Hello all,
In addition to the genre of nonfiction, this week’s blog includes a reading reflection on the topics of International Audiences and Program Planning. There was a lot of great content this week. I got some great ideas from the programming section and I really enjoyed reading about the schools working together on storycrafting. What were your biggest takeaways from this week? Were you also obsessed with a random non-fiction topic as a child? Let me know in the comments.
On another note, It is hard to believe we have reached our last blog post and are nearly at the end of ISCI 600! I have really enjoyed reading your blogs. I will also greatly miss the stories that you share each week. Everyone has their own style and flair, and no two stories have been alike. Watching our classes’ videos has been a bright spot in a difficult summer.
Thanks again for all the great shares.
Lauren
THIS WEEK’S GENRE
This week’s genre was non-fiction. A lot of people hear non-fiction and simply assume that kids would never be interested in that genre. That is definitely not the case. Some kids that won’t read anything else will read a non-fiction book about a subject that interests them. After a year or two, I had read all the fiction books about horses that my elementary school library had to offer and they never ordered new ones. I wasn’t really interested in other fiction topics, so in spite of the fact that I didn’t even own a horse, I checked out Colin Vogel’s The Complete Horse Care Manual: The Essential Practical Guide to All Aspects of Caring For Your Horse every library visit for an entire school year.
Having a diverse collection of non-fiction books in a school library benefits both students and teachers. Non-Fiction books are a great way to infuse reading across curriculum areas. For example, biographies work really well because you can let the students pick a person from your subject or current standard. Students get to have a choice in who they read about and teachers are able to add reading into a subject that may not traditionally emphasize it.
TOPIC ONE: INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCES
Aliens with Einstein Heads was one of my favorite readings this week. The article is an overview of the creative partnership between Australian school children and authors through the Pigeons organization. Through Pigeons, the children create a story with the adult author by corresponding through letters. The process took six months. I thought this was especially neat because children are used to things happening quickly due to the high tech world we live in. Allowing the collaboration to move at this slower pace let the kids get really invested in the process and get comfortable with their partner author (Watkins, McIntyre, Grant, 2012). The final product was a professionally done book of their stories and most importantly, a huge impact on the young authors. The children quoted in the article loved the project. For some, the process completely changed their feelings towards writing and gave them confidence in their own writing ability. That is huge. In the future, I would love to incorporate something like this into my own library program. Even though this was classroom based, something similar could most definitely work through the school library as well.
Children Encounter Each Other Through Storytelling and Our Stories are Pretty Weird Too both gave us a very interesting look at how stories can be the bridge we use to relate to each other. In these articles, researchers facilitate a storycrafting exchange experience between students in different countries. Children Encounter Each Other Through Storytelling covered exchanges between Scottish, Finnish, and International Schools in Europe. Our Stories are Pretty Weird Too covered exchanges between Finnish and Belgium schools. As the authors point out, most intercultural exchanges between students are in a penpal-like format where they exchange letters. In this study, researchers wanted the students to have an intercultural learning experience where they were creating together rather than focusing on differences / otherness (Piipponen & Karlsson , 2019).
These articles had me cracking up with laughter at some of the stories the children created. At first, they were hesitant, and when the teacher was guiding them they responded more academically. When the teacher served as more of a facilitator rather than leading, things got a lot more creative. They started sort of pushing the envelope to see what they could include. I especially loved how once one group of children wrote a story, the other group would respond with a similar kind of story. I remember once in fourth grade our teacher let us write stories about whatever we wanted. Our stories sounded a lot like these children’s stories. There were a lot of random things exploding for no reason, toilet humor, defying adults, and vandalism of school property in our stories. It is good to see that some things never change if adults get out of the way.
At the International Storytelling Conference 2013, Diane Ferlatte said “When we pass and share our stories from person to person from place to place around this world, we are creating something: a larger community.” I think that quote fits perfectly with our International Audiences topic. A continuous theme throughout this section has been that stories connect people and build bridges. Through stories we are able to help children lean into their creative potential. Stories have the power to connect people across cultures and let them create together. I think that’s really cool.
TOPIC 2: Program Planning
Whether we are in a school library or a public library, quality programming is key to engaging our patrons. The article Categorizing Library Public Programs shares that the results of two three year studies support that “library programming is important to Americans.” (Barchas-Lichtenstein, et al., 2020, p. 565). More than 90% of the participants placed a very high value on youth programs and free events / classes for all ages. (Barchas-Lichtenstein, et al., 2020) The contents of the Program Planning section offered lots of great ideas for quality programs and events that are already working well in other libraries. I have highlighted some of the ones that I liked the best from each item below:
Storytelling Art and Technique Ch. 11: Program Planning
My favorite suggestion from Ch. 11 is the family storytelling events (Greene & Del Negro, 2010). Although we tend to think of school library programming as being during school hours, evening and weekend events are becoming more popular. Schools in our area host literacy nights, math nights, and more. Storytelling night would be a great edition to this lineup. These events are a great way to get families involved in the school community.
