A Reflection on Literacy Events for Families

We had a nice turn out for our Family Literacy Night again this year.  I have had many different variations of our family night: a reading carnival, a reading pep rally, and the the current version: an evening of many literacies.  During the last two years, in the spirit of participatory learning, (which got me all excited when I learned about it from Henry Jenkins) students have led sessions for parents on several different #literacies  (which is one of my passions brought on from the teaching of great Donna Alvermann at UGA and all of my PLN friends in the area of  #literacies  Anna Smith, Emily Pendegrass and Buffy Hamilton just to name a few).  Parents rotate among the classes to experience all of the student-led sessions.  Probably my favorite part about this year's fam lit night was our collaboration with the teen services librarian at Athens Regional Library.  Lauren came and provided activities for the middle schoolers while the parents were in the sessions.  We have done quite a bit of collaboration with Lauren from the library this year, and I'm super excited to share more about that....in another blog post soon.

I found our current lit night model to be pretty successful, and the parents seem to be impressed with the student experts and many literacies for learning, but I wonder how we could get more parents to attend.  I've used the trick of having kids perform or be involved to get more participation with orchestra and step team performances as well as student presenters, but sometimes the parents come begrudgingly to the literacy sessions b/c their only real motivation for coming is to watch their kid perform in the orchestra/step team, etc.  With the 600 students in our school, I guess I'm an overachiever to hope we could pull more than the 50 or 60 parents that show for the evening.  Do you think this is a reasonable turnout?  Do most schools have a family literacy night or event to promote literacy with parents?  How do you get more parents to participate?

CMS Family Literacy Night is this Tuesday!

Please join us for the CMS Family Literacy Night this Tuesday from 6-7 p.m.  We will have the book fair open for your shopping pleasure and will have literacy sessions for parents, middle school students, as well as the younger siblings. 

Students will lead sessions for parents on Digital Literacy, Writing 6 Word Memoirs, Book Talks, and Information Literacy. CMS Middle Schoolers will be able to participate in exciting activities provided by Mrs. Lauren, Teen Services Librarian, who will be visiting CMS from next door at the Athens Regional Library.  AND the elementary and preschool age children will be have a chance to participate in foreign language literacy activities with the CMS Foreign Language Staff, so bring the whole family for this ultra engaging night of learning and fun! 

For our entertainment during Family Literacy Night, we will have performances by the fantastic CMS Orchestra Ensembles and the world famous CMS Step Team.  The Books for Keeps Staff will be at CMS collecting donations of new or used books to support this very important local charity.  Students who bring in books to donate will be rewarded with one OWLS Read Talon for each book they donate up to five (of course we will take as many books as you bring).  Books for Keeps will take book donations of any type.  

Tuesday will be an OWLS Read t-shirt day at CMS, so if your child has earned an OWLS Read shirt, they may wear it to school with uniform bottoms this Tuesday to help us celebrate literacy. If your child hasn't earned their OWLS Read shirt yet, encourage them to read at school and home to earn the 35 Owls Read Talons soon!

We can’t wait to see you on Tuesday night, so grab the whole family, and maybe a stack of books to donate, and come on out to the CMS Family Literacy Night!      

OnAir Hangout with Ray Gilstrap Chief Technology Officer for Information Technology at NASA in Silcon Valley

At 3:00 today CMS 6th Graders will be participating in a Google OnAir Hangout with Ray Gilstrap from NASA to discuss jobs in STEM.

Our Very Own Student "Geek Squad"--Student Technology Helpers

A blog post I created for our new CCSD Technology Blog:

Over sixty Clarke Middle 6th, 7th and 8th graders attended a special technology training in the Clarke Middle School Media Center last week.  They will become technology experts in order to help their classmates and teachers use 21st century skills and devices at CMS.  This student technology squad is a huge asset with over 300 new netbooks at Clarke Middle School as well as the upcoming bring your own technology initiative that will begin very soon at Clarke Middle.  Twice a month the CMS "Geek Squad" will come together for technology session conducted by Clint Winter, CCSD Technology Integration Specialist and me, the school library media specialist.

With a focus on collaboration, positive attitude, and teamwork, the CMS tech squad members learn skills such as: technical troubleshooting, working within the Google Apps for Education Suite with tools like Google Drive and Blogger, as well as using the screencasting tool Screenr to create video tutorials for others.  We hope to provide our "Geek Squad" with the skills necessary to assist our school community and beyond.  Our vision would be that one day these students could not only help their classmates and teachers, but could also conduct training sessions for new CCSD teachers or maybe even hold webinars or training sessions for other school districts around the world.  

