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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


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