Felicia Quesada Montville is the Library Teacher at Charles E. Brown Middle School in Newton, MA,
and the winner of a 2020 MSLA Web Seal of Excellence.
and the winner of a 2020 MSLA Web Seal of Excellence.
When I sat down to write my first Forum article back in January, I brainstormed a list of topics, settling on two for my winter and spring articles. Little did I know that my first article’s topic, using social media to connect with students, would suddenly become even more relevant as we moved to connecting with students solely online. Nor did I realize that my second idea would need to go right out the window — what help is an article about genrefying a collection when no one can access their libraries? Back to the drawing board it was.
And while there’s no shortage of pieces out there highlighting the amazing things people are doing from home, life in quarantine is simply all I could wrap my head around. What does middle school librarianship look like from home? Much of our time connecting with students in school is during unstructured extension blocks — the library is the heart of the school, a gathering place in addition to a classroom. How do we recreate that safe space online? And while our libraries are about so much more than the books and the lessons, there are also the books and the lessons! How do we ensure that our students keep reading and learning important information literacy skills?
And while there’s no shortage of pieces out there highlighting the amazing things people are doing from home, life in quarantine is simply all I could wrap my head around. What does middle school librarianship look like from home? Much of our time connecting with students in school is during unstructured extension blocks — the library is the heart of the school, a gathering place in addition to a classroom. How do we recreate that safe space online? And while our libraries are about so much more than the books and the lessons, there are also the books and the lessons! How do we ensure that our students keep reading and learning important information literacy skills?
In Newton, we’re lucky to be part of a large K-12 library department, with four (and a fraction of another’s time) of us at the middle school level. Under normal circumstances, we are a collaborative department, often sharing ideas and materials. However, distance learning has pushed us to take our collaboration to a new level, to the benefit of us and our students. Of course, not everyone is as lucky as we are, and many library teachers feel more isolated than ever. Finding other opportunities to collaborate, with classroom teachers, other specialists and support staff, or library teachers in other districts through MSLA chats and other forums is then essential — so many of our best ideas come when we are working together. Moreover, it isn’t just about generating ideas, but also our sharing, understanding, and connecting as professionals. For example, to Laura Gardner, library teacher at Dartmouth Middle School in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, “being able to communicate and collaborate is even more important now. Our job is so different from a typical classroom teacher so it’s wonderful to talk to other people who understand all your specific worries and fears.”
Due to our department collaboration, we have flourished where we could have floundered, identifying strategies and creating materials collectively, rather than struggling to manage it all alone. We are collaborating with each other in order to best stay connected with our students and effectively bring our middle school libraries to our communities virtually.
Library Enrichment
Without fixed classes to deliver instruction for, our first questions as a middle school library department were what would we provide to students and how would we provide it. Taking an idea from The Book Wrangler and turning it into her own, Jamie Lightfoot, library teacher at F.A. Day Middle School, created an enrichment menu to share with students each week. Using this engaging format, she provided resources for the tasks of Connect, Learn and Explore each day, using a theme pulled from the National Day Calendar or other sources. After the first week, we crowdsourced topics and links, and now rotate creating the menu in Canva. As we progressed, we learned that we should also use bit.ly links to collect more data about the use of our enrichment material. The format encourages students to explore new topics and resources, while connecting with each other through message boards and questions of the day.
Schoology Groups
Schoology Groups
To get these enrichment menus in front of students, we bolstered our LMS groups and courses, ensuring that our connections to students weren’t lost since they were home. Patty Summa, library teacher at Bigelow Middle School, has found that, “it has been very positive connecting with students at Bigelow in a new way since school closed due to the pandemic. Through the Bigelow Schoology Library Group, I have watched students participate and engage in online discussions with other students about a range of topics that they might otherwise not have discussed if it were not for this new learning format due to the unique circumstances. Since it is a multi-grade group, students are also interacting with students from all three grades. In addition, this format allows me to develop relationships with students that are not always frequent visitors to the library. Many students participating regularly in discussions in the Schoology group are not necessarily the ones that come to the library to check out books. This has been a silver lining in an otherwise dark and stressful time.”
Zoom Meetings
Zoom Meetings
In addition to our asynchronous discussion boards and enrichment activities, we also host weekly Zoom meetings for our students by grade level. While we imagined these as times for virtual reader’s advisory, tech help, and more academic-type support, we’ve seen that our students really just want to connect. Like us, they miss the library as a safe space to connect with others. So we shifted. Our Zoom meetings are now time for random chats and fun games. I often find myself playing skribbl.io, a virtual Pictionary-like game, with students. Combining fun and connection, Jamie Lightfoot created a trivia game called “How Well Dewey Know You?” using the Kahoot platform. According to Jamie, “teachers filled out a survey about themselves and students try to see how well they know that teacher in a co-hosted Zoom. The guest teachers have shared stories about questions. It has been really fun. Students get to see teachers in a different way and also there have been a couple of times where the students will say things like ‘one time in class you said _______ so that is why I guessed _________’ and then the teacher knows that students really are listening!”
