Speed Dating with Books

Grade 5 is focusing on author studies for their reading workshop unit. Each has to choose one author and read at least 2 books by that author. Ms. Kasal, the grade 5 team leader, asked me for a book talk to help students choose a great author to concentrate on.

Last year, I presented a traditional book talk, where I showed a dozen books and gave rapid-fire highlights for each author. At the end of the 20 minutes, students were to choose a book to start their author study. I was disappointed when many of the students found excuses for not choosing any of the authors or titles I had presented. I was determined to do a better job of hooking them.

With the goal of 100% engagement in mind, I decided this year to structure the book talk in a speed dating format. This way, instead of listening to me speak for 20 minutes, each student previewed books by different authors. At the end of 30 minutes, each had checked out at least one book from an author and had previewed 5 books from 5 different authors.

Authors were set up as stations with a poster (created on Canva) and a selection of chapter books. The authors I presented were: Avi, Sharon Creech, Andrew Clements, Sid Fleischman, Patricia Reilly Giff, Patricia Maclachlan, Gary Paulsen, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar and Jerry Spinelli.

A sample of the author posters I created for this speed book dating. I used Canva.com.

These authors were chosen because they have a large and varied collection of books - and we have many of them in our library - and because they are great writers who will challenge students to think deeply about their reading. 

Students had 30 seconds to choose an author and then 2 minutes to preview a book by that author.  They each had a sheet for notes on the book. They wrote down notes to themselves about the book they were previewing and rated the books on the sheet on their desire to read them. Find the sheet here.  (At the bottom of the sheet is a link to a programmable online timer.)

Each student checked out at least one book at the end of the session. The sheet also gave students the chance to indicate they wanted a hold on a particular title. 

All in all, it went very well. Our fifth grade students were very vocal by the mention of dating, but thrilled to be considered grown up enough. Even the reluctant readers were engaged and all left with a book to try. They also have a short list of 4 other books to try if the title they checked out at the end of the speed dating didn't suit. 

The next time I try speed book dating, I'll include time at the end for students to compare notes. That could increase their exposure to authors and titles they might not have had time to look at. I would also like to include more diverse authors and perhaps picture books, as many of the authors above also write picture books. Last but not least, I'll create a resource list so that I can track the circulation of the books included in the book talk. 

ES Library and Grade 5 Journalists Making Headlines!

The grade 5 unit recently embarked on a journalism unit in their literacy workshop. The ES library is very happy to support them in this unit, as we have many resources to help them in their journalistic endeavors.

All 3 classes came to the library for a session on journalism sources and how to access many from the library catalog.

Journalists must keep track of their sources. We ask our grade 5 journalists to maintain a bibliography of citations. Templates for the citations (in MLA format) can be found in their student planners or on the Visual Tab grade 5 page. Citing our sources is one of the ways we demonstrate our CAC core value of integrity.

1. Personal interviews and observations
• Journalists find stories in the world around them. Our grade 5 students are encouraged to do so as well. 
2. Written materials, e.g., primary sources and  magazines
• Primary sources would include letters, maps, recordings and other materials created at the time of the event being 
• Magazines and other periodicals - we have many childrens' magazines in the ES library. They are getting checked out frequently for this unit. We remind the students that magazines and other periodicals are often printed on flimsy, inexpensive paper and so they must take extra special care with them. 
3. EBSCO's Primary Search database -- link on the library catalog's Visual Tab Current Events  page and the Home page.

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• This is one of our subscription databases. It searches for keywords in children's magazines. 
• Students are encouraged to use subscription databases because they are reliable sources of information. 
• Primary Search database allows students to filter results by time, subject, publication, geography and other limiters
• It also provides a citation for the article in question. This citation can be copied directly onto a bibliography
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4. WebPath Express -- on the library catalog
   
• WebPath Express is the search engine for our Destiny catalog. It searches for keywords in a large collection of websites vetted by teachers and librarians. While it may not return the most current of articles, it does return relatively authoritative and reliable sources. 
• To create a citation for an article found through WebPath Express, students will need follow the formats given in their student planners or on the grade 5 Visual Tab for research skills. 
5. Kiddle.co -- link on the library catalog's Visual Tab Current Events page
   
• Kiddle.co is a search engine for kids. It uses a customized Google search to first find articles written for children, then articles written for adults but accessible to children and finally articles written for adults. 
• The News tab on the Kiddle.co site will look for articles in children's online news sites first. 
• To create a citation for an article found through WebPath Express, students will need follow the formats given in their student planners or on the grade 5 Visual Tab for research skills. 
• When looking at websites through Kiddle.co, students should consider our website evaluation criteria, PAARC. (P-purpose, A-authority, A-accuracy, R-relevance, C-currency)
6. Current events page on the Visual Tab
   
