Let’s Expand Our View of “School Library Orientation”

Let's Expand Our View of “School Library Orientation” - School Librarians can make each subject-area's “first” library visit of the school year more powerful if we think of it as a “school library orientation” especially for them! Here's how I customize unique orientation lessons with 6 different subjects. #NoSweatLibrarySchool Librarians know the importance of our students’ first library visit, so at the beginning of each school year, “school library orientation” becomes a hot topic on library listservs, social media, and blogs. Folks request ideas, asking, “What can I do differently this year?”

A couple years after I simplified and customized my school library orientations with English Language Arts classes, I came to an astounding realization:

EVERY subject-area’s “first” library visit of the school year is a “library orientation” for THEM!

I’m suggesting that you don’t need to keep trying new things every year with the same subject class. Rather, expand your view of what “library orientation” means and customize an “orientation” lesson for every grade level and subject area in your building!

Allow me share how I developed a series of “library orientations” that brought 6th grade ELA, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Elective classes into the library at various intervals during the first several weeks of school. Once you try this, I know you’ll love it, and your subject area teachers feel pretty special having their very own unique library orientation customized to their content. (Even an elementary librarian can focus each class’s visit on new library materials or features, so it’s a like another orientation.)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS “ORIENTATION”

I’ve written about how I simplified my 6th grade library orientation, so students aren’t overwhelmed with too much new information. Keep in mind that for lowest-grade-level, new-to-the-school students, our school library is completely new to them, and our lesson is “fresh” for them, even if we’ve done it a dozen times! Because each new year is a totally new group of students, I’m as enthusiastic about this lesson as I was the first time.

Our ELA classes begin the year studying narrative text, so we focus on how to choose one good book from the new-to-them Fiction area. My lesson is followed by plenty of time to browse the Fiction area of this “new” library, after which we have extended silent reading while I do a quiet invited checkout. This standard procedure establishes a reading culture for ELA’s every-other-week library visits for the rest of the school year.

SOCIAL STUDIES “ORIENTATION”

After the ELA visit, we can bring in other 6g subject-area classes and do a “library orientation” customized to their particular content. I’ve written about my Special Collections for Social Studies, so I have 6th grade Social Studies classes visit a couple weeks after ELA to learn more about their “new” school library: the GlobeTrekkers Special Collection of fiction & Dewey books that support their study of World Cultures.

Photo of the GlobeTrekkers Special Collection for 6g Social Studies

The first part of the lesson is returning books and a library expectations lesson, giving students a few policies & procedures for their “new” school library. Then I introduce Content Area Reading and why it is important.

Educators have learned that reading comprehension isn’t so much about word recognition as it is about conceptual understanding in context. That is, students become better readers as they accrue background knowledge of various topics, so the more they read, the more they know.

Yes, Dr. Seuss instinctively told us this years ago in his book
“I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!” and it just took brain researchers a while to confirm that.

Now I don’t tell all this to kids…I just tell them that the more GlobeTrekkers books they read, the better they’ll do in Social Studies and get better grades!

I show them how to identify GlobeTrekker books in the search results from our online book catalog, and when they hear they can check out a GlobeTrekker Dewey book and, if needed, a new fiction selection for their ELA class they are excited to begin browsing. We follow the same procedure—silent reading & invited checkout—which reinforces with Social Studies the reading culture that was established with ELA.

MATH “ORIENTATION”

I’ve also written how it makes sense to do our Dewey lesson with math classes which has students locate decimal numbers on the bookshelves. When 6th grade Math classes enter the library, students are so puzzled about what they are doing here…with their math class? That, in itself, sustains engagement for students—who apparently have never done anything like this before.

Keeping the lesson focused on numbers makes it easy for students to relate the Dewey number they see in a book search to a location on a shelf, regardless of the topical content of the book. After the lesson there is plenty of time for students to browse for up to new books, either Fiction or Dewey depending on what they already have checked out. The 6g boys are especially eager to find their favorite informational books in this “new” school library: aliens, cars, sports, and drawing, as well as the Guinness and Believe-It-Or-Not books. And we continue our standard reading & checkout procedure, which reinforces with Math the reading culture we established with ELA and Social Studies.

Expand School Library Orientation to All Core Subjects - Don't overwhelm new-to-school students with a long, complex library orientation. Scaffold it into a customized library orientation with each of the 4 core subjects--English Language Arts, Social Studies, Math & Science. #NoSweatLibraryThree customized lessons with 3 different subject area classes have progressively given our “newbies” what they need to effectively use their “new” school library.

  • We have imparted our policies & procedures when applicable, so students are not overwhelmed with too much new information to remember.
  • We have established our school’s reading culture of silent sustained reading (we call ours DEAR—Drop Everything And Read).
  • We have gradually built up the number and type of books students can check out, so during the early weeks of their new school experience they needn’t keep track of too many books.