Collaboration with Teachers
Ironically, I’ve found working from home has made it easier to connect with classroom teachers. Without study hall students to supervise, the spontaneous reader’s advisory to give, printer issues to troubleshoot, etc. I have the flexibility to attend the many different grade level department and team meetings. I’ve always been there when needed, but being a regular fixture helps me build relationships and demonstrate my value as an instructional partner. Additionally, many teachers are taking distance learning as an opportunity to try new things, and who better to lend support than the library teacher. According to Jamie Lightfoot, “one positive that has come out of virtual teaching is that I am being approached by teachers in my school who I do not typically work with. Teachers are interested in collaborating on research projects and are reaching out for resources, pathfinders, screencasts on using databases, co-hosted Zoom Q&A sessions. It's great. I think moving forward many teachers will have a new understanding of just what the library teacher does and how it can apply to all subjects."
Library Chats
Collaboration with Teachers
Ironically, I’ve found working from home has made it easier to connect with classroom teachers. Without study hall students to supervise, the spontaneous reader’s advisory to give, printer issues to troubleshoot, etc. I have the flexibility to attend the many different grade level department and team meetings. I’ve always been there when needed, but being a regular fixture helps me build relationships and demonstrate my value as an instructional partner. Additionally, many teachers are taking distance learning as an opportunity to try new things, and who better to lend support than the library teacher. According to Jamie Lightfoot, “one positive that has come out of virtual teaching is that I am being approached by teachers in my school who I do not typically work with. Teachers are interested in collaborating on research projects and are reaching out for resources, pathfinders, screencasts on using databases, co-hosted Zoom Q&A sessions. It's great. I think moving forward many teachers will have a new understanding of just what the library teacher does and how it can apply to all subjects."
Library Chats
We’ve also found new and unexpected ways to collaborate. For example, according to Jean Stehle from Oak Hill Middle School, “we all know the library is the heart of the school. Sure, it's a place to borrow books and do work, but it's also a place for people to connect and to form new relationships. I had the idea to start a show where our staff members could remain connected from a distance. My intention was to give students a sneak peek into a staff member's life, but I've been surprised how much the staff have been enjoying the chance to see how their colleagues are doing.” The show is Library Chats, a video series in which she interviews teachers about their life in quarantine, of course asking about what they are reading as well. These videos are great opportunities for students to see their teachers connecting, and I’m sure many seeds for future collaborative work are being planted.
Some Good Book News
Fostering a love of reading is always at the heart of what we do. Distance learning has been an opportunity to promote the digital book sources we already had, like the MLS Commonwealth eBook Collection, and introduce those that are temporarily available to students. We’ve beefed up the ebooks and audiobooks pages on our websites, promoted materials on social media, and offered book talks individually, similar to what we would have done with an entire lesson were we in school. However, as a department we knew we wanted to find a more engaging way to get our communities excited about books and reading from a distance.
Fostering a love of reading is always at the heart of what we do. Distance learning has been an opportunity to promote the digital book sources we already had, like the MLS Commonwealth eBook Collection, and introduce those that are temporarily available to students. We’ve beefed up the ebooks and audiobooks pages on our websites, promoted materials on social media, and offered book talks individually, similar to what we would have done with an entire lesson were we in school. However, as a department we knew we wanted to find a more engaging way to get our communities excited about books and reading from a distance.
Playing on Newton alumni John Krasinski’s Some Good News, we developed Some Good Book News to highlight exciting books, virtual author events, and more in short weekly videos. We’ve limited ourselves to one minute(ish) book talks, and find new book-related news to share each time. The response has been tremendous, and working together has made the project more meaningful and manageable. Better yet, we are collecting our individual book talks into a database to pull from in the future.
Working from home certainly isn’t without it’s challenges, both for us as individual library teachers and for us as a department and a district. Just like other districts, we struggled with uncertainty, navigating the difficulties of distance teaching in the midst of a national crisis. And of course as educators, the best part of our jobs is time spent with students, and we are all coping with the loss of that time. We will make it through this crisis, but the impacts of life in quarantine and distance learning are sure to be felt long after we return to our classrooms and libraries. Going back to schools, libraries, and other public spaces will bring an entirely new set of challenges. However, we will return with meaningful collaboration behind us and resources to reuse. In the meantime, we will continue to work together to better stay connected with our students, our communities, and each other.