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• The Visual Tab has a "Current Events for Kids" button. That will take you to a page full of links to online newspapers and magazines for children, from many countries and in different languages. Unfortunately, each site has to be search separately, but for the most part, these online news sites are quite current. Facts should always be cross checked. 
• We do not have an online site for children's news in Arabic, so if you know of one, please let us know so we can add it to the page. 
7. LAST resort: Google search
• Google search should be the last resort, to be used only if none of the other sources produce the information sought. 
• For our journalism purposes, we often are interested in different perspectives, so we can focus our search results by using the code, "site:", and adding the 2 letter country code. For example, a search for "Olympics 2016 news site:.eg" will give us results of news published in or about Egypt. 

Journalists must have at least 2 verifiable sources for the information they report on. This forces journalists to double check their facts. Our young journalists will be held accountable to the same standard. Using this list of sources will ensure that they know where to look for information.

Supporting Grade 5's Historical Fiction Unit

Grade 5 students are starting a historical fiction unit in their reading workshop. The essential questions for this unit are:

• How can I read in a way that lets me trace themes in these stories and think about the author’s craft?
• How does talking about books encourage and grow ideas?

To help answer the first question, I collected fiction and non-fiction resources from our print and digital collections on a libguide. Normally, I gather resources for students and post them on the Visual Tab of the library catalog, but this time around I thought that it might be a good unit to introduce our fifth graders to the libguides they'll be using in middle school. Also, libguides allow me to include more information about the different resources than the Visual Tab does. 

The grade 5 historical fiction libguide has tabs for different time periods, corresponding to historical periods reflected in the novel sets the grade 5 students will be reading. On each tab, there is a selection of non-fiction books and links to our databases for each period, and a selection of picture books set in that period. The grade 5 students will be using the non-fiction information to gain an understanding of the historical context for their book club novel. Along with the picture book selections, they will be looking for connecting themes. This is deep reading work, and I'm very pleased to be helping them become even more expert readers. 

Update 14 March, 2016: Just ended a class with one of the grade 5 classes and was delighted to hear students expressing how understanding the historical context of a novel will help them comprehend it better. That's why I love collaborating with teachers - it always leads to enhanced learning. 

Supporting Grade 5 with the catalog's Visual Tab

This year I've added lots of resources to the grade 5 Visual Tab of our library catalog. Many of the links have been suggested by the grade 5 teachers themselves, and the Visual Tab is getting to be a great resource for fifth graders.

This is a screenshot of the Visual Tab page for their upcoming unit on earth science.

These links give access to videos and text to support their unit. Many of them are requested by the grade 5 teachers. To be posted here, these sites comply with our PAARC guidelines for websites. PAARC stands for Purpose, Authority, Accuracy, Relevance and Currency. (These criteria are also sometimes known as CRAAP, but since I worked with elementary students, I prefer PAARC.) PAARC merits a blog post of its own. Stay tuned.

This is a screenshot of the research links page on the Visual Tab. This includes a list of books about research and links to a bibliography template and citation samples. I'll soon be adding the PAARC poster to the page.

Here's a screenshot of the Visual Tab for the recently completed unit on world development and culture. This unit was only a few weeks long, so it was important to the teachers that students were very focused in their research. Having links to recommended sites helps students avoid the "Google-y eyes syndrome" where the sheer number of Google results means that they spend more time scrolling down the results page than on deep reading of the material they find. 

We have Visual Tab pages for most of the ES social studies and science units of study at CAC. Pages for grades 3 and up are more fully stocked as we do a great deal of research support for those grades, but I do try to have some resources for all grades. 

Here's how to reach the Visual Tab. 

1. Visit the library catalog: http://library.cacegypt.org (Go ahead and bookmark this for quick access.)

2. Choose the elementary school collection. 

3. Click on the Visual Tab tab on the main search page. 

4. Navigate using the picture clues. The social studies and science links are on the CAC Units of Study page. 

This is the same regardless of what grade level you are interested in. Please do take a look at the resources on the Visual Tab and let us know if you or your children find them useful. 

Fantasy Genre Favorites

Grade 5 is starting a literacy unit focused on the fantasy genre. Nowadays, the fantasy genre can mean many different things, from talking animals to Harry Potter to the punny Xanth series. I am an unabashed lover of classic fantasy, sometimes called high fantasy. That's where you have fantastical races like dwarves, elves and goblins, where magic is a commodity like data is in the real world, and where the author creates a world with its own history and cultures. There's often a young orphan surviving through his/her wits in the underbelly of a medieval-like town. He or she may resort to thievery to stay alive, but his or her heart is always noble. There's often a quest through which the characters develop as people and/or a battle between the forces of good and evil. Many fantasy books are part of a series, which is great for readers who long to experience heroic magic and thrilling adventures and explore a richly imagined world.

