Elementary School resources
In this class, we went into unchartered waters for myself personally, the resources of an elementary school library. As a high school teacher, now a high school librarian, and not a mother, I am completely unfamiliar with the world of elementary school literature. Through this class though, I slowly became familiar with elementary school literature and tools an elementary school librarian can use to enhance their library.
multicultural literary contributions project
One of the projects I was most proud of at the end of this class was the multicultural literary contributions project. In this project, we had to take an American ethnic group and create a presentation/lesson on the literary contributions of that group. As I thought about what group I would like to focus on, "I flipped through the pages of my textbook to find inspiration. . .I finally decided to go back down to the roots of this land and focus on the literary contributions of Native Americans." Because of the oral storytelling tradition, I thought this would be the perfect choice. I settled on telling the Commanche and Creek creation story.
I decided to begin with, I would "give the students an overview of Native American culture and why it is important for us to learn about them." After going over this, I would tell them the Comanche and Creek creation stories by using virtual pop-up books I created of the stories on ZooBurst, a tool I discovered which doing another assignment for the class, the webliography. One of the virtual pop-up books I created can be viewed below.
I decided to begin with, I would "give the students an overview of Native American culture and why it is important for us to learn about them." After going over this, I would tell them the Comanche and Creek creation stories by using virtual pop-up books I created of the stories on ZooBurst, a tool I discovered which doing another assignment for the class, the webliography. One of the virtual pop-up books I created can be viewed below.
Overall, I enjoyed learning about these stories and thinking about creating a lesson beyond the high school classroom. Who knows! I may find myself in an elementary school library one day in the far future.
annotated bibliography
Another very useful project I found in LIB 510 was creating an annotated bibliography of elementary school materials. I found this assignment useful because, as I stated before, elementary school materials are a foreign concept for me. In this assignment, we had to choose materials for lower, middle, and upper elementary. I found creating the difference between these levels the most difficult task because while I am very familiar with how the teenager's mind develops and can predict what they do, I am not so familiar with the wide scope of elementary school students. It gave me a new appreciation for elementary school librarians and their challenge in choosing a wide variety of materials. Below is a simple slide show of the wonderful titles I discovered as I did my annotated bibliography.
putting my studies into practice
Because I am a high school librarian, I don't have many ways in which I have put my studies into practice, but as I work with my elementary school I am pairing with during my field study, I will take the spirit of these assignments and everything I have learned about elementary school literature and keep it in mind as I have experiences in the elementary school library.