{"id":16331,"date":"2017-09-06T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2017-09-06T04:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=16331"},"modified":"2017-08-12T21:38:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T01:38:14","slug":"all-in-a-days-work-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2017\/09\/all-in-a-days-work-partnership\/","title":{"rendered":"All in a day\u2019s work – Partnership in Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last spring I volunteered to lead a 3-hour workshop tentatively titled \u201c25 New Picture Books to Use in Your Classroom This Fall\u201d for my college\u2019s Office of Partnerships and Field Experiences<\/a> (OPFE).\u00a0 It was to be part of their summer-long Partnership Institute, a series of free workshops held throughout the summer. \u00a0The audience would be teachers and librarians from our twelve area partnership schools. \u00a0I had thought this would be easy for me as I read hundreds of books each year in order to select titles for WSU\u2019s Mock Caldecott (started eight years ago), Mock Newbery (started three years ago) and prepared the final list of books for a collaborative effort between Wright State<\/a> and our nearby neighbor, Greene County Public Library, called Picture Book Extravaganza (for the past seven years).\u00a0 Boy!\u00a0 Did I learn a lot from this experience.<\/p>\n

When drafting my proposal for OPFE I started looking at the list of workshops that other professors had set up.\u00a0 While I am sure many teachers found them interesting, they were so full of theory and research that I thought \u201cYikes!\u00a0 Mine will be full of fun and don\u2019t really fit in with these.\u201d\u00a0 I contacted the coordinator and asked if she felt the same way.\u00a0 She encouraged me to proceed since this would be different in nature from everything else.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the same day I submitted my proposal for the 3-hour OPFE workshop, I received an email from one of my friends at INFOhio<\/a> (our statewide digital library for PreK-12 students, teachers, and parents). \u00a0She asked if I would lead a 30-minute workshop about children\u2019s books.\u00a0 I asked if it was OK to use the same titles as I was using for the OPFE workshop, and this was acceptable to them. Then a big wrinkle popped up: both presentations were scheduled during the same time on the same day.\u00a0 INFOhio was able to push the literature booktalks (both children\u2019s and teen\u2019s) to the afternoon to accommodate.<\/p>\n

I spent the rest of the spring and summer reading and rereading books, looking for those 25 books that I felt were a match for the audience and fit criteria that I had mentally set (all c2017, see diversity in authors\/characters, represent many different publishers, possess a wide grade range for interest, and be useful in the classroom \u2013 as I was presenting them in content fields, noting cross-curricular uses when possible).\u00a0 I read reviews, talked to publishers (via email, in Exhibits at ALA, or at lunch or tea), and scoured my local bookstore to find just the right books.\u00a0 (Here\u2019s a shout out to all the publishers who sent me a review copy of books when requested.\u00a0 Thank you!!)\u00a0 As soon as I identified a book that I knew I had to use (for example Bravo!<\/em> by Margarita Engle and Out of Wonder<\/em> by Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth), I set up a wiki for the presentation:\u00a0 http:\/\/pbstousefall2017.wikispaces.com\/<\/a> \u00a0I searched the internet and other places for curriculum for teachers to use, author and illustrator websites, book trailers, and other supporting materials that might be fun to use in the classroom.<\/p>\n

The day finally came.\u00a0 In the morning, barring a couple of burps that I was able to surmount (the room was locked when we first got there and I forgot the copies of books I was raffling off; they were back in my office), the group was engaged for the entire three hours.\u00a0 I did a few activities with them and enlisted volunteers to read selected passages from each book.\u00a0 Two stirring moments happened for us.\u00a0 First was the reaction of the woman who read aloud the entire text of Blue Sky White Stars <\/em>by Sarvinder Naberhaus; she closed the book and said simply to the group \u201cI have to buy this book now and use it\u201d. \u00a0The second was when I read Big Cat, Little Cat <\/em>by Elisha Cooper.\u00a0 I had cautioned the group ahead of time that they should have a box of tissues nearby when reading this book to a group; I showed them the box I had on hand.\u00a0 Sure enough, one woman in the back of the room wept quietly while I read. (She told me later that she had lost her stepfather in the wee hours that morning and we cried again together later.)\u00a0\u00a0 The time just sped by.\u00a0 Several remarked on their way out of the room that \u201cThis is exactly what I need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quickly cleaning up and returning to my office, I set up and logged onto the INFOhio 2017 Boot Camp webinar.\u00a0 I should note that while I have participated in many webinars, taken several online classes and was comfortable enough talking online, this was my first webinar to lead.\u00a0 I was very cognizant about the importance of keeping my presentation to 30 minutes of talk. The adrenaline was coursing through my veins.\u00a0 I\u2019ll admit to being nervous and getting rattled a couple of times when the website links didn\u2019t go as I had hoped, but overall I think it went well.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a link to the webinar video, PowerPoint and chat to see for yourself: https:\/\/www.infohio.org\/educators\/pd\/lwi\/recordings\/view\/item\/bc2017s5<\/a><\/p>\n

Reading through the group comments at the end, I think they enjoyed the presentation and found it useful.\u00a0 I noticed one of the names in the chat that I will have to follow up on \u2013 it\u2019s a young woman, now a teacher, who was one of my \u201cstorytime kids\u201d from years and years ago in the public library.\u00a0 This is why we do what we do, right?<\/p>\n

I had a great time doing both presentations.\u00a0 Would I do the same again (two presentations in one day) in the future?\u00a0 Absolutely \u2013 this time making sure I keep in mind a couple of lessons on leading webinars that I will employ in the future.\u00a0 After all, this was all in a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Happy reading!<\/p>\n

************************************************************************************<\/p>\n

\"Headshot
Photo by Will Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our guest blogger today is Stephanie Bange. A librarian for 38 years, Stephanie recently left her position as Educational Resource Center Director at Wright State University and is now serving as a children\u2019s literature consultant and looks forward to a new set of challenges. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at\u00a0alscblog@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last spring I volunteered to lead a 3-hour workshop tentatively titled \u201c25 New Picture Books to Use in Your Classroom This Fall\u201d for my college\u2019s Office of Partnerships and Field Experiences (OPFE).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[134,9,36],"tags":[243],"class_list":["post-16331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-blogger","category-partnerships","category-slice-of-life","tag-partnerships-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}