We have hundreds of great fantasy novels in the ES library. I "booktalked" several of them to a fifth grade class today, and I'd thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you.

	Midnight for Charlie Bone, by Jenny Nimmo Like the famous Harry Potter, Charlie Bone is fatherless, has great magical potential, lives with relatives who hate him and is enrolled in a magical school. Charlie Bone's school, however, is more like a prison with most of the teachers resembling Professor Snape. Delores Umbridge would be right at home here.
	The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis This is the grade level read-aloud for this unit. It is a classic novel of four siblings who discover a magical world hidden behind the back of a closet. When one of the children is kidnapped by the Snow Queen, it's up to the other three to rescue him and the magical land of Narnia from her evil clutches.
	Sandry's Book, by Tamora Pierce Anything by Tamora Pierce is excellent, and this first book of a quartet is no exception. Four young students at a magic academy learn to control their unique gifts and learn that yes, with great power comes great responsibility. Each of the four books revolves around a different student.
	The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien Today a trilogy movie, The Hobbit started out life as a series of letters from J.R.R. Tolkien to his son Christopher when Tolkien was away at war. Some of the book is clearly written to appeal to a child, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." Most of the book, however, reflects the misery of war that Tolkien was experiencing: the brainless and mean trolls, the horrors of hidden traps and the savagery of the orcs.
	The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman Another epic trilogy. In the world of The Golden Compass, all humans have a "daemon" an animal that represents the soul. Lyra uses her magical understanding of a golden compass to save her kidnapped best friend and other children from being used in horrible experiments in the Far North. There's a Hollywood movie based on the book, but this is certainly an occasion where the book is better than the movie.

Grade 5 Book Talk - Characterization

Grade 5 is starting a reading unit on characterization. I will be presenting a book talk tomorrow to give them some titles and authors that will help them explore how authors develop characters.

See the slide show here. All images from TitlePeek, through our library catalog.

Here are a few of the books that I will present tomorrow. I hope our grade 5 students will recommend their favorites as well.

Rules, by Cynthia Lord
Realistic fiction - Scholastic Press, 2006
Newbery Honor, 2007

12-year-old Catherine has an autistic brother. He loves rules and videos, but doesn't like loud noises or anything wet on his body. He is a source of annoyance and embarrassment to Catherine, who wishes she had a normal family. She would love to have a friend in the neighborhood, but when a new girl moves in next door, she isn't quite what Catherine expects. In the meantime, she meets Jason, a disabled 12-year-old who cannot talk and communicates through cards, and against her expectations becomes friends with him. Themes of friendship, family and perceptions of disability.

Love that Dog, by Sharon Creech
Realistic fiction, novel in verse - Joanna Cotler Books, 2004

Love that book. It's a wonderful novel in verse about a boy who doesn't think he likes poetry and who thinks he certainly can write poetry, but turns out to have a fine poetic voice. His poems are addressed to his teacher and little by little we learn more about him and the dog he loves. The ending is sad but this will endear the book even more to its readers. Themes of love, pets, and belief in one's abilities. The sequel Hate that Cat is perhaps even better, but I have a soft spot for dogs so I like this first one better.

The Whipping Boy, by Sid Fleischman
Fantasy - Greenwillow Books, 1986
Newbery Award, 1987

It is illegal to hit a prince, so Prince Brat has a whipping boy to take his punishment. Prince Brat is well named by his people. He's thoroughly spoiled. When he gets in his head to run away because he's bored, he demands his whipping boy comes with him. The adventures that follow are pure slapstick, with incompetent highwaymen and dancing bears, but in the end, the prince becomes wiser. The story is enjoyable and the character development is obvious, making it a good title for this unit.

A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park
Historical fiction - Clarion Books, 2001
Newbery Award, 2002

Wonderful historical fiction novel set in Korea in the 12th century. The protagonist, Tree Ear, is a homeless orphan who lives under a bridge with an older crippled man. Their village is home to many master potters, who made precious objects of celadon clay. Tree Ear is fascinated by the process and manages to get himself hired by Master Min, who is as talented as he is grumpy. Tree Ear's life as an apprentice is hard and uncertain, but he proves himself time and again. This novel offers opportunities for lots of discussion on the customs of 12th century Korea and celadon pottery, the plight of orphans, and the ethical questions that Tree Ear poses to his crippled guardian.

Note to CAC community: Sign in to the library catalog using your single sign on username and password, and then click on any of these titles. You will be taken to the record for each book where you can place a hold on the title. Here is a fuller list of books that fit with this grade 5 unit.