Sharing and Learning

This month has been a busy one for presentations. We kicked off the month with our TL Virtual Cafe webinar, Your Common Core Secret Weapon. Monique, Kristen and I had a great time with that presentation. We were honored to be invited.
Then days later Monique and I hit the road to attend and present at the North Carolina School Library Media Association conference. The conference theme was the Common Core standards so we were excited to present and also learn from our neighboring librarians. We presented "Keeping Lit @ the Core" together and I presented "Learn to Love Nonfiction". We had a wonderful time, learned so many things we want to try at home, saw old friends and met lots of new ones.
A few highlights for me were:
1. Seeing my friends Jennifer Northrup and April Dawkins, conference organizer extraordinaire.
2. Meeting two of my heroes face to face, Buffy Hamilton and Jennifer LaGarde. And we were color coordinated:)

3. Leaving inspired by ideas shared at the conference like Jennifer L.'s gaming session with her math teacher Ryan Redd, Jennifer N.'s collaboration advice, a lesson on weeding with students from Heather S., showing instructional impact from two USC professors and many more. Conference handouts and presentations are shared online here.

4. Of course, it is always great to spend time with my PLN face to face. My partner in crime, Monique German, and our SC friends Fran Bullington, Cathy Jo Nelson, Heather Loy, Susan Meyer as well as meeting new NC friends Jennifer Abel, Tavia Clark, Deanna Harris, Paige Ysteboe and more that I probably follow on Twitter, but just didn't get to talk to. 

Monique and I presented "Keeping Lit @ the Core". We thought this would be a timely concept because so many teachers and librarians are worried that the emphasis on nonfiction in the standards could be taken to the extreme, leaving recreational reading out in the cold. We shared the fiction/nonfiction breakdowns from the standards, the part of the standards that mention student selected reading, expert opinions on the value of recreational reading and strategies for continuing to market and promote fiction to our students and teachers. Here is my Pinterest board of middle grade books that fit the CC evaluation guidelines and my board on CC resources.

Keeping Lit at the Core from bibliogerman

Immediately following this session I presented "Learn to Love Nonfiction". I thought it was funny that I presented one hour about how much I love fiction and then one hour about how much I love nonfiction. I do enjoy purchasing and promoting nonfiction to my students so this was a fun session for me. I shared strategies for preparing your collection for the Common Core standards, the importance of weeding, ideas for promoting nonfiction, why we should highlight nonfiction and suggested titles to build up your high interest nonfiction collection. I also spent a fair amount of time talking about how and why I ditched Dewey. The rabble rouser in me loves to talk about this and see the audience reaction. It is a mix of horror and intrigue. It never gets old. You can see my Scoop.it on the Dewey Free library here. 

Learn to love nonfiction from Palmetto Middle School

You can see the list of titles I shared on this Goodreads list. Feel free to download the slides and use as signs in your library. If you find either of these sessions helpful I would love to hear about it.

Thanks to all of the NC librarians for a wonderful conference, hospitality, sharing and networking. I had a great time.