With its vision of creating thriving school libraries and information literate students, Information Power incorporates the principles of the 1988 seminal work Information Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs. The vision presented in both works is one of classroom teachers and teacher-librarians collaborating for information literacy, but it is that present the collaborative argument most strongly. This work is itself the product of a partnership of the ALA and the AASL in which they state, “…the effective library media specialist draws upon a vision for the student-centered library media program that is based on three central ideas: collaboration, leadership, and technology” (4).
Understanding these three central ideas is crucial to classroom teachers and teacher-librarians who are concerned with helping their students achieve their potential. The book reiterates the national guidelines for creating and maintaining a dynamic school library media program and showcases the nine major standards of concern for schools interested in developing student information literacy. Educators passionate about joining the Information Power vision will find it advantageous to utilize this powerful work as a resource both in convincing themselves and convincing others of the importance of school libraries and information literacy.
American Association of School Librarians and Public Education Network. The Information-Powered School. Hughes-Hassell, Sandra and Anne Wheelock eds. Chicago: American Library Association, 2001.
The Information-Powered School preface states: “Helping students become information literate has been at the heart of school library media services since the publication of Information Power in 1988” (vii). In support of this statement, the book is a compilation of the experiences and ideas garnered through the Library Power project initiated by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund. The book includes templates, checklists, and forms all in support of the tenets laid out in the AASL’s 1988 Information Power.
While the book is a compilation by multiple authors, it is integrated into a logical structure from rendering an understanding of what constitutes an information-powered school, to the principles of collaboration, to the development of collections via collection and curriculum mapping, and much more. The Information-Powered School aims to provide readers with the knowledge to “transform” schools into information-powered schools that will equip students with the skills necessary for to navigate successfully through the 21st century information overload.
Buzzeo, Toni. Collaborating to Meet Standards: Teacher/Librarian Partnerships for K-6. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2002.
Toni Buzzeo’s books on collaboration follow a similar pattern. She introduces the idea of collaboration by explicating its historical role and benefits and then proceeds to provide a flexible template for collaboration as well as a plethora of tried and tested collaborative units submitted by various practicing teacher-librarians.
These units are standards-based—both content standards and information literacy standards that the units fulfill are listed. A cooperative teaching plan (delineating who does what), a list of resources, and reproducibles for students to employ in their research are also provided. These units are thorough and cogent and coupled with a template with which to create one’s own cooperative unit, this book is a worthwhile resource for classroom teachers and teacher-librarians from K-12.
Buzzeo, Toni. Collaborating to Meet Standards: Teacher/Librarian Partnerships for 7-12. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2002.
Toni Buzzeo’s book for secondary education classrooms follows a similar format as her book for the primary grades.
Duncan, Donna and Laura Lockhart. I-Search, You Search, We all Learn to Research: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Teaching Elementary School Students to Solve Information Problems. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2000.
In this work, Donna Duncan and Laura Lockhart delineate the I-Search process from start to finish. The authors make a striking statement in support of the I-Search model, “Choice drives the I-Search unit. Students choose their topic, their best resources, and how they will show what they learned” (3). Each I-Search unit is based on following systematically through five questions: What do I want to know?, Where can I find the answers?, How will I record the information that I find?, How will I show what I learned?, and How will I know I did a good job? (xiv). The authors lay the foundation for anyone who is interested in implementing this inquiry-based research process in their own schools and school libraries.
Duncan, Donna and Laura Lockhart. I-Search for Success: A How-To-Do-It Manual for Connecting the I-Search Process with Standards, Assessments, and Evidence-Based Practice. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2005.
Duncan and Lockhart espouse the I-Search model for developing information literacy and in exhorting students to create their own models. This text builds on their I-Search book published in 2000 which was more of an introduction to the I-Search method and how to implement it. In I-Search for Success the authors go beyond the implementation to manifest how the I-Search process correlates well with current standards and educational theory. For instance, the I-Search process is based on five action questions which relate to Bloom’s taxonomy of higher order thinking skills. The I-Search process also incorporates the McREL (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) standards and benchmarks as well as the nine information literacy standards developed by the American Association for School Librarians (AASL) and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).
The book is full of ready-made resources such as sample lessons, assessment rubrics, sample journal portfolios, grade sheets and more in order to facilitate the smooth implementation of the I-Search model for student research. This book emphasizes how the I-Search process enhances student achievement and aligns with standards.
