the first week hat

the first week hat

What does your first week of “library lessons” look like?
Have you programmed the usual round of sessions where students are reminded of where to find things, how to borrow them, how to look after them and how to behave? Another barrage of I-talk-you-listen  Another barrage of white noise that confirms their belief that the library is a place for downtime for them?
Or have you planned something to stimulate their thinking and reflecting on what they know, where they talk and you listen and together you build an anticipation and excitement for the year ahead?
Thirty years ago, in
Mathematics Education for a Changing World
,, Stephen S. Willoughby identified that by Year 6 what was taught to students was 38% new and 62% was revision of what was already known and it was not until Year 9  that the “new” outweighed the known. This raises serious issues about motivation, attention levels and zest for learning. So if for six years or more, students come to the library in that first week and hear what they have always heard, then they will do what they always do – tune out, see little value in the library and what it offers, and join the majority of students who,
Miller
discovered,  saw reading anything as just an imposed means to an end.
Yet those first sessions could be so much more.  They could be an opportunity to build the platform for the rest of the year so that library time, particularly if it covers teacher preparation time, becomes meaningful, dynamic, productive and anticipated.
In the series
All You Need to Teach Information Literacy
that Macmillan Education commissioned me to write some years ago, I started each year level’s units with one that focused on the students reflecting on what they already knew about libraries to encourage both students and the teacher librarian to consider what still needed to be learned and to build their programs on that.
By using opened-ended questions and whatever format suits the age group (class discussion; think, pair share; individual written responses) students can identify and share their knowledge and understandings so the TL can ensure that their forthcoming learning was new, challenging and productive.
For ease of organisation, I’ve sorted the focus questions into year levels but they are designed to be mixed and matched according to circumstances (and avoid repetition)..
Kindergarten
What is a library?
Who can use the library?
What sorts of things can you find there?
What sorts of things can you do there?
Who is there to help you?
Year 1
What is your favourite part of the library?
Can you usually find what you are looking for?
If you wanted a book about … where would you find it?
Do you understand why some things are found here and others there?
How do you borrow something you want to take home?
How do you look after it when it is at home?
Is borrowing a book the only thing you can do in this library?
Year 2
What do you know about our school library?
What do you think …