it to my intrepid (and, sadly, about to depart) student teacher Raya, who figured out a way to get the Twitter feeds we need and embed them into our new media center wiki.  Voila! We had what we needed.

Now we had a cool opportunity to talk about how there are many ways to tell a story in the 21st century: with “regular” books, with graphic novels, AND with (a safe version of) Twitter. 

Our wheels started turning.  Would Michelle consider Skyping with our kids?

Michelle had an even more interesting idea: let Boxcar ghostwriter and editor Wendy McClure do the interview!

So we planned a three-day set of activities in lieu of the regular book talks we give when kids come to check out:

• Day One: Introduce/re-introduce kids to Chapter 1 of the chapter book, graphic novel, and Twitter feed
• Day Two: Talk about the role of an editor, with a role-play in which I played the author and Raya and the class played the editor.  (See our efforts on Etherpad - a wonderful tool! - here). Talk about what comprises a good interview question.
• Day Three: In classrooms, kids and teachers worked HARD to create great questions.  They then came to the media center for the interview!

Wow! Our kids did a phenomenal job.  Even with a double-class, they were glued to the screen, poised, attentive, and did ask great questions.  Best of all, they listened for the answers because the answers mattered to them.

We didn’t have the typical author visit, but we had something that empowered our kids to do their best and to think more deeply. And next time they get a paper back from their teacher with editing suggestions, I bet they’ll think just a bit more about how all authors have editors, even the famous ones!

Thanks so much to Michelle and Wendy for giving our kids the chance to dig into some authentic work and to feel proud of their results. There is a wonderful feeling that comes over a media center when kids are really engaged with what they are learning about, and we’ve had three great days of that.

You can view:

• our Boxcar Children Skype plans (they didn’t go exactly according to Hoyle, but it worked out OK!)
• our Etherpad page where we modeled the author/editor relationship
• our school library blog post with more details!

Carl Harvey tagged me for a meme on what I want to be teaching in 2009.  I want to spin this a bit and talk about what I want my elementary students to be learning in 2009.  Here’s a start:

- I am continually working on shifting the focus from my teaching to student learning and from my library to our library.  

 

- I am hoping that my students will continue to deepen their interaction with information.  We’re still working on the delicate balance between developing the building blocks of research (”find answers to the questions on this list”) and inquiry.  Elementary kids do need some practice as they build the practical mini-skills that they’ll need for inquiry. The important thing is that we realize that those foundational skills are a means to an end, not an end.

 

- We’re playing with strategies to help our youngest learners engage in non-text-based inquiry.  We borrowed rocks from our Environmental Center and studied their attributes, and we launched the Fish Detectives who observe our school’s fish tank and compare their observations to the photos in our fish books.  Inquiry with objects with our pre-readers is working. 

- I’m working to help students see that their work comes with certain ownership/copyright privileges.  When our students see that their work “belongs” to them, it helps build a fundamental understanding of copyright.  I’m tickled beyond belief because our podcasting/videocasting students are starting to credit their influencers (teachers and fellow students), resources, and audio clips in their work.  WITHOUT US TELLING THEM TO DO IT Empowering them is so much more fun than nagging them to cite.  

 

- Our staff is on an ongoing journey to explore 21st-century learning themes: the ASCD Whole Child initiative, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, the NETS*S, and the AASL Standards.  We’re starting to gain a common vocabulary and to realize that some of our deepest values as early childhood/elementary educators — play well with others, be fair, you are defined by not only what you accomplish but the kind of person that you are, etc. — are validated by these documents.  They remind us that we’re not starting from scratch and can build from where we are.  We are looking forward to a post-NCLB world and to a return to more holistic approaches to learning. 

 

- I’m continuing to work on being more explicit when I see students practicing the AASL Standards’ dispositions in action.  (I used to observe the dispositions and talk about them with teachers, but we didn’t necessarily bring the kids into that conversation.  Debbie Abilock got me thinking about being explicit with the learners.)  I’m trying to name the behaviors I’m seeing in hopes that students will see them in themselves.

 

- I’m trying to really think about conceptual understanding and how we support that in kids.  For example, a colleague in another building and I got into a really interesting conversation about how she teaches the concept of classification before she teaches the Dewey Decimal System.  Classification is a transferable concept – when students know that classification can be used by scientists just as it can be used by librarians, it packs a far bigger whallop than just teaching kids to memorize Dewey.  (Blech - boring.  I never memorized it until I was in my thirties, and I turned out OK.) 

 

- Many of the elementary media specialists in our district are working on developing centers in their libraries to encourage students’ independent explorations and creativity.  We’re populating our library spaces with magnetic letters and poetry, magnifying glasses, science observation areas, magnetized paper dolls, felt/flannel boards, checkerboards, writing centers, easels, white boards, math manipulatives, computer software, Web sites, and more.  We’re thinking about how students can “accidentally” develop writing, reading, drawing, problem-solving, and teamwork while we’re scrambling to check in their books or helping kids one-on-one.  We’re amazed at our students’ level of engagement and creativity.  And we have a bunch of kids who are writing about Sydney and how, when she puts three pigtails — trigtails — into her hair, she turns into a superhero.  Gotta love it.  We hardly ever have to say, “Stop playing Star Wars with the shelf markers” anymore.  We want our students to feel that the library is a place where they can engage in many ways - including and beyond books.

 

- We’re trying to empower students to use the library as their creative work space.  We opened up the schedule book this year and let kids directly book space in our production room and media center for their creative group work.  (Sometimes, I see “Katie” in the schedule book and think, “Who on our staff is named Katie?” Oh, Third Grade Katie booked it.) We’ve got some kinks to work out  (How did that library chair end up in our 48″ tall recycling bin — and why do we take perverse pride in that? Could someone please take the abandoned cafeteria food baskets back instead of just neatly stacking them up? And does anybody know where our tablecloths for lunchtime visitors went?), but it’s building more teacher-student camaraderie.  

 

- Weekly book talking with third and fourth graders has worked wonders in improving the variety and quality of what kids are checking out.  And we have a bunch of kids who now offer to book talk to their peers and host their own lunchtime book clubs.

 

- And we’re still working on some of the basics … Seriously, first graders, don’t think I don’t notice that you check out off-limits books when there’s a sub.  If you don’t want me to notice, don’t keep them until they’re overdue and Follett makes that nasty beep sound.  Return them on time, and I’ll never catch on to your little scheme.    

 

OK, your turn … what’s on your agenda?Â

Image: Schoolibrarymedia.com

If you haven’t read this month’s feature issue in School Library Media Activities Monthly by Alison Zmuda and Violet Harada about transforming the role of the media specialist into a learning specialist, hurry up and get your hands on a copy.  I have long admired these women’s work, and when I read this article, I was just dumbstruck.  They managed to convey exactly the reasons why I became a school library media specialist — to get students thinking more thoughtfully and deeply.

Sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of spring research, budget decisions, and meetings, we lose sight of our real passions for the job.  Take  a moment to read this article and become re-inspired for the months ahead.