VAASL Conference SSR Session New Ideas Share

Thank you to everyone who attended one of the SSR and Secondary Students sessions.  I enjoyed talking with you all and appreciate you posting your ideas, questions, etc on the poster boards on your way out.  Here are the posts from the NEW IDEAS Poster:

NEW IDEAS:

• bring in therapy dogs
• kids commenting on morning announcements
• reorganize the library by genre
• use Glogester
• Mockingjay PreMovie release party
• English teachers can use SSR for small group remediation
• Steven Lane, The Passion of Reading (speed dating for books)
• let kids put sticky notes on books-- no spoilers
• Reading Fair, like a science fair, to promote new books
• Give your administrator a copy of The Power of Reading
• Have classes do SSR outside during National Library Week
• QR Codes with book trailers- kids can scan with their phone

Recap:  Great ideas shared here!  I too am planning a Mockingjay movie release party.  I do a monthly lunch in the library with a different theme each time.  I think these events help with the appeal factor of SSR.  I try to use my library programming to let kids know what books we have and to have access to them.  I love the Reading Fair idea!  I do New Book Preview Parties which is a little like this.  I thought the science fair board for a genre, a book series or an author could be a great follow up research opportunity for a student.

Which new ideas really speak to you?  Do you have any additional new ideas for SSR at the secondary level to share?

Conference Day is here!

I am excited about today's sessions and evening event, dessert with best selling author David Baldacci!  I am currently setting up for my concurrent session on SSR and Secondary Students.  I am VERY excited to hear Dr. Stephen Krashen give his keynote address today, Dr. Krashen is the expert on Free Voluntary Reading and his book The Power of Reading is an important part of the session we are presenting this morning!

My coworkers, Renee Favaro and Kate Givens, should be here soon.  I am so glad they were willing to present with me and will be able to enjoy the conference today.  They are both English teachers at Lord Botetourt and I am so grateful for the strong library-classroom collaboration we have.

I hope you will check back later to see what participant questions, ideas and success stories we have to share after the 9am SSR and the Secondary Student session.

2014 VAASL Conference: SSR Session

I am so excited that the annual Virginia Association of School Librarians Conference begins tomorrow!  I am co-presenting with two of my coworkers on Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) at the Secondary Level.  The keynote speaker later in the day is Dr. Stephen Krashen, an expert in the area of SSR.  It should be an awesome day.

At the end of our presentation, we have an activity where participants can ask questions and share success stories and new ideas.  I plan to post the information from this activity here and hope that the blog format will allow for further professional discussion on the topic of SSR.

Labor Day Weekend

I enjoyed the long Labor Day weekend and read several books! I have a lot of students coming to the library this week so I am happy to have a few new titles to talk up.

Finished The Fifth Wave- Sci Fic title that I am looking forward to book talking.  I predict that this is a popular title this school year.









Loved After Ever After- great realistic fiction title with a male main character.  The age of the main character (8th grade) may make this a little hard to sell to my high school students.  So many students read The Fault in Our Stars this summer though that I think this will appeal to some. I enjoyed it...and cried.







Survive was a great adventure novel.  I read this almost in one sitting.  I look forward to book talking this one!  Wish it had a different cover because I think boys will like this story but not all boys will check out a book with this cover.









Quarantine: The Loners has circulated really well every since I put it out on the new book shelf last year.  I read it this weekend and enjoyed it.  This novel made me think of Lord of the Flies.

LB Reads 2013 Summer Reading

We are using the high school Virginia Reader's Choice books as our list for summer reading.  (This is our 4th year using the VRC list!)  We held summer reading assemblies recently and I am so excited about the interest in the titles.  I REALLY like the list this year!

I am having a hard time selecting one favorite from the list this year.  Here are a few thoughts on each title.

Anya's Ghost- a graphic novel, which is honestly not really my thing.  I did like the simple drawing style of this novel and the story grabbed me and I was compelled to read the entire book quickly to find out how the mystery was resolved.

Choker- a very fun, quick read with a few surprises!  This is one you will enjoy talking about with a friend once you have both read it.  A good choice if you like a mystery.

