Pickering H.S. Practicum Hours: Sept. 18-22

You will have to excuse me in the mess I've been making in the labeling and structure of this blog.  I have came up with the proper formula and I will be implementing it from now on.  I will make sure to put the name in the title as well as the dates of the school I attended.  This will help to keep my work straight and make the posts easier to follow.  This whole blog is an experiment to see if I can keep up with it and keep it organized.  Mistakes will happen, but just like I tell my students, we have to learn from our mistakes and try to change them, otherwise we are doomed to repeat them!  

I am also going to try to include as many pictures as possible into my blog posts.  I find that documenting the work one is doing through words is great, but using pictures can sometimes be even more powerful, plus it is a great way for stakeholders to actually "see" what you are doing.  Advocacy is a big part of having a successful school library program, so by practicing my ability to advocate through pictures and online writing, I am hopefully ensuring I will be able to bring awareness to my school library and what is going on within its walls and be able to better advocate for the resources needed to make a successful school library program.

IST 972: Pickering High School Journal

9/18/12 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (5.5)
9/22/12 9:00a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (5.5)
Total hours to date: 22.5

Summary of Daily Activities/Experiences:
-Labeled, processed, and organized new student workbooks and textbooks.

-Reorganized non-fiction and discussed reorganizing graphic novel and biography section.  Decided to move these sections and reorganize classroom sets and magazine sections to accommodate the move in the resources.

-Met with middle/high school ELA teacher Mrs. Winn to continue working on lesson plans for the introduction of booktalks.  Discussed the layout and objectives for lesson 1 and resources that will be needed thesaurus and materials (large chart paper that will stay on the wall for students to see appeal terms).

-Worked with Mrs. Labato to figure out alternative funding to add to her non-fiction collection.

Personal Reflections:

            This was a very productive week at the Pickering High School Library.  Mrs. Labato and I have been evaluating the effectiveness of the layout of her collection of non-fiction resources and decided it was best to reorganize and change things up in the library.  Students have not begun to enter the library for lessons yet, and we both saw this as an opportunity to organize and get all the books just right before the students started to come in and utilize the library’s resources.  Student’s will start coming into the library for lessons next Wednesday and I’m looking forward to seeing how Mrs. Labato interacts with teachers and the students who will be coming in. 

            On Tuesday, the internet was down in the whole district so working strictly with the collection was a nice break and let me really can evaluate the currency of the collection.  I would say that the non-fiction section of the Pickering Library is dated.  However, Mrs. Labato is aware of this and knows that she needs to fill in the gaps.  However, I found out that her budget this year was cut from $9,000 down to $5,000.  This is a huge drop in funds and I’ve suggested that we look at donor’s choice for supplementing monies for the collection or considering grants to purchase new non-fiction books.  Pickering High School’s fiction section is very extensive and features a range of serials and genres.  She has both very high-level books and very low-level books and everything in between.  Her students are very fortunate that they have such an extensive collection to choose from, especially when it comes to recreational reading.  When I meet with Mrs. Winn’s class I am going to try to push the fact that they are fortunate to have a library with such a rich and diverse fiction collection.

            In addition to working in the library I could meet with Mrs. Winn again and further tighten our lesson for implementing booktalks.  She brought up the suggestion of having students think about their favorite childhood book to use as an example to build their booktalks.  I thought this was a great idea, as I was a little concerned that maybe the students would not have a book they were currently reading to share with the class.  I also brought up the suggestion that we could extend this activity to include student’s sharing a magazine article, blog, YouTube video, or picture they found and wanted to share.  I think this would be a great way to expand into media and visual literacy and help those students who may not be interested in reading books to want to participate in the activity.