SCIENCE “ORIENTATION”

By now our 6th grade Science classes are well into their unit on Energy and are ready to begin their project on alternative energy resources. The timing is perfect for an introduction to our online subscription services for middle school, which are completely different from those in elementary school.

Most “newbies” come to us from feeder elementaries, but many are new-to-district students. Thus, I begin this “online library orientation” with Digital Citizenship and direct students to our online library resources webpage to prepare for the WebQuest lesson.

I’ve written about my guided WebQuest that introduces just 3 subscription services to 6th graders—an encyclopedia, a periodical database, a topical reference e-book—with each segment looking only at the specific features of a service they’ll need for the project.

This is a full-period lesson, and each segment has students reading for content information and citing sources as they fill in the WebQuest worksheet (or HyperDoc). Students come away well-prepared to research their project, and I also provide a cart of books for the classroom to supplement the online tools.

To illustrate how favorably teachers respond to customized lessons, shortly after this, 6g Social Studies has an “online orientation” WebQuest using our countries of the world databases. Students gather country data into a spreadsheet app for comparison, and then learn to automatically generate a graph.

ART & SPANISH “ORIENTATION”

By this time we are through the first 9-week grading period, yet I’m not quite finished. Remember, any subject-area class that visits the library for the first time gets a “library orientation.” So, I begin the second grading period with a customized orientation for 6g Art and 6g Spanish. Because these 2 subjects alternate semesters, all 6g students receive this lesson during the first semester.

Both these lesson visits introduce Cloud Computing & Netiquette featuring our online email service. It is a guided lesson, similar to the WebQuest, that examines 3 features of the service: email, blogging, and discussion forums. I always let the other 6g teachers know when I do this popular lesson, so they can begin using the service for their own courses.

INFORMATIONAL CONTENT “ORIENTATION

8 Collaboration Ideas That Bring Subject-Area Classes into the School Library - School Librarians are always looking for new ways to collaborate with teachers and integrate library skills into subject area curriculum. Here are 8 Library Lessons I have with 6th grade content-area classes during the 1st semester...plus a list of 8 more lessons with 7th & 8th grade! #NoSweatLibraryI’ve written, too, that making ELA and Math orientations about location allows me to bring other subject areas into the library for content-specific lessons. During the second grading period, 6g Science returns to the library during their Classification & Organization unit.

The lesson allows students to explore the Dewey 590 Animals section, whose disciplinary organization mirrors that of scientific classification, thus reinforcing content for both science & library. The lesson also reviews the parts of informational books so students learn ways to dig into a book’s content to find and extract what they need.

HIGHER GRADE LEVEL “ORIENTATIONS”

Lest you think I ignore our 7th and 8th graders, here’s a list of the “library orientations” I’m providing for them during this same time period:

  • 7g & 8g ELA – Narrative Fiction & first book checkout
  • 8g Social Studies – The American colonies, a U.S. History project
  • 7g Math – adding/subtracting decimals & locating Dewey numbers
  • 7g Social Studies – First Texans, a TX History cooperative learning activity
  • 7/8 Theater – Multicultural folktales, creating one-act plays
  • 7g Social Studies – WebQuest on European explorers, a TX History project
  • 8g Spanish – Weather reports & introduction to video broadcasting
  • 8g Health, 8g Careers – books, ebooks, online services & websites

I know you may not think of these as “orientations,” but if view each library visit as an entirely new experience for that group of students in that subject class, all our lessons become “library orientations.”

THE POWER OF “SCHOOL LIBRARY ORIENTATIONS”

I’ve discovered it doesn’t matter how good a librarian students have had before they arrive in our school. These “library orientation” lessons are always powerful because they are bite-sized pieces, scaffolded over time, helping students gradually learn—and remember—how to use every aspect of our library services.

To make successful, carefully crafted lessons, we must have a comprehensive view of each grade level’s total library experience, for both subject-area curricula and the library curriculum. I created my Curriculum Matrix for just this reason, and I keep it updated so it is always ready to be referred to.

Our attitude toward “library orientation” is a reflection of our mindset about our entire School Library Program. We want every student experience with us to be a memorable one, offering meaningful lessons that never get old.

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Create a Customized School Library Orientation for Teachers

Create a Customized School Library Orientation for Teachers - Teacher attitude toward the school library determines student use of our facility. School Librarians can show teachers the benefits of collaboration & library visits by creating a customized library orientation that features materials and Library Lessons for their first content area units of study. #NoSweatLibraryAt the start of each school year, we have School Library Orientations for students, our goal being to encourage them to use the library and its resources. But this rarely puts us at the top of most students’ list of where to go for information or guidance on school assignments. How might we overcome that disconnect?

What predisposes students to use the school library as a primary resource for learning? The answer is obvious: teachers have the most influence over whether students use the school library! If they regularly bring students to the library for class assignments, then students learn that the school library is the first, best place to go for answering questions and solving problems.

