May 10 2006
Life in the Library
Last month I worked with three 7th grade classes who were researching A&E’s 100 Most Influential People of the Millennium for their yearly research project. The teacher I worked with let me demonstrate the great databases the students have access to in our state PowerLibrary. I then did some work with them on citing resources and a brief discussion of Wikipedia, discouraging its use unless they were just trying to get an initial handle on the topic to guide them elsewhere to more authoritative resources. After one period in the library for demonstrations, I spent two periods with them in the computer lab to follow up and make sure that they were able to locate and cite resources. It worked out very well, and Barb chatted me up to many of her colleagues.
Chad and I are working to complete our project/presentation on our study group next week. We used Toni Buzzeo’s Collaborating to Meet Standards and an article from Teacher-Librarian discussing David Loertscher’s Ban Those Bird Units and how to develop projects that discourage regurgitation of facts and encourage student inquiry.
We didn’t really manage to pull it off, but we expanded what was Chad’s project into one that involved library research, discouraged internet use (but encouraged/required PowerLibrary databases), and to extend the project a bit more, we wanted the kids to look at events surrounding their topic to understand what impact that may have had on the person or event they are researching.
My demonstration to his first group really showed the research process. He sent me the topic the day before, and while I should have prepared, I didn’t. I picked up Chronicle of the 20th Century, one of my favorite browsing reference books and found the article there (not more than 200 words) about the landing of the Lunik II on the moon on September 12, 1959. I shared the name of the rocket with students, we brainstormed search terms and then tried them out. We started with Lunik II but initial database searches turned up only that Lunik III sent back pictures of the dark side of the moon. We discussed authority as we questioned whether the book had the correct information in it or not. Another article confirmed Lunik III. Finally searching a third database source we learned the fates of Lunik I, II, and III and that Lunik II was indeed the correct rocket name.
We talked with the kids about Wikipedia and the ability for anyone to change anything there at will. (I think there was some discussion of altering an article on Lunik II (if it even exists there) to say that Lance—a student—was on the Lunik when it landed on the moