Tales from a Loud Librarian

Last week was Spirit Week at PFTSTA. Each day the students could wear outfits fitting the theme of the day. Thursday was Throwback Thursday. Those planning the activity envisioned students choosing a decade and dressing from the 60s, 70s or 80s or anytime before that. However, some of the students interpreted it to mean a throwback during their own lives. They came dressed in flannel pajama onesies. I thought that was clever and thinking outside of the box.  On Friday, it was character day. Most of the characters that I saw walking around the building live in video games or save the world as super heroes. I grabbed a couple of pics of characters found in the pages of books. Of course, those would be my favorite types of characters. Below is a student who took her character from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series. She is a shadow hunter. At every school, there are students who would like their school to be a little bit like Hogwarts. So when character day arrive...

Every year, Bookmarked helps me create and design all the activities that we offer during Teen READ Week. I see this week as a time to get students into the library who do not usually visit or visit rarely. I offer games that students can play daily as well as something special for each day of the week during lunch. The idea is to get them excited about the library. It is exhausting. Especially so this year because I was teaching classes on research to all the 6th and 7th grade students along with the lunch time activities.  I am still waiting for the entries for the annual bookmark contest to pour in, but all the other events have been chronicled with pics on the library website. Open here to see all the fun the students had last week . 

In this week's edition of SLJTeen , four teens had their reviews published. The members of Boomarked are fans of a variety of genres and styles of writing. Find some of what they liked by opening the link here .

On Friday, I began teaching lessons on how to conduct good research. This is a yearly event where I spend lots of time with all the middle school students helping them to prepare for writing a paper for the social studies fair. This year, the students do not have to do a full blown social studies fair project, but all students are required to write a paper.They cannot get honors' credit for social studies without writing a research paper. Several years ago, the English department and I decided that we wanted the students to write quality papers for this project. If that was going to happen, then the papers needed to be started in English class.We have really developed a method for teaching research that we are proud of. It is truly collaborative. Since the paper does not have to be as long as in past years (social studies fair had length requirements), we have scaled  back the paper to make it more age appropriate. To make the process more manageable for teachers and students, th...

I have been teaching for a long time. More than two thirds of that time has been as a school librarian. I spent 12 years in an elementary library and the last 10 in a middle and high library. I think that I have honed my skills to the point that I am at the top of my game. I have had several mentors that I looked up to over the years who helped me.through my journey, so now I think that it is important for me to help guide others. Of course, I think that I can learn from those just starting out, too. New librarians always have some new fresh ideas that I never considered.  On the big screen is a view of the LSU instructor and the students in Baton Rouge One of the ways that I have given back is to welcome students in library school to visit my library and interview me for class assignments. I have also had students completing a library practicum work in my library. I try to apply and make presentations at local and state conferences. This past Saturday, Charity Cantey, an ...

That is me on the left with Terry Young from West Jeff on the right The librarians in the Jefferson Parish Public Schools don't get many opportunities to meet as a group. However, it is important for us to network because most of us are the only librarian in the building, and many can use some support and assistance with the new evaluation system, COMPASS. Also, there are many new librarians in the district who need guidance with available resources as well as some of the job expectations and requirements. On October 3rd, I invited all 75 librarians in the district to meet at Patrick Taylor for an after school meeting. We had 36 show up, and considering that the school is located in the far reaches of the Westbank, I think it was a great turn out. Lindsey Vindel, the Follett rep, shared how ebooks on  Follett Shelf work. Terry Young from West Jeff High School reviewed the evaluation system and how librarians should design the all important student learning targets (SLTs). We h...

Teen READ Week is always a busy time in the PFTSTA Library. This year will be no different. You can visit the library website here to see all the planned activities for the week. You can even find links to the pics and activities from past Teen READ Week celebrations. We are looking to a fun-filled week in our brand new library. 

The members of Bookmarked only have a couple of months left to read and write reviews for the online newsletter, SLJTeen , from School Library Journal . We started this gig in June of 2012 and will submit our last review at the end of December. Until then, enjoy two new reviews here . 

For the second meeting of BRiMS, the students sat down with their lunch and chips with salsa. We had selected the book, Wonder , by R J Palacio for everyone to read. Since some of the students had not read the book or had not finished the book, I found lots about the author and book to share with the group. Including the book trailer embedded below, an interview with the author  by NPR about how she came to write the book and the website where students can sign the pledge to be kind, a movement that has taken off since the book was published. 

When Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian visited the PFTSTA Library, they sat down with two juniors for an interview before they moved on to their next school visit of the day. The students are real fans and were thrilled to have twenty minutes to spend on their own with the two authors. The students wrote an article for the October 2nd edition of  SLJTeen with highlights from the interview. You can read their article here . Here is a link to Destiny's review of Jenny Han's book, To All the Boys I Loved Before  that was published April, 2014.