Worlds Collide: Libraries and Trans-#Literacies

Worlds Collide: Thursday, November 15th at 7:00PM ESt with #literacies twitter chat where I will be guest hosting. We'll discuss:

• What do you think is important about #literacies in the library? 
• What are your thoughts on transliteracy and the library? 
• Why is the library program important to fostering literacies?

The school library (or media center depending on what part of the country, or world in which you reside) is a fantastic place to experiment with multiple forms of literacy as well as provide a space for students to “play around” and “create” in the sandbox of literacy. Many school libraries today provide access to plethora of varied resources and devices as well as a flexible, casual and creativity provoking environment for student to work individually, in small groups or as a whole group while supporting the curriculum, but also allowing a multitude of enrichment opportunities in literacies that may not be given time in the classroom where there is so much that is required to be covered. The school librarian can also be one of the best resources in a school to provide instruction for students and faculty on information literacy as well as various forms of digital literacy. 

Just last month I attended the AASL Fall Forum which was focused on Transliteracy and how school libraries and school librarians can help create environments and collaborative opportunities for their students in transliteracy. With a keynote presentation by Henry Jenkins on library as a place for participatory culture for “a generation with a mouse in one hand and a book in the other” I found that I left the conference with my head buzzing. He shared with us YOUMedia Chicago which I have been trying for a few years to recreate in my own school library. He talked about the 4 C’s: create, collaborate, circulate, connect, and I could feel how the resources and space I provide in my library should facilitate these four concepts. And most of all I left the conference buzzing about Transliteracy--defined by Thomas, Joseph, Laccetti, Mason, Mills and Perril (2007) as "the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks." How could I do more to connect my previous knowledge in literacies with these new concepts and infuse the school library program with all of this? 

Over the last few years, I have learned so much about literacies while taking a class with Dr. Donna Alvermann and my discussions with dear library world friends such as Andy Plemmons,  Buffy Hamilton and Beth Friese as well as the many, many Twitter conversations I’ve had with the founders of #literacies chat and lots of other folks in my PLN on Twitter and now my worlds collide with the #literacies twitter chat and my recent musing on transliteracy. So, what do you think is important about #literacies in the school library?   What are your thoughts on transliteracy and the school library?  Why is the school library program important to fostering literacies?

Thomas, S., Joseph, C., Laccetti, J., Mason, B., Mills, S. and Perril, S. (2007). Transliteracy: Crossing divides. First Monday, 12(12). Retrieved July 13, 2010, from firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2060/1908

A Summer Adventure: 10,000 Book Community Reading Challenge

After five years as a school librarian and another five as an English teacher, I've created many a summer reading list and promoted several different types of summer reading programs, but this year my goal was to do something a little different. So, after a discussion with one of our English teachers and my principal and a whole lot of help from one of our gifted divas, we came up with the Clarke Middle School Community of Readers Summer Reading 10,000 Book Challenge!

Ready Set Read.... 

We created a summer reading information sheet and log for each student and then created a summer reading webpage on the CMS Media Center Website We set a goal for our school family (students and their families and faculty and their families) to read 10,000 books collectively. Each CMS student was asked to become a cheerleader for reading in their home. Each family will log the books they read this summer (parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, cousins, anyone that may live in your home). Any book counts: books read alone or together, story books, chapter books, novels, graphic novels, picture books, whole magazines, etc., etc., etc. 

So far, I've promoted the Summer Reading Challenge to the rising 6th graders on their visit last week, to the parents via our school listserv, media center blog and Facebook page, and the English teachers are promoting the challenge to their classes. I have several students drawing and painting a five foot tall wooden owl with a stack of ten books to track our progress toward the 10,000 book goal. We will show off our owl this summer during the summer library media center hours where we will open for families to come in on select Thursday afternoons to check out books, use the computers and iPads, read, play games, talk about books, etc.

At the end of the summer each student and faculty member that turns in a log with at least 15 books their family read this summer will be able to attend a pizza party. Once we reach the 10,000 book goal there will be a HUGE school-wide surprise!

My goal for this project is to get the whole family involved with summer reading and to build a community of readers around our school family. I hope this summer reading challenge leads to many meaningful discussions about books and the habit of reading!

Library Day in the Life: Recording my activities as a school librarian for a week

If you interested in what I do for a whole week as a school librarian then check me out on Twitter @cmslibrarylady I'll be tweeting with the hashtag #libday8 and recording a play-by-play of life as the Clarke Middle librarian. I'll be updating my Chirpstory daily.