Thus, we need to boost our credibility with teachers, show them how we can increase student achievement. We must familiarize them with our products and services…not an overview, but their particular content area and specific classroom assignments.  We do that by creating a customized library orientation for our teachers.

THE SCHOOL LIBRARY HAS WHAT TEACHERS NEED

The twofold purpose of a teacher library orientation is to convince teachers we have exactly what they and their students need for any curricular unit, and to encourage them to collaborate with us on their lesson activities. Just as we do with student library visits, we can’t inundate teachers with everything we have; we just offer what they need for their immediate upcoming task. Accordingly, our custom library orientation need only show teachers the library’s resources for their 1st grading period topics of study.

First we determine what the school library has for each subject. Using subject-area curriculum guides or lesson plans, make a list of library resources that can enhance upcoming topic activities:

  • professional teaching materials
  • a cart of books for student use
  • online subscription database features
  • topical periodicals or realia
  • a particular library lesson.

We may find we don’t have materials for every subject teacher need, especially if curriculum or lessons have changed. We can still help: School librarians get numerous materials catalogs through the mail, and we can organize vendor catalogs by subject so teachers can easily browse catalogs to give us purchase requests.

HOW TO SET UP A TEACHER LIBRARY ORIENTATION

  • Teachers Need a School Library Orientation, Too! - A School Library Orientation for teachers shows them we have the resources they need for curricular units and that collaborating with us on Library Lessons will benefit them & their students. Here's how I do it... #NoSweatLibraryThe days before school begins are packed with professional development and preparing for students, so teachers need to see we respect their time. Don’t schedule a single teacher orientation, but rather, set up a self-paced visitation available throughout the day.
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  • Just as we capture student interest, “hook” teachers with food, like desserts and sweets! If you can’t do all that preparation, ask the PTA to help provide goodies. Intrigue teachers with a personalized invitation and a clever name, like “Desserts and Dewey”. Many online tools allow us to easily customize a document with colorful graphics for each subject.
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  • With students we focus on a single objective, and we need to do the same for teachers. To fulfill our objective to show teachers what we have for them, create a thematic display of selected physical materials using a table for each subject area. Include professional items in different formats as well as student-use materials.
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  • Just as we give students a meaningful activity to practice what they’ve learned, give teachers an activity that directs them to other bookshelf materials after they’ve examined their table materials. We can create a “Dewey map,” or better yet, create a short scavenger hunt for teachers customized to their content units—I call mine What “Dewey” Have For You?
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  • Show teachers we’re responsive to their curricular needs by giving them highlighters & sticky notes to mark bid vendor catalogs with needed materials they haven’t found by browsing their subject bookshelves.
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  • Spotlight digital library subscription resources that support first grading period topics. Designate certain library computers for each subject’s relevant services for the first grading period, and facilitate exploration into articles or features with a brief “how to” or WebQuest. (This can serve as a basis for student WebQuests.) Group like-subject stations so those teachers can sit together to collaborate.
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  • Let teachers experience how you customize a Library Lesson. Set up a lesson station with a slide presentation or video about copyright. Offer a copyright chart with guidelines for fair use of print or digital materials, printed on both sides and laminated, to take back to their classroom as a quick yet effective reminder during the rest of the school year. If we already have a Library Lesson for a 1GP topic, offer a copy of the Lesson Plan document to invite collaboration and a library visit. (Be sure your LP shows their Subject Standards!)

MY TEACHER LIBRARY ORIENTATION TIME SAVERS

  • My personalized invitations include an “orientation lesson guide” to give teachers a preview of what they’ll do, and it allows them to work independently through the lesson whenever they choose to visit the library during the day.
  • For subject signs on tables I use the plastic magazine holders I’ve set up for vendor catalogs. I have colorful graphic sheets taped to the sides to identify the subject, so I just grab them and place in the center of the appropriate table.
  • To one side of the catalog container I put teaching materials like DVDs, kits, or idea books. To the other side, I offer a sample of a dozen or so books that are helpful for students. I include a topical list of other books for a classroom bookcart, and to promote teacher collaboration I suggest they begin a project with the bookcart in the library because there’s more room for students to spread out. (I keep these lists updated with new purchases because I use them to compile topical bookcart materials.)
  • Within pertinent subscription services, I bookmark articles or create folders so teachers or students (or I) can rapidly find needed resources at a later time.

LONG TERM BENEFITS OF A TEACHER LIBRARY ORIENTATION

A successful faculty library orientation results in an increase in lesson collaborations and scheduled class visits. We won’t have every teacher participate every year, but many return periodically to check out new materials, especially after a standards, curriculum, or textbook update.

With more teacher-scheduled Library Lesson visits we overcome that disconnect between student orientation and student use. Students become more familiar with library offerings and more comfortable seeking out the librarian and library resources.

If you’ve not yet had a formal teacher library orientation, I encourage you to plan one now. Showing teachers that we consider them a primary partner in library services goes a long way to making the school library—and the School Librarian—a valuable resource for the school.

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