The Common Core and Children's Literature

Martinez, Evelyn

Wadham, R. L., & Young, T. A. (n.d.). Integrating children's literature through the common core state standards. Retrieved October 19, 2016.

Summary Notes: In the first chapter, the authors discuss the Common Core State Standards generally and how they were created.  They also discuss what it is and commonly held misconceptions about the state standards.  In chapter two the authors discuss how reading fiction and non-fiction texts along with other foundational skills such as writing, speaking, language and listening is the centerpiece of the standards and integrating these skills across all content areas and subjects including math, science and social studies.  In chapter three, text complexity is examined as well as qualitative and quantitative measures that should be understood to provide students with appropriate texts.  They also discuss the importance of considering the dynamics of readers and tasks when considering appropriate texts.  Chapter four examines the importance and centrality of children’s books in teaching across the curriculum.  Children’s books are very versatile because they include all genres and a variety of formats which can be used in all content areas.  Selecting appropriate children’s text is also discussed as well as the importance of assessing the text complexity in children’s texts.  In chapter five, the importance of Inquiry Learning, the process of learning through a process that is student centered, collaborative, active as well as well scaffolded and structured.  The authors also discuss the need for students to have “21 Century Skills” meaning being college and workplace ready.  They discuss the importance of students to be able to do close and critical reading which means to be able to decipher complex text independently.

Evaluation: This is an important resource for classroom teachers, Teacher Librarians and Librarians working with children.  The Common Core State Standards are central in public school education and the information provided will be extremely helpful and beneficial in order to assist and support children on an academic level.  The text offers background information that is helpful to understand curriculum needs of teachers.  The text also offers additional links to resources that will further assist readers to better serve readers and user of children’s texts.

Creating Curriculum Connections with Library Collections

 Creating Curriculum Connections with Library Collections

The article, "Creating Curriculum Connections with Library Collections," author and teen librarian Sarah Gowdy discusses how she was able to collaborate with her local jr. high and high schools in order to create a connection with the educators and students to the library and its relevant resources for the students' curriculum and projects. In forming a partnership with Bentonville's literacy specialists and in doing so, she was able to identify that simply introducing teachers to the libraries resources would allow them in turn to let their students know about these in order to utilize them for their assignments.
The positive outcomes from creating the curriculum newsletter are as follows:

"The process of creating the Curriculum Connections revealed strengths and weaknesses in the library’s collections. I continue to correct weaknesses by weeding outdated non-fiction and purchasing new books that are relevant to today’s students. In sharing the newsletters, library

staff have received positive feedback from school faculty, parents, and students who have used our resources to support classwork (Gowdy, 2014)."

 Reference:
Gowdy, S., & Dudley, H. (2014). Creating Curriculum Connections with Library Collections. Arkansas Libraries, 71(3), 4-5.

School and Public Librarians & Common Core

Wilson, Shibrie

Lindsey, N., Nesi, O., & Grabarek, D. (2013). A School and Public Librarian Find Common Ground on the Common Core. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.slj.com/2013/10/standards/common-core/a-school-and-public-librarian-find-common-ground-on-the-common-core/

Public librarian Nina Lindsay explained that  implementing Common Core is not responsibility of public librarians. Though it is not responsibility public librarians are accountable to their communities. Olga Nesi discusses that it is important that public librarians are aware of Common Core State Standards being that students make up a large portion of their patrons. It is also important considering that Common Core is national. Public Librarians are learning more about materials and educators specifically for students to use.

Opinion:

This interview is impressive and enjoyed seeing perspective of different types of librarians. It seems as though both school librarians and public librarians are both learning more about CCSS. Public librarians will learn more by reaching out to fellow school librarian counterparts. 

