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Got the Smartest Card Yet?
Encourage your students to explore the
many wonderful resources available at the library during National
Library Card
Sign-up Month, sponsored by the American Library Association. The calendar
entry on ReadWriteThink offers lesson plans, classroom activities and related
Web sites. Try the newest ReadWriteThink lesson plan, Dear
Librarian: Writing a Persuasive Letter (E), which invites students to request new books for the
school library collection.
Invite your students to explore the question, "Do we see ourselves
in books that are in our school library?" See details on this inquiry
project in "Building
Community through Social Action" (E) from School
Talk.
Engage your students in an activity that will help them truly understand
how libraries work! To learn how, read "The
Wall: Engaging Students in Real Work" (M) from Voices
from the Middle, which describes
students designed and created a 58-foot mural depicting the Dewey Decimal
System -- to adorn the school library and assist library
users in finding information.
Based on Ken Macrorie's "I-Search" and Howard Gardner's theory
of multiple
intelligences, "From Mickey Mouse to Marilyn
Manson: A Search Experience" (M-S), from English Journal,
describes the process as students conducted a search using library resources
and technology, became experts on the topics, and created a professional presentation.
Rather than focusing students on the use of the library,turn their attention
to the more difficult and integral problems of how to read, interpret, and
analyze
information
the library offers using the ideas from "Growing
Researchers Using an Information-Retrieval Scaffold" (C) from Teaching English in the Two-Year College. For more on teaching the
research paper at the college level, explore the Teacher Resource Collection
on the College
Research
Paper for resources to help college writers make the most of the library
on their campus and in their community.
For great books to find in your library, check out the Recommended
Reading Lists and Booklists for a range of publications and materials
appropriate for your student readers, including suggestions for gender-balanced
and multicultural
texts.
NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this Inbox is provided
for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available
to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 09-07-2005.
Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary,
M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, G=General).
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