By Anita Brooks Kirkland & Carol Koechlin
It’s spring, and that means looking forward to next year. This edition of the CSL Journal is designed to inspire.
How can you help your administration, staff and parents fulfill their goals next year? It’s time to educate your school learning community about the work you do to advance school wide achievement all year long. Link this work to their wants and needs and establish shared agendas. Many articles in this spring issue will help enrich your messages. Here are some ideas for making connections.
Put together your annual report. Prepare evidence of successes in the Library Learning Commons this year and link to school goals and needs. Articles to inspire your thinking:
- Make the Case for the Library Learning Commons! Consider using CSL’s new resource, Student Success and the School Library Learning Commons as a framework for your report.
Book time to have a serious conversation with your administration. Share and compare the LLC vision with school goals and develop shared plans for next year. Articles to inspire your thinking:
- Make the Case for the Library Learning Commons! Print or share online our new School Administrators page to kick off discussions.
- A Teacher Initiated Library Learning Commons and the Transformative Outcomes It Can Produce. A space and program designed for inquiry.
- Developing Teachers’ Critical Literacies: What Educators Need to Know in a “Fake News” World. Critical professional learning for all educators.
- School Libraries and eLearning: Answering the Call for Access and Equity. What one school district has done to address this gap.
- Partnering in the Library Learning Commons: Hosting a Modern Book Tasting in the Elementary Classroom. Collaborative partnerships for student success.
- Keep Them Reading, Thinking, Making! Closing the summer achievement gap.
Explore program ideas and instructional strategies to inspire planning for next year. Share these ideas with your colleagues to build collaboration. Attend or better still host staff (division/ department) meetings and celebrate what students have accomplished as well as ideas for keeping students learning over the summer, preparing them for the new school year. Articles to inspire your thinking:
- Partnering in the Library Learning Commons: Hosting a Modern Book Tasting in the Elementary Classroom. Collaborative partnerships for student success.
- Escape Room Activities in the Library. Create engaging interactive problem solving activities.
- Unearthing Reading Gems in Book Award Programs. Ideas for inspiring reading engagement and information about book award programs from across the country.
- Flip Your Library Orientation. Free up face-to-face time for high quality collaborative learning experiences.
- Keep Them Reading, Thinking, Making! Closing the summer achievement gap.
- Resource Links Highlights: Summer Reading for Tweens and Teens. Book suggestions and reviews for summer reading.
- Developing Teachers’ Critical Literacies: What Educators Need to Know in a “Fake News” World. Critical professional learning for all educators, and ideas to incorporate into collaborative learning activities.
Take inspiration from Canadian authors. Their ideas inspire every aspect of supporting your school community. Consider their ideas for developing culturally responsive and inclusive schools and school library learning commons. Articles to inspire your thinking:
- In Conversation with Jael Richardson. Champion for diversity in literature through her writing and her social activism, most notably as the founder and artistic director of the FOLD, the Festival of Literary Diversity.
- An Interview with Kim Block. Her stories are a way to start that conversation and get people checking their own perceptions about stuttering and the communication process.
Seek out opportunities for professional learning. Discuss these opportunities with your administrator, connecting your learning goals with the school’s aspirations and plans. Articles to inspire your thinking:
- This Year in School Library Conferences & Events 2018: Highlights from Across Canada. Contributions from school library associations from across the country. Learn how these associations and their events can keep you learning and inspire your practice.
We hope that this edition of the Canadian School Libraries Journal will inspire you to connect with your professional learning networks and share approaches to educating the school library community. On behalf of the entire CSL Journal Editorial Board we wish everyone a safe, restful and inspiring summer break.
