Tales from a Loud Librarian

I always schedule a week's worth of activities for YALSA's Teen Tech Week (TTW). This year TTW was scheduled at the same time as the Louisiana Library Association annual conference. That meant I had to move TTW to the next week. I had work to do to prepare for conference, so I did not have time to plan TTW. Of course, that is no excuse, but I felt slammed. I like to have the students help me plan, but the school schedule seemed to be changing daily, and I did not see my book groups every week like usual. Then I returned from conference exhausted, and I ended up with the flu and missed two days of work. I finally was able to find three days in a row in March when I could offer activities in the library at lunch.  Day 1: We always have a day of movies for TTW. Since it falls after the Academy Awards, we usually schedule a showing of the animated shorts that were nominated for an Oscar. This year, it was much more difficult to find the movies except Piper.  I did find some

 I have blogged about every field trip  down to the 9th Ward in New Orleans that I have made with the seventh graders. The very first one  in 2011 was the best field trip that I have every been part of as a teacher, and over my many, many years of teaching, I have been on lots of field trips. This year, we made some changes to both the unit that is taught at school and to the trip itself.  This unit with the trip is very intense because there are so many pieces and parts, and there are several teachers handling the various responsibilities so that it all gets done on time, but this also is tricky making sure that all the loose ends are tied up by the time we board the buses. Musicians' Village We have a 7th grade ELA teacher on staff who is not only new to the school but also new to New Orleans. She was more than willing to be part of this project, but she had some ideas of how the unit could be better incorporated into her ELA program. First, she wanted the students to