Mrs. HP Teacher Librarian!

  First Chapter Friday Today is First Chapter Friday and the book is : This is Your Brain on Stereotypes: How Science is Tackling Unconscious Bias  by Tanya Lloyd Kyi & Drew Shannon. There was so much interesting information just in the first chapter about bias, discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes. It gives a brief history of eugenics - the idea that Caucasian people are the master race, and who led those ideas. I thought the information on baby bias was really interesting: that babies that are surrounded by various people of color showed no preference. I am looking forward to reading the rest of this book.

  Disruptive Thinking Chapter 15 of Disruptive Thinking is entitled The Power of Talk.  Beers and Probst discuss the difference between in monologic and dialogic questions.  Monologic questions have a right or best answer.  They require the student to pay attention to the text.   They remind me of closed questions - questions that you answer with a yes, no, and/or a fact.  Dialogic questions have no easy answer.  They entertain discussion.  Students don't know the answer question because there is no correct answer.  In addition, they require  the student to look for evidence to support their answer.  They also automatically compel the student to answer the question in a complete sentence.  To me, they remind me of an open ended question.  Questions like what surprised me about the text?  What did the author think I already know?   What challenged my thinking from reading the text?  Did reading this text change my mind/opinion?  

Vanished by Sheela Chari   Vanished I am not sure how Vanished   by Sheela Chari came to my attention.  Truly, I have only really been looking at middle school and young adult novels written and published in the past couple of years for my school library.  Yet somehow I found it, and somehow I bought two copies.       I so enjoyed this story of Neela, and Indian - American girl, whose cherished instrument, a veena, is stolen from under her nose.  Determined to find it, Neela fits together clues; enlist the help of an unlikely friend, and travels to India in pursuit of it.        I love learning from books.  I learned about the veena - an instrument I am not at all familiar with. And if one talks about the music of India, one must start with the veena. Neela and her family speak Tamil. I was also not familiar at all with this South Asian language till this book.  I also loved that Neela was both American and Indian.  Many times, books by and of POC are about the struggle of assimilating

Vanished by Sheela Chari First Chapter Friday It is late at night, and an American woman and her partner are traveling through India by train.  She leans her head on his shoulder, wraps her arm around her instrument and closes her eyes.  As the train speeds towards its destination, a thick fog rolls across the country, obscuring the tracks, making it difficult for the conductors to the train to see.  When a cow steps on to the tracks, the conductor hits the brakes, causing the train to derail and crash.  The American woman and her partner die in the wreck.  Her instrument is thrown into the shrubbery, but when the authorities go to tag it, it disappears without a trace until years later, it ends up in Neela's hands.  

Disruptive Thinking  Disruptive Thinking, chapter 14, addresses reading the same book.  After reading study after study for an action research project regarding Accelerated Reader, all confirmed that students want free choice regarding book choice.  Beers and Probst also argue this - free choice means free choice!  Free choice leads to finishing a book, which could lead to that book becoming a students favorite book.  Free choice isn't reading levels.  However, teacher guidance must occur while students are silent reading..  They give an example of a student reading a book beyond her comprehension.  They asked the student if she liked the book, and she said "No".  They advised that if the student insisted on reading the book, they would advise her to listen to the audiobook while reading the book.     They go on to suggest to listen to an audio book as a class while students to follow along with the text..  However, they are clear that listen is not reading.  Listening de

  It is Book Trailer Tuesday and today’s book trailer is called The Strangers by Margaret Petersen Haddix.   They say we all have a doppelganger out there - some who could be our twin.  But what if there is another family out in the world who has the same number of children in their family as yours; named them the exact same names as you and your siblings; and they were all born on the same exact date as all of you?  Coincidence?  That is exactly what happened to Chess, Emma, and Finn Greystone.  Three kids in Arizona who share their names and birthdates are kidnapped. Their mother suddenly leaves town, and leaves them with Ms. Morales and her daughter Natalie - complete strangers.   Is their mother’s sudden departure connected to the kidnapping?  And why do these other kids have so much in common with the Greystones?   Watch the book trailer! Book is available through Sora:  https://soraapp.com/library/lapl/search/query-the%20strangers/libraries-320484,78/page-1/78/4156263

Disruptive Thinking      Chapter 13 of Disruptive Thinking is all about focused silent reading.  Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers  discusses the idea of 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert.  Ten thousand hours adds up to approximately 10 years.        We know that students who read for fun is on the decline.  As educators, we know that reading improves academic achievement, builds background knowledge and helps develop empathy and personal  identity.  All these things contribute to future employment and standard of living.  If students are not practicing reading on a daily basis, how can they ever be an expert? Students in the 30th percentile are reading approximately 1.8 minutes a day, being exposed to only 106, 000 words in a year.  Asking kids to read  just an extra 10 minutes a day would expose them to 556% more words. To be a reader, you must read.      So what is focused silent reading?  After teaching & modeling reading strategies, students practice