Race to the Top True Villain

Wilson, Shibrie

Jaeger, P. (2014). The wrong Villain: Critics Should Focus on Race to the Top- On Common Core. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.slj.com/2014/01/opinion/on-common-core/the-wrong-villain-critics-should-focus-on-race-to-the-top-on-common-core/

Race to the Top is the true focus in which people should be worried about when it comes to educational system. Race to the Top is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education in an effort to reform schools and bridging gap of achievement. At least $4.35 billion has been invested into this program in which measures success of students by numbers. With RttT this is the following: "excessive testing; teacher measurement; data-archiving monsters that will track "achievement" by numbers using many days annually in formal assessment; and requiring monetary expenditures." U.S. leaders understand that students are behind in comparison to students from India or Turkey. Even teachers in which have been in educational field for numerous years standby their understanding that standardized test do not depict an accurate reflection of a students learning.

Opinion:

Race to the Top needs to be revamped and people should become more educated about it. I feel as though it is a form of intimidation because all students do not perform well on standardized test. There must be another way in which U.S. Department of Education can change educational system in which has fallen apart over years. 

Racing to the Top & Common Core

Wilson, Shibrie

Cappiello, M. A. (2014). When Racing to the Top Slows Us Down- On Common Core. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://www.slj.com/2014/10/opinion/on-common-core/when-racing-to-the-top-slows-us-down-on-common-core/

Mary Cappiello has had the opportunity to network with different persons from teachers to librarians all in different states and able to learn more about Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Common Core State Standards continues to be in the forefront of educational debates. Many have perception that supporting CCSS one supports standardized testing. Cappiello stated "being against them suggests a belief in a top-down government and/or a corporate takeover of education, plus a massive mandate for more testing." Race to the Top (RttT) is a different implementation of educational curriculum. It seems as though Common Core State Standards is the problem its Race to the Top in which enforces excessive testing and specifically tracks achievement by numbers. Schools that have adopted Race to the Top funding are only focused on test scores of students and not the experience and their intellectual growth, everything is based around numbers. Not only are students under pressure with RttT but teachers as well because their performance is dependent on test scores. 

Opinion:
I have heard more negative things associated with Common Core State Standards than positive. Now I see that not only is CCSS becoming an issue but Race to the Top. Numbers, numbers, numbers that seems be all legislators care about. Maybe it is because they are trying to compete with other students globally but I am sure there is another way to go about this. I do not believe standardized test should solely determine a students performance throughout their educational career. Curriculums such ad these presented are taking the joy out of being an educator. 

School Libraries and Ebooks

Wilson, Shibrie

Nelson, C. (2012). What eBooks Mean for School Libraries: Part 1. Education World. Retrieved from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/how-a-school-library-has-embraced-ebooks.shtml

Dorman High School in Roebuck, South Carolina has adopted ebooks within its collection. Ebooks were initially used amongst students for recreational reading and many popular fiction books were available. Students were able to choose from two different resources, one being Gale resources and the other OverDrive. Gale resources are able to accessed from the library catalog operated by Destiny and accessed from computers and mobile devices. OverDrive was used for adult fiction books in which librarians felt that students would enjoy to read outside of curriculum reads. Devices are not provided to individuals by school instead, student bring their own devices and access materials accordingly. Teachers are also able to access these materials and according to article are extremely pleased because of amount of content they can access. Librarians found it important that students were able to have options in how to access materials such as whether or not to choose print or a digital book. 

Opinion:

I appreciate Dorman High School for doing a trial for how successful ebooks would be for the libraries. I think it is very important for students to have a choice in type of material in which they would like to choose. Both sources in which they are utilizing for digital materials are valuable. 

Digital Texts in Schools and Challenges

Wilson, Shibrie

Harris, C. (2012). Ebooks and School Libraries. American Libraries. Retrieved from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2012/01/13/ebooks-and-school-libraries/

There is a constant struggle amongst school libraries to remain relevant with other libraries, such as academic and public. Many libraries adopt ebooks in an effort to replace print materials due to cost. For different materials certain materials such as reference materials are becoming accessible online. Many ebooks for reference materials are being changed in order to meet Common Cores State Standards. Different things being implemented such as maps, timelines, and primary-source documents. Schools have access to different publishers and vendors and these corporations are working diligently to provide "consortia-access pricing."The issue that schools are dealing with is finding programs in which provide bulk discounts on e-readers for school libraries, being that many things are sold individually. Students with special needs are also a dominant factor in consideration of ebooks in school libraries. Different things in which will accommodate students with special needs is that of "text-to-speech enhancement with read-along highlighting to students with a qualifying print or vessel disability." Some publishers are also providing materials for those who are have different reading levels. 