Books, Children, Dogs, Artists: Library Programs for the Entire Family:
This article shared some of the programs that are going on at the John Hopkins’ Family Resource Center Library. The library itself serves the children at John Hopkins and also welcomes their siblings and families (John Hopkins Medicine, n.d.). One program, called “Paws to Read” where children read aloud to a therapy dog. If children cannot read, a library staff member or therapy dog owner sits and helps them read the story to the dog. Paws to Read allows the children to have a comforting listening partner and to simply just enjoy the company of the dog for a while (Harver, 2014). Therapy Dogs are a wonderful way to help children feel more comfortable reading. I would love to incorporate dogs into my future library programming. It is amazing how animals can have such a calming, reassuring presence for both children and adults.
Participation Palooza! Creating a Festive Storytime Atmosphere with Interactive Books
As a future school librarian, I want kids to look forward to coming to visit the media center. Children have to sit so much during the school day so I want to incorporate movement and interactivity in any way that I can to help them get the wiggles out and have fun. The article shares several great books for audience participation and getting the children involved. I know that my own children would love the Make A Scary Face. As Pyrek points out, the kids don’t necessarily have to be fully running around even just getting them on their feet helps to engage them and reduce restlessness. She has great ideas on how to make flap books, die-cuts, and other interactives work for both small and large audiences. Additionally, I love her suggestion on how to use questioning to engage the children’s natural desire to share their thoughts (Pyrek, 2023).
The Story Is More Important Than the Words A Portrait of a Reader-Focused Library Program:
I love how the librarian had QR codes posted so that students could scan and watch the book trailer or book talk. As a high school teacher, I know that even though some students will act uninterested in watching a book talk in person, they would 100% scan that code and watch it when they’re away from their friends. It is also beneficial for shy students to have way to connect. I also like how she combined the students’ interest surveys with a lesson on how to use Boolean operators in OPAC to create their own lists. This was such a clever way to teach search skills that are transferable to many different platforms and teach the students how to use a library resource.
All about Cocky's reading express
I loved seeing Cocky’s Reading Express in action! I would love to have Cocky and his team come visit my future library, but in the meantime it would be neat to implement something similar on a local level. For example, high school students and their mascot could visit the feeder elementary schools and read to the children. When I am a school librarian I am going to try to make that happen. We have high school teacher cadet programs in our district, so we already have the basic connections in place.
1000 Black Girl book
Books that feature diverse characters are so important and this site is a great reference for finding quality books that feature black girls as the main character. I love that there are close to 1,000 choices and that the table can be sorted by author, title, and reading level. It is definitely a resource that I will bookmark for future use.
Sensory Story Time: A program designed for families of children with autism
This was a great window into how we can make the library a more inclusive space for everyone. Ideas such as the textured balance beam, bean bag activities, etc. can be used in general ed classes because they benefit all children, but especially the SPED students that may be a part of those classes. At my previous school, there was an Autism specialty program as well as a self contained program. This video has some wonderful ideas on how we can help meet the students and where they are and make library time more welcoming and inclusive.
This Week’s Reading List
References
AkronSummitLibrary (2014, April 15). Sensory Story Time: A program designed for families of children with autism. [Video]. https://youtu.be/xwAT88XQsK4
Barchas-Lichtenstein, J., Norlander, R. J., Fraser, J., Fournier, M. D., Voiklis, J., Nock, K., & Danter, E. (2020). Categorizing Library Public Programs. Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 563–579.
GrassROOTS Community Foundation. (n.d.). 1000 Black Girl Books Resource Guide. Retrieved from GrassROOTS Community Foundation: http://grassrootscommunityfoundation.org/1000-black-girl-books-resource-guide/
Greene, E., & Del Negro, J. M. (2010). Storytelling: Art and Technique (4th ed.). Libraries Unlimited.
Grigsby, S. K. (2014). The story is more important than the words: A Portrait of a Reader-Focused Library Program. Knowledge Quest, 43(1), 22-28.
Haver, M. K. (2014, April 15). Books, Children, Dogs, Artists: Library Programs for the Entire Family. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 211-217. doi:: https://doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2014.897523
John Hopkins Medicine. (n.d.). Library. Retrieved from Johns Hopkins Children's Center: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/johns-hopkins-childrens-center/patients-and-families/child-life/library.html
Koleji, I. (2013, May 27) Many Stories but One World - Diane Ferlatte. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/iduMoffZ_54
Piipponen, O., & Karlsson, L. (2019). Children encountering each other through storytelling: Promoting intercultural learning in schools. The Journal of Educational Research, 112(5), 590–603. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2019.1614514
Piipponen, O., & Karlsson, L. (2021). Our Stories are Pretty Weird Too – Children as creators of a shared narrative culture in an intercultural story and drawing exchange. International Journal of Educational Research, 1-10. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101720
Pyrek, J. (2014). Participation Palooza! Creating a Festive Storytime Atmosphere with Interactive Books. Children and Libraries(Spring), 10-12.
SouthCarolinaETV (2016, December 6). Cocky's Reading Express Promoting Early Literacy Across S.C.[Video]. https://youtu.be/imFRiMWI5AY
Watkins, M., Macintyre, P., & Grant, G. (2012). ‘Aliens with Einstein Heads’: Creative Storytelling Partnerships between Child, Author and Artist. The International Journal of the Book, 9(3), 53-65.