Days of Tears I read Day of Tears by Julius Lester. Day of Tears takes place in Georgia, a southern state in the United States, beginning March 2, 1859 and ending approximately 50 years later. At this time, slavery is legal in the United States, and Georgia is a slave state. Day of Tears is based on the largest slave auction in the United States, selling 436 enslaved African Americans over the course of two days. Slave owner, Pierce Butler was addicted to gambling, and sold the slaves to cover his gambling debts. He made over $300,000 at the slave auction. At the start of the auction, a torrential rainstorm occurred, finally stopping at the end of the auction.  I was unfamiliar with this event, and the people involved. I learned not only about the largest slave auction, but Pierce Butler, his ex wife Fanny Kimble, and their two daughters, Sarah and Frances. Piece and Fanny divorced because she was not a subservient wife, and did not be believe in the institution of slavery.

Disruptive Reading   Disruptive Thinking Chapter 12      I continue to slowly make my way through Disruptive Thinking by Kyleene Beers & Robert E. Probst.  (Let me be clear, my pace has nothing to with the book, and everything to do with other things that take precedent).  Like the previous chapter, and as they promote, I am reading with BOOK, HEAD, HEART.        In chapter 12, they discuss relevance vs. interest.  Interest is fleeting, relevance is interest taken to heart.  In order for students to not think school and reading is boring, as educators we need to make curriculum relevant.  We need to be asking students:  What do you want to know?      They go on to discuss a conversation between the authors and teachers.  A teacher states:  "But I can't always worry about relevance because I got curriculum to cover."  I know I have felt this when I was in the classroom, always a race to cover the curriculum and hit all the standards, incorporate all the district mandat

  Disruptive Thinking      As the pandemic continues, I am seeking various ways to engage students in reading.  Most young people, my progeny included (to my chagrin), hate reading!      A research project for my TL credential repeatedly showed that students prefer to do  anything  else but read.  Beers and Probst assert that since 2010, students who enjoyed reading has continuously declined.  Many feel that it is a school activity only. Students find reading a chore, because it used to answer questions and validate opinions with evidence from the text, or to earn points for a grade.      Study after study shows that reading predicts school  success .  But equally important, reading opens our minds to various perspectives from our own.  It helps us to imagine how others feel and think by understanding their motivation for not just  their  actions, but beliefs.  As a result, reading reshapes us.  Or it can - if the reader is doing more than extracting information from the text.        I

    Sia Martinez & the  Moonlit Beginning Everything by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland plot twist  Sia Martinez is angry! The local sheriff stalked her mother, reported her to ICE, and had her deported to Mexico. Her mother is denied re-entry into the the USA, so she chooses to cross the Sonoran Desert and disappears. Presumed dead, Sia publicly accuses the sheriff of murder. But while Sia is out in the desert for a school project, UFO crash lands and out steps her mom. Sia Martinez & the Moonlit Beginning of Everything  has unique plot twists that intertwine with first love, conspiracy theories and racist social views about migrant people.  

Dragon Hoops        I read Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang. I picked this book because I have seen a lot of notoriety about it on social media, but I had really no expectations. In fact, I am embarrassed to say that I was not paying attention to the title or the cover, which if I was, would tell me that it was about basketball. (Honestly, I focused on the word dragon and thought I would be reading a graphic novel about them). This book was AWESOME! It is based on the high school basketball team of the school Gene Leun Yang taught at: Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, California. Going to MSHS and being a teacher, I connected with the book at the get go. Like Gene Luen Yang, I am a nerdy teacher, and not into sports. Like him, as he retells the 2014-2015 O'Dowd Basketball season, I could not help but root for this team, hoping they make it to the state championship. In addition, I learned a little bit about the history of basketball, the integration of people of color (

      Today starts the official day of the 5 Book Challenge.  WMS students have 5 months to read 5 books of their choice.  Upon completion of each book, they need to fill out a Google form to answer questions about their book.  Because of the pandemic, our school site chose not renew the licenses for Accelerated Reader.  Once quarantine started, students stopped testing.  And to be honest, my students had/have mixed feelings regarding AR.  Having a reading incentive program that allows students free book choice was an extremely attractive replacement.      I took a webinar with Follet (the organization that manages our library books). Carrie Friday, a librarian in Florida, inspired me to follow her lead regarding introducing a book challenge to our school site. (She is also very generous in giving access to her material). I proposed it to my principal, and created a Go Fund Me to purchases prizes and incentives for participants, and got ELA teachers feedback.  Unfortunately, there were