Category: Literacy

How does your garden grow? Watering seeds! Why every interaction matters

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Cottage Garden

I had a chance encounter with an ex-student at the Southland Nethui two weeks ago.

Our paths had crossed briefly 5 years ago when he was in his final year and I was in my first year at SBHS.  He professed to “not being much of a reader” at school.  He’s a fisherman, a regular “Kiwi bloke” who wanted to talk to me about books.  He reads!  He talks to the guys on the fishing boat about what he’s reading. He even sometimes, when he’s not at sea, attends the monthly public library book club.  And he wanted to share his reading journey with me!

He asked for a couple of book recommendations, which I gladly gave him, and I also gave him my card saying he was welcome to keep in touch.  Well, I received an email from him earlier this week.  He wanted to thank me for my recommendation (Fahrenheit 451) – he loved it – and did I have any other suggestions.  I quickly replied with my next recommendation, and he, in turn, replied he’ll let me know what he thinks – this time it’s The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.  I think I have found a new kindred spirit!

Why am I sharing this story? As an encouragement for all my librarian and teaching colleagues. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to receive unexpected affirmative gifts like this, but more often than not, we never know our reach or influence.  Be very sure that these incidents are not just one-off anomalies, rather they’re just the tip of the iceberg. For every one student who seeks you out or you have a chance conversation with, there will be many others that you don’t cross paths with.

So, celebrate your awesomeness, continue to be approachable, kind and caring for ALL your students.

I shared my story with a teaching colleague, (he asked to be remembered to her cos she was his favourite teacher) and she was reminded of this whakatauki, which she felt encompasses the story’s essence.

Whakatauki #1.png
or, “even though it is not big, the important thing is the value “

I’m going to put this poster up in my library where I can see it to remind me, EVERY interaction sows seeds, and HOW we respond to that interaction will water those seeds.

Go be gardeners and waterers of seeds!

How do we put a spotlight on literacy?

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As the secondary librarian on this research team, I am conscious that information literacy features at many library-centric conferences, which illustrates the point Lisa makes in this blog post about preaching to the choir. My focus, since becoming involved with this TLRI, is to extend the conversation into wider education groups, to begin some of the conversations that need to happen, and shine a light on the examples that provide evidence for the success on student outcomes when teachers and librarians work together to make IL skills visible in the classroom.

Information Literacy Spaces

mum-photo.jpgIt’s a month now since I returned from the (very) sunny Northern Hemisphere, and the tan lines have all but faded away. The trip certainly included plenty of fun (and shopping!), but most of all it was an opportunity to present our research findings at two significant conferences on higher education.

Both conferences looked very relevant to the work we’re doing in the Information Literacy Spaces project. The first conference was the European First Year Higher Education Conference, held in beautiful Utrecht. I had high hopes for this conference, as I have a long-held interest in student transition to higher education, both from a research perspective, but also in my role as a Director of Teaching and Learning at Massey University. And, indeed, there were some interesting papers. But the whole focus of the conference seemed to be about testing students at point of entry and ensuring students’ skills/knowledge matched…

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Two-Sentence Horror Story

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Goodreads have great Halloween treats all week for those who are into a good horror to tingle the spine.  However, it’s the two sentence horror story that has my mind turning towards writing activities for classes.

Two sentence horror Justin Cronin

Wouldn’t this be a great idea to share with your English teaching colleagues? I know our boys would relish the opportunity to gross each other out by suitably horrific premises, and what an excellent opportunity to encourage them to investigate wonderfully descriptive words to convey their message.  It also will teach them to be succinct in their choice of sentences and why each word matters.

Once the students have crafted their sentences they could each create a slide through Google Slides, such as the ones shown here (just love Justin Cronin’s work!), to publish their short horror story.  Teachers could create a class presentation with each of the slides to share with everyone.  Power-point would be an equally good presentation option for teachers who didn’t want to use and online option.

Two sentence horror Kendare Blake

Spine Poetry Jan Clothier

PS:  This is a great Spine Poem with the horror theme supplied by Jan Cothier at Karamu High School in Hastings, which I just had to share

Also, Sally Pewhairangi has invited you to play along on her Finding Heroes Facebook page

And the winner of the Book Spine Poetry Competition is…

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For those librarians looking for a fun Library Week competition, this is one of the best I’ve come across in a long time! Well done to Melbourne High School for this simple but effective way to promote poetry and books in a whole new way!

Melbourne High School Library

Drumroll….

Hanford Lam! Congratulations, Hanford, for a well structured and creative poem using book spines.

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Thank you to Dr Prideaux for judging the competition. Dr Prideaux’s job was not an easy one, and she spent quite a while selecting the best from several well composed poems.

Hanford’s poem was so long that the stack of books threatened to topple. I took a photo of the entire poem but also of the poem in two parts so that it was legible.

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Matt Lyons came a close second but unfortunately for him there was a single prize of a $30 iTunes voucher which eluded him. Better luck next time, Matt.

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Here are the other excellent entries.

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Dr Prideaux was also impressed with Ms Buckland’s poem which deserves a special mention.

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Memory Game – a Step in the Programme

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I just love those days when a colleague shares something and it sparks off an idea that makes your brain fizz and pop!

Match

http://flic.kr/p/6Vute5

Yesterday was one of those days for me. It all started when the wonderful Desna Wallace shared a link to the Stylist list of 100 Best Opening Lines from Children’s Books

I just love the way it looks and works, with the pictures of the books and then hover over the picture to read the first line of it.  So it got me thinking …..

100_Opening_Lines

I am currently working on creating a set of resources to support a new Y7 & 8 library and research skills programme that I’m developing at my new school.  I have an absolutely fantastic group of teachers to work with here and the junior school staff are so willing to collaborate with me, welcoming me into their classrooms.

So when I saw this post I was immediately struck by how cool it would be to design a memory card game, using the covers of the books on one set and the corresponding first line from each book on another set.  The students could then play the game by either matching the pairs correctly, or have them working in groups to decide which bo0k went with which first line.

In a slightly simpler version, I will use the same concept with book covers and authors names.  Both of these ideas still require some fine-tuning and tweaking, but it’s simple, relatively easy to make and fun for the students, with the potential to incorporate a competitive element into it that all boys love.

So, a big thanks Desna and I would encourage everyone to keep sharing.  It’s gold!

Supporting Literacy in Libraries

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Yesterday I had the opportunity to present to some of our literacy teachers working in Southland schools, a range of ideas for how libraries can support the work they are doing with our students.

I always enjoy being able to talk to others about what I love to do, rediscovering a shared passion and connection for reading and learning, and today was no exception.  These teachers genuinely care about their students and the outcomes they can help shape for them. And they’re great at sharing the good things that work for them with others.

As time was limited, I chose to narrow the presentation down to three main areas: Reading for Enjoyment, Extending Reading and Supporting Research.  If you’d like to view my presentation with links to resources I use at Hargest you can now do that on Slideshare.