Linda Behen’s book attempts to capitalize on popular culture as a means of enhancing students’ motivation to develop their information literacy skills. By incorporating pop culture (which she defines as elements of daily life that entertain and interest, such as TV shows, fads, and current technology) into her information skills lessons. Her book comprises a rationale for her approach (via chapters entitled Today’s Teens, Technology, and Pop Culture and Why Does Library Instruction Have to Be Fun?) and examples of units of study incorporating popular culture. Behen argues that capitalizing on pop culture is the best way to make sessions more engaging and meaningful for students and in so doing prepare them for a future in an information driven world. For those interested in garnering the power of pop culture to develop information literate students, Behen’s work offers a useful place to begin.
California School Library Association. From Library Skills to Information Literacy: a Handbook for the 21st Century 2nd ed. Salt Lake City, UT: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 1997.
The California School Library Association Handbook compares traditional and constructivist teaching and learning and provides examples of instructional techniques that support student development of information literacy. The introduction affirms, “Information literacy is inherent in a thinking, meaning-centered curriculum for all students” and the book proceeds by proffering a model of such a curriculum (vii). The strategies (focus of Chapter 6) and sample scenarios (focus of Chapter 7) included in the book are useful in developing lesson plans and longer term curricular planning that considers all levels of searchers’ competencies and experiences. The entire work is imbued with the constructivist approach to teaching and learning and remains a useful resource for teacher-librarians to gain understanding about the interaction of contemporary learning theories and information literacy.
Greenwood Professional Guides in School. Greenwood Press has developed a series entitled The Greenwood Professional Guides in School which prove themselves to be useful accessories for teacher-librarians who are looking for detailed investigations into particular aspects of their work. For the purposes of providing library instruction to others, there are numerous relevant titles in this series such as Curriculum Partner: Redefining the Role of the Library Media Specialist (Carol A. Kearney 2000; ISBN 0-313-31025-4), 100 More Research Topic Guides for Students (Dana McDougald 1999; ISBN 0-313-30852-7), Teaching Electronic Literacy: A Concepts-Based Approach for School Library Media Specialists (Kathleen W. Craver 1997; ISBN 0-313-30220-0). Greenwood Press also publishes multiple books in the series beginning with Using Internet Primary Sources to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in…World Languages (Grete Pasch and Kent Norsworthy 2000; ISBN: 0-313-31259-1), Geography (Martha B. Sharma and Gary S. Elbow 2000; ISBN: 0-313-30899-3) Visual Arts (Pamela J. Eyerdam 2003; ISBN: 0-313-31555-8)…Mathematics (Evan Glazer 2001; ISBN: 0-313-31327-X). These latter titles are particularly useful if a school library needs to build up its resource collection and lesson plan ideas in a particular area. Greenwood Press publishing materials on the whole are valid and reliable texts worthy of including in a school’s collection.
Johnson, Mary. Primary Sources in the Library. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2003.
Mary Johnson exhorts teacher-librarians to include primary resources as a part of their drive to instill in students’ information literacy skills. She asserts that primary resources work symbiotically with the promotion of information literacy. In support of this argument she suggests that lessons that utilize primary sources aptly correlate with theories of inquiry-based learning, constructivism, discovery learning, and information literacy, enable differentiated instruction and provision for multiple learning styles, and promote authentic learning (6). Having stated these purported outstanding results of implementing primary sources in school library media instruction, the remainder of Johnson’s text is replete with lesson plans that support the use of primary sources in integration with the classroom curricula. Johnson’s work is fresh, germane, and in-line with current standards and educational theory; her lessons afford teacher-librarians and classroom teachers with starting points for incorporating primary sources into their own instructional design. Examples of units included in the book are My Family Artifact, A School-Wide Patriotic Speech Festival, and Primary Sources Meet Multimedia. (*Any discussion of primary source use would be remiss without mention the superlative American Memory Collection managed by the Library of Congress which proffers lesson plans using primary sources may be reached from The Learning Page.)
Keeling, Joyce. Lesson Plans for the Busy Librarian : a Standards-Based Approach for the Elementary Library Media Center. Greenwood Village, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2002.
Joyce Keeling’s text is a highly practical work broken into six chapter—one apiece for grades kindergarten to five. Each chapter includes quick (20 minutes) and practicable (few props and little preparation required) library lessons based on educational standards. Each lesson plan includes the following components: standards, objectives, directions, learning styles, the teaching team involved, and the suggested resources. The standards serve as the goals guiding the instruction, the objectives provide each lesson with a focus, and each lesson is structured to cater to multiple learning styles. The content of many of the lessons will be easily integrated into the extant curricula making this work a valuable resource for classroom teachers and teacher-librarians in search of new ideas for mini-lessons based on standards.
Koechlin, Carol and Zwaan, Sandi. Build Your Own Information Literate School. San Jose, CA: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2003.
Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwaan have partnered once again (they released Teaching Tools for the Information Age in 1997, Info Tasks for Successful Learning in 2001, and they just released a book in March 2006 entitled Q Tasks: How to Empower Students to Ask Questions). In Build Your Own Information Literate School, they divide persons with information literacy skills into three levels: Novice Learner, Apprentice Learner, and InfoStar. For each of these levels, the authors proffer lesson ideas pertaining to various information literacy topics. Ban Those Bird Units: 15 Models for Teaching and Learning in Information-Rich and Technology-Rich Environments (2005), discussed in the collaborative books section, asserts this work to be its companion volume.