Between Shades of Gray- Incredible historical fiction novel set in WWII.  I read this novel awhile ago and have been recommending it ever since.  I really enjoyed reading about the WWII time period from a very different perspective, a young Lithuanian girl in the Stalin Era Soviet Union. I highly recommend this one and male and female readers have enjoyed it.

Scorpio Races-- a great surprise.  This book did not appeal to me at first but I read it because it was on this list and really, really liked it!  Mythology, fantasy and a great plot- a great combination. A good choice for guys and girls.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone- one of my all time favorites.  I read this last year and devoured the sequel when it was published.  This is a well written fantasy novel.  Maybe my favorite on the list....

The Fault in Our Stars- While I just said that Daughter of Smoke and Bone could be my favorite, well this one is also pretty darn awesome!  Time Magazine ranked this the #1 Fiction novel for 2012 for all ages and it is popular in the Young Adult as well as Adult market because it is so well written, so thought provoking, and so universal.  Warning... have tissues handy when you read this one!

This Dark Endeavor- A great Science Fiction title about Victor Frankenstein as a teenager.  A great adventure that is a good choice for male and female readers.

Something Like Hope- I really liked this novel and I would love to have a book club discussion with students who read this book.  The author made me really care for the main character and I felt a variety of emotions, including hope, as I followed her journey to her 18th birthday and freedom from incarceration in a juvenile detention faculty. I was so interested in the problems with the juvenile detention system after I read this book that I was interested in learning more about the issue.  I LOVE it when a fiction novel makes me think about the problems in society and how they can be addressed.  Give this one a try!

Hold Me Closer Necromancer- Funny/Horror- what a combination!  This is a great choice for guys and girls alike.  Each chapter starts with the title of a song and the chapter relates in someway to the title.   I just checked out the sequel to this novel it was so good! A very clever novel that does not take itself too seriously- I predict this will be a popular title with my students.

Oogy: The Dog Only a Family Could Love: A wonderful true story about an abused puppy.  This is a sad AND happy/hopeful story.  If you love animals, you will love Oogy!

The Rules for Disappearing

Awesome book- and something a little different then so many books currently out.  I read the entire book in one day- today was a snow day so we had no school! I enjoyed the Ethan-Meg/Anna romance as well as the mystery of why Anna was in the witness protection program. I was able to predict a few things but was also surprised by others. The ending was great and I was happy to find room for more about Anna in the future. Thank you to Disney Book Group and Netgalley for allowing me to read the ARC. I will definitely add this to the library's collection.

5 of 5 stars :)

The Rules for Disappearing releases in May, 2013
Genres: Mystery/suspense/romance
Interesting cover

VaASL 2012 Conference

I just got home from the VaASL conference in Hampton, VA.  What a great, inspiring conference.  I left convinced that I must make time for professional activities like blogging for my library.  On the ride home I decided to change the focus of this blog.  I am going to borrow Christi the Teen Librarian's idea of super short reviews to post information about books I read and enjoy, and I will also use this forum to post what is happening in the LBHS library.

A few items on my "things to do" list from the conference:

1. Revamp library orientation using QR codes.
2. Check out Edmodo as a possible source for summer reading and/or the book club
3. Spend more time on library advocacy-- create and share a monthly newsletter (through this blog I think) with administration, staff, parents, kids, anyone I can get to look at it!
4. Read up on the Teacher Eval standards-- great suggestions from Audrey Church
5. Learn how to make screen casts and create some
6. Work on my Destiny account-- get the MARC records for all my e content into the catalog for one stop searching for my students.
7. and much more....

This list was from the top of my head-- I really need to look back at all the notes I took at the conference to make sure I don't forget anything.

So, thanks for reading and I will be around more and in a different way.

Currently reading...

Insignia- awesome so far!

Book I am most looking forward to reading next-- Book 4 in the Beautiful Creatures series.  I saw it at Target the other night and can't wait to get my hands on it!!

Author I recently met- Gordon Korman!  While he is not an author with a huge presence in a high school library he has a few great YA books.  (Pop for one)  My own kids really like this author and I am excited to have some signed books to give them.  Gordon Korman gave a great speech at the VaASL Author Banquet- I really enjoyed it