Eisenberg, Michael B. and Robert E. Berkowitz. The Definitive Big6 Workshop Handbook, 3rd edition. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, Inc., 2003.
Eisenberg and Berkowitz compiled this handbook for the purpose of explicating the Big6 model and illuminating how the Big6 can be adopted as a school-wide problem solving strategy for all types of situations. The handbook includes a variety of information related to implementing the Big6 and expanding the utility of the Big6 by means of demonstrating how the Big6 works symbiotically with other integral educational aspects such as technology, instructional design, assessment, collaboration, parental involvement, and curriculum mapping.
The handbook is an excellent introduction to ideas and assumptions underlying the Big6 as well a practical tool including many worksheets and tips for success in using the Big6 (see also the website for the Big6 to view additional resources designed to support the model).
Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina. Inquiry Learning through Librarian-Teacher Partnerships. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2004.
Harada and Yoshina construct their work around inquiry by inquiring “What is worth learning?” and “How do we make this learning happen?” These two questions predicate the value of inquiry upon which the book’s content rests. The first few chapters of the book create a holistic picture of the elements involved in inquiry learning (the how to of inquiry learning in alignment with standards). The most valuable (in terms of practical purposes) part of the book is the provision of example units for classroom teachers and teacher librarians who are ready to embark upon the implementation of inquiry-based learning units in their own classrooms.
Kearney, Carol A. Curriculum Partner: Redefining the Role of the Library Media Specialist. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Carol A. Kearney’s emphasis is stated in the title; she’s interested in redefining myriad elements of the school library media program such as leadership, support for the library media program, planning, partnership with teachers, instructional program, opportunities for learning, and community of supporters. Kearney’s interest is to utilize current research in aiding teacher-librarians to be full partners in integrating the school library media center into the school’s curriculum. Her work is valuable for all those who are interested in understanding and capitalizing upon the changes replete throughout the profession of school librarianship.
Lance, Keith Curry and David V. Loertscher. Powering Achievement 3rd ed. Salt Lake City, UT: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2005.
The third edition of this powerful work comprises a summary of Keith Lance and David Loertscher’s complete output of studies from 1999-2005. For those who appreciate a concise summarization of the current status of research in school library media centers in book format, this is an excellent resource. For purposes of presenting the research results to others, the volume contains a large section of reprintable handouts. The authors assert, “The LMC [library media center] is fast becoming a vital 24 hour, 7 days-a-week information partner for teachers and learners” (v). The authors desire that the research presented will prompt discourse regarding the future direction that school library media programs should take in order to continue powering achievement. Part One contains presentations that provide evidence in support of school library media centers, Part Two contains discussion starters based on the research findings, and Part Three contains recommendations for implementing initiatives to improve extant school library programs—“reinventing the library as a learning laboratory” (61).
For those who prefer to access information online, many of the book’s presentations are accessible on The Colorado State Library website, particularly on the impact studies tab, or on David Loertscher’s personal website. The Colorado State Library website seems particularly comprehensive and current and provides downloadable PowerPoint presentations for teacher-librarians to utilize in supporting their argument for the efficacy of school libraries. In addition, users will find many PDF documents containing the same material as well as forms to utilize for planning cooperative learning.
Lazear, David. Higher-Order Thinking the Multiple Intelligence Way. Tucson, AZ: Zepher Press, 2004.
Lazear takes Howard Gardner’s ideas as a base for building his own higher-order-thinking skills based instructional units. Lazear includes lesson plans for diverse age levels and specific techniques for prompting students to move beyond rote memorization and towards higher-order-thinking skills. Lazear’s website includes an introduction to multiple intelligences and offers more products pertaining to teaching to multiple intelligences.
Loertscher, David, Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan. Ban Those Bird Units: 15 Models for Teaching and Learning in Information-Rich and Technology-Rich Environments. Salt Lake City, UT: Hi Willow Research & Publishing, 2005.
Loertscher joins with Koechlin and Zwaan to create a resource that furnishes teacher-librarians and classroom teachers with fifteen ready to use models for developing students’ information literacy skills. The authors begin with the premise that educators need to be prepared to operate just as comfortably in an information-rich and technology-rich environment as they used to be in the text-lecture environment.
