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First off, do the classes come with their teachers or are they scheduled and yours? It takes time to establish a collaborative relationship with your teachers. Many of them are working on projects they've done this way forever; do not see a need to change. OR, they are fairly new and trying to work the kinks out of everything. Do you have a curriculum map? It is really a chart, that tells you what each subject area is doing each month. (Many times, you will even need to break it down by teacher in the subject area.) Each month, you can be sending out information that matches what is going on in the classroom; showing the teachers what the collection or Databases or Internet things that would be perfect for their subject area. Now, I'm back to the kids are yours or come with a teacher? If they are yours, use your curriculum map to guess what they are doing in the classroom and teach your information skills using the topics they are working on. If they are with a teacher and the teacher isn't jumping in with ideas, then do almost the same thing if they weren't there. But now include the teacher, put them to work it what ever way you can. Give them a copy or book and have them follow what is happening, then have them be a checker of the kids work. The kids can get loud, but relay races, or quick question answering as a way to get kids really involved in using their skills to find information can be a great way of seeing if they really do understand how to use the index, or whatever you are teaching. I had a giant jar of questions, we would pull from and the students would "race" to find the answers. Another teacher brought in big pieces of butcher paper, divided the kids into teams, each paper had a topic at the start and the kids "raced" to put their facts on the paper. They had to check first to see if the fact was already there, if it was they had to go find another one. This was fun, because they were having to read the papers too, learning the facts that were there. Has Sunnyside put together a library skills Scope and Sequence yet? This is a really important piece that will show your administration that the library curriculum is important to the students mastering the EALR's and how well what you are doing matches the benchmarks and standards in many of the subject areas. *** I am from a high school but I did work at a Elem/Middle for 2 months. What I did was found out what the teachers were reading or a genre and did lessons with that. For example with the 6th graders we read a book together and then I had them write a screen play so we could make a movie. We got to the point of the screen play but I left before we could do the movie. My hope was to have the other Librarian take off where I left off from. Choose a genre for each grade and then choose a book and sometimes you can find activites from the publisher on line to do. *** You could do a scavenger hunt, for instance, find a non-fiction sports book, a reference book, etc. There are tons of library lesson books out there that have worksheets and things to copy. You could do book vs. Internet; have one set of kids locate information on the Internet, and another set look through different print sources to see which is quicker. I also have my middle schoolers help me shelve books...they usually love to help. *** The first year in a middle school is tough because you've got to have a plan to get the kids into the library AND provide them with useful tools. This is my 4th year as a middle school librarian after 6 years in a K-5 library. We collaborate but there's certainly room for improvement. I attend team meetings in September to discuss the library program and see what the teachers are doing and when. I have a flexible schedule and on any given day can easily see 5 or 6 different classes. I post my schedule for the year when school starts and I encourage all teachers to sign their classes up for "library time". The teachers come with their classes and we do research on curriculum topics. For example, this week I have 2 8th grade Social Studies classes working on Civil War scrapbooks, a 6th grade Social Studies class researching info on the Ancient Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans, along with some LA classes that are doing word processing. Once the teachers have signed their classes up and given me their research topic, I create a pathfinder with suggested online resources. I pull Reference and non-fiction books on their topic and write a very detailed lesson plan. After spending 1/2 of the first period introducing the topic, modeling the use of the pathfinder, reviewing how to complete our bibliography worksheet, etc., the students then do their research with my and the teacher's assistance/support. The truth of the matter is, even if your teachers feel they are too busy to meet with you to discuss their needs, there is a curriculum that they are following and you should have access to that. Knowing what is covered in each main subject area, will give you a real good start on what lessons you can be providing. *** Our library is PK-8th, and my assignment with 6-8 varies from year to year. I have had years where I did some lessons with them and did book talks and literature reviews, OR had them read novels and do major presentations to the class on them, OR had them in for research only (when we had 28 computers added to the library!), and now next year, I won't have them at all again (I didn't have them two years ago, either). Very interesting! There are several books with ideas/lessons that are excellent (unfortunately, they are at school, and I can't think of the names right now). If you want the titles, please let me know, and I'll go track them down. *** re you on a fixed or a flex schedule? The teachers in my building have been too busy to collaborate, but a few have been really open to me showing their students how to use other online resources than google. Another teacher let me show her kids how important it is to be careful when using the internet (difference between books and websites).. it was a basic introduction to information literacy. *** I was blessed to have a portable laptop lab at my disposal. I had students for 9 weeks at a time. The first time I got them, we did a treasure hunt using the American Memory Pages and other websites on trains in South Carolina. Their final activity was to create a photo journal using Power point describing their trip from Anywhere in SC using historic photos from AMP and other sites I selected. They had to have one slide as a bibliography using MLA style. The second time I got the students we created a stop-motion animation using Movie Maker. We researched some videos from the origins of animation from the American Memory Pages and a neat video some gal did as part of her PH.D. in art. We used copy-right free music from Sounzabound and had a good time. I used clay with one group.....well some things are better forgotten. My principal took away my classes this year. He felt I could be better utilized being a librarian. Fancy that! This year I took away a teacher's research idea and forced her to collaborate with me. She wanted them to do a 2 page paper on Saddam Hussein, James Brown or Gerald Ford beginning in January. I made the vomit gesture and suggested we bookmark sources for them and have them create a treasure hunt web page on a famous person who passed last year, expanding beyond the 3 she suggested. She agreed, we set up a schedule, hammered out a few too brief lessons plans, created a rubric and ran with it. I heard her praising the collaboration to other teachers. Ah! ha! A foot in the door. This year I am doing the same project with 4 eighth grade classes and 4 7th grade classes. (However, I will improve the time line of who does what, when.)The following year the 8th graders will create a webquest on some topic we have yet to determine. I will probably hijack a social studies project and force another guinea pig. I hope this helps. *** You could do a scavenger hunt, for instance, find a non-fiction sports book, a reference book, etc. There are tons of library lesson books out there that have worksheets and things to copy. You could do book vs. Internet; have one set of kids locate information on the Internet, and another set look through different print sources to see which is quicker. I also have my middle schoolers help me shelve books...they usually love to help. *** Sherri Graff, Media Specialist Sierra Vista Middle School, Sunnyside School District, Sunnyside, WA graffsi@sunnyside.wednet.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. 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