Maryland is fortunate to have several colleges and universities who offer programs in school librarianship and librarianship. As school librarians, we have the ability to support pre-service school librarians by sharing our collective knowledge for the good of all school librarians in the state, including those who are not quite practicing yet!
For the past several years, I have been teaching the course LBSC 741 on school librarianship for the University of Maryland iSchool. Each term, I have the great pleasure of meeting and working with future school librarians and educators who are working on their MLIS. This spring, while a spring like no other, did not disappoint. The students in my class were incredible. I enjoyed working with them so much that I asked them if it would be okay to put together a blog post for the MASL site using some of their work. What follows is an amazing set of highlights from one of the final projects in the course: The Five Roles of the School Librarian.
Over the course of the past year, I have been challenged with how to keep my students engaged in reading when there has been little to no access to the school library. I learned really quickly I had to get creative with my strategies with a little mix of insanity thrown in. Below are a few of the strategies that have helped cultivate a community of readers within my school.
Caution: The next few sentences will be a pearl-clutching moment for many librarians! Is Mary Hoffman’s Amazing Grace one of your favorite books? Well, it is not one of mine! Don’t get me wrong- the story and the illustrations are great and the book has an important message that needs to be told. As for me, it falls into the category of a “struggle book.” A struggle book is a book that has African American/Asian/Latinx character(s) who must “struggle” to overcome segregation, racism, and/or civil rights. Struggle books often have characters who have to prove themselves-like our friend Grace who proves to her classmates that a black girl can play the role of Peter Pan.
During a time of social distancing and to promote National School Library Month, members of MASL wanted to think of ways to connect people and share resources that would help others foster a love of reading. Using a forum called #TalkaboutIt Tuesdays, MASL offers a webinar where various topics related to school libraries and reading are discussed. On March 31, 2020, our first #TalkaboutIt Tuesday, librarians were encouraged to check-in, discuss #MASLreads and provide more suggestions for reading and literacy.