The authors capitalize on the notion that “Librarians often teach the research process adapted from the scientific method” in building their own circular research model that places the student at the center and arrows pointing out to: builds a question, finds and sorts information, reads and understands, thinks and creates, summarizes, concludes, makes decisions, communicates findings, reflects on process and product, builds a question (xxi).The authors utilize this circular model and adapt and accommodate it in creating the fifteen models that the book expands upon. In designing these models, their intent is to preclude the copy and paste mode of information seeking and to require students to comprehend and utilize the information they garner to build their own knowledge and thinking instead of using the ideas of others.
In other words, the authors seek to ban all traditional assignments, “bird units”, that merely require regurgitating, not reformulating or synthesizing ideas. In place of the “bird units” the authors develop fifteen models incorporating alternative activities (varied by topic and grade level). The activities within these units require students to synthesize the information they collect. The units in the book use creative assignments to foster students’ interest and to jumpstart their cognitive and creative engines. All of the models end by asking the question “So what?” to inspire reflection and further engagement with the knowledge garnered throughout the process.
The models are divided into three categories: appetizers, the main course, and dessert. Appetizers are simple models that have the flexibility to be used with a variety of teaching strategies, the main course models are more substantive, and the dessert models are intended to be flexible and creatively employed when the opportunity arises (xxii).
- Appetizers: background to question model; sensemaking model; read, view, listen model; advice to action model; compare and contrast model
- The Main Course: concept jigsaw model; problems/possibilities jigsaw puzzle model; matrix model; timeline model; history and mystery model; take a position model; recreate model; re-invent a better way model; the quest
- Dessert: Mix it Up Model
(examples are provided on pp. 191-202) - Examples of Dessert models include (p.191):
- Do a major Background to Question study before a Quest
- Do a Matrix before having to Take a Position
- Sensemake a problem before trying to Reinvent it
- Compare and Contrast as a History/Mystery Model unfolds
- Begin with a Jigsaw and then culminate with a Matrix
One expository chapter is dedicated to each model including the possible topics the model works well with, critical information literacy skills the model augments, and examples and forms to use with the model. This is an astute and timely resource by some of the best of the best scholars in the field of information literacy research. In hopes of facilitating educators’ ability to purchase this superlative resource, the ISBN is 1-933-170111-5. This book purports its companion volume to be Build Your Own Information Literate School (2003) which is discussed in the teacher-librarians section.
Loertscher, David V. Taxonomies of the School Library Media Program 2nd ed. Salt Lake City: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2000.
Through Taxonomies, David Loertscher strives to create a comprehensive guide for turning a languishing, neglected school library media center into a vibrant, integral school library media center. Loertscher’s procedure for accomplishing this is to begin with an explanation of the theory and then moving into discussing the practical taxonomy (i.e., role within the institution) of each of the main players: the teacher-librarian, the classroom teacher, the student, and the administrator. For example, in the chapter pertaining to the teacher-librarian, Loertscher posits four necessary program areas: collaboration, reading, enhancing learning through technology, and information literacy (13).
These four program areas each receive a chapter explicating the role they play in the library media program. The book presents a holistic picture of what the creation and continuation of a thriving school media center entails and, therefore, is a valuable resource for all those involved in the salubrity of schools and of school libraries.
Miller, Donna. The Standards-Based Integrated Library: A Collaborative Approach for Aligning the Library Program with the Classroom Curriculum 2nd ed. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2004.
While the target audience of Donna Miller’s book is teacher-librarians, she also notes that classroom teachers and administrators may find it to be a useful resource as its main focus is developing the collaborative relationship. To this end, Miller includes mini-units designed to address single tasks that “introduce, extend, enrich, or remediate concepts originally taught in the classroom. Forms, templates, national standards, and teaching aids are included to assist library media specialists and teachers in implementing this philosophy” (ix).
Beyond the mini-units, Miller also includes what she terms substantive units and lessons to address standards and to be enjoyable and engaging. She states her lessons emphasis to be “active, inquiry-based lessons rather than students being passive recipients of lecture-based lessons with no relevance to real life” (xi). Miller provides examples of at least one major unit per grade (K-8). Examples of units included in the book include at the youngest level a Kindergarten and Pre-First Grade Museum unit and at the eldest level Seventh or Eighth Grade International Cultures Unit.
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