Opinion:

Ebooks is something continues to resurface in many blog topics. Can and will ebooks cause books to be obsolete to 21st century library? I do like the idea of ebooks benefiting students with special needs, and is something that I had not taken into consideration before. Purchasing ebooks in bulk is an issue and a reason in which the library in which I work at has an issue with purchasing such. 

To Weed or Not to Weed?

Lederer, Haylee

Ford, D. B. (2015). To Weed or Not to Weed?. School Library Journal, 61(8), 13.

Summary: This article calls for more analysis of school library's non-fiction collection. The author, Deborah Ford, states, "Collection development is more than buying new books. Continuous pruning, updating, and evaluation is required if our libraries are to remain viable resources" (pg. 13). She argues that in order to remain current and relevant, school libraries must offer a current and relevant selection; therefore, the collection must be weeded often. Ford offers up a way to make this possible: the CREW (Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding) method (pg. 13). This method looks at the publication date, the physical condition of the book, and the date it was last checked out.

Evaluation: I was really interested in this article for two reasons: I'm currently in INFO 210 (Reference Services), and we've been talking about how weeding is actually becoming more important than obtaining materials, which I thought was interesting. Also, I work as an elementary school librarian, so getting my library up to common core standards has been a challenge! This article was really short, but I liked that, because it was straight to the point. I find it is often hard to decide when a book is no longer relevant to my collection, but Ford offers a simple and easy to use method to help librarians. As a new librarian, I found this article extremely helpful in quickly outlining how to provide the best collection. I also found it extremely necessary in today's environment. Common core requires librarians and teachers to focus more on non-fiction - this makes it even more necessary for our non-fiction to be up to date.

The Future of School Library Collections

Laudato, Maricar

Stephens, W. (2014). Checking out tomorrow's school library collections. Young Adult Library Services. 18-20.

Summary

In this article, Wendy Stephens talks to school librarians about the current and future directions as to what the ideal school library collection should look like. Stephens observes that most school libraries are seeing a decrease in their nonfiction and reference print collection due to an increase in subscription to online databases. While there was a definite trend in the overall decrease in print resources, the seemed to be an increase in the amount of print books in the fiction collection. Stephens also discusses the increasing role that Common Core State Standards is playing in how school library collections are being developed, even if the school is not a common core school. Stephens relates that since the overall climate is leaning towards adopting Common Core across the nation, school libraries would do well to take heed of these standards when planning the collection.

Evaluation

For the most part, I agree with Stephens’ observations on school library collections because I have seen it mirrored in the school library I work at. When I started working at the school library 5 years ago, our collection consisted of over 30,000 print materials. Now, after extensive weeding projects to prepare for the renovation last summer, our collection has been trimmed to a lean 9000 print resources. And we don’t miss those sources at all; we got rid of a lot of the “fat” from our collection. Any information lost has been supplanted by superior updated information by the databases we have subscribed to since I got hired. And we still order books despite all of the weeding…constantly, in fact. They just happen to be mostly fiction books that teens request, or print books and/or audiovisual resources that faculty request for curricular support.

Informational Text

Bailey, Rachel

Fontichiaro, K. (2012). Informational text. School Library Monthly, 29(1), 51-52.

Summary: This article addresses how school librarians can prepare the library to align with the common core state standards. Weeding is stressed so new narrative informational text can replace old, outdated nonfiction. Other ideas include advertising online databases, giving teachers pointers for classroom book collections and using instructional strategies to help students interact with the text.

Evaluation:  I like how practical this article is. For example, it recommends posting annotated bibliographies of new library books in the teacher bathroom stalls as an alternative to sending such information via teacher’s already overloaded email accounts.