Kuhlthau, Carol C. Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services. 2nd ed. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2004.
Carol Kuhlthau’s text provides an empirically grounded introduction to her information search process (ISP) model. She describes the foundations of her model as based on observation. Anyone interested in Kuhlthau’s work on the affective aspects of students’ research process will be interested in this updated version of her original work.
Milam, Peggy. InfoQuest A New Twist on Information Literacy. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2002.
Peggy Milam’s InfoQuest is a fun, collaborative supplement to a school’s information literacy program. In Milam’s efforts to attract more students to the library, the author developed InfoQuest—a game of challenging research questions that are read over the intercom each week and that students need to come in to the school library to answer. Prizes are awarded at the end of the week to the student researchers who have come up with the correct answer. By structuring the questions so that the answers will come from diverse locales within the library, the game serves to be a fun introduction to the library’s print and nonprint resources. Milam’s book is arranged into three parts: Perspective, Philosophy, and Practice. Her book will prove useful to all school library media specialists who feel that their libraries need to be re-established in students’ minds from uninteresting atmospheres to interesting useful storehouses of knowledge. The InfoQuest game is particularly useful for introducing information skills to K-3 children who have not yet been required to tackle the research process in writing papers. The game offers a fun introduction to build information skills for even the youngest of children will be able to participate. It is based on the PROBE model that encourages students to PROBE for information supported in their efforts by educators who: “provide an information-rich environment, require activities where students must seek information, offer mulitple opportunities to practice information-seeking, bring attention to a variety of information sources, and encourage information seekers” (44).
Milam’s book provides all the resources needed to begin implementing the game in one’s own school from dialog to use over the Intercom, to rules of the game, to sample InfoQuest questions and answers. This game will bring students into the library to answer such questions as “Why do glowworms glow?” and the goal is that by the end they will have used appropriate resources to leave with the answer “To attract a mate.” Sample Questions and Answers are broken into content units such as Math Marvels, Who Said That?, Best Beginner Books, etc.
Valenza, Joyce Kasman. Power Research Tools: Learning Activities and Posters. Illus. by Emily Valenza. Chicago: American Library Association, 2002.
Joyce Valenza ’s Power Research Tools is the companion to her later publication Power Tool Recharged (2004). Power Research Tools proves itself to be an asset to any school library through its provision of a collection of practical lessons covering topics from the commencement of the research process on through to the completion of the process. Valenza’s tools include not only lessons but also other tools such as graphic organizers, rubrics, and posters that reinforce the lessons’ content. The lessons are aligned with the ALA and AASL’s information literacy standards and the ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards, this resource is both a learning tool and a teaching tool for teacher-librarians to utilize in capitalizing on every learning opportunity with their students. (Valenza also maintains provocative personal ( The Neverending Search) and school (Springfield Township High School Virtual Library ) websites that contain additional information literacy and search tools.)
Valenza, Joyce Kasman. Power Tools Recharged: 125+ Essential Forms and Presentations for Your School Library Information Program. Illus. by Emily Valenza. Chicago: American Library Association, 2004.
In Power Tools Recharged, Joyce Valenza writes, “…more than ever, teacher-librarians and classroom teachers are engaging in new partnerships—in inquiry-driven research, interdisciplinary approaches, critical thinking, project- and problem-based learning, and collaborative, hands-on, authentic activities: (vii). To meet all of the challenges of the job, Valenza opines teacher-librarians must “continually retool” (vii). Hence, Power Tools Recharged was born as a means of supporting teacher-librarians with the tools necessary for job success. Power Tools Recharged represents an updated toolkit for teacher-librarians to plumb for every task from managing and promoting the library’s program to partnering with students and faculty by providing serviceable forms (e.g., library passes, style sheets, organizers, templates for reports, rubrics for projects such as research papers), authenticated ideas, and adaptable presentations. The following chapters are included: communicating your program, to program administration, measuring the impact of programs, instructional tools, student tools, and presentations. The chapter on measuring impact may prove to be the most useful in the current environment focused on accountability and outcomes. The included CD-ROM enables users to quickly and easily customize these resources to suit their own needs and users. In this work, Valenza has created a great time-saver that is a worthy complement to her previous publication Power Research Tools: Learning Activities and Posters (2002).
Woolls, Blanche. Ideas for School Library Media Centers: Focus on Curriculum 2nd ed. Castle Rock, CO: Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 1996.
Woolls writes with the intent that her book will serve as a “justification to expanding the educational role of the school library media specialist to meet the challenges of new educational strategies” (ix). To serve this purpose, Woolls begins with a discussion of the current state of curriculum and curriculum change, but the bulk of the book is dedicated to providing ideas for integrating the school library media center into specific curriculum areas. Each section covers one subject area and is broken into three parts. Part 1 covers an explanation of the subject area and its relation to information literacy. The material in this part is structured to be adaptable for making in-service presentations to teachers, parents, or administrators to explain the benefits of implementing these lessons throughout the curriculum (transparency masters are included in the book’s appendices). Part 2 provides detailed examples of units to be utilized. Each unit includes objectives, activities, evaluation, and bibliography. Part 3 analyzes textbooks currently in use in schools in the subject area regarding their efficacy and potential to support the development of information literate students. While the 2nd edition of Woolls’ book is now 10 years old, the units that the book includes remain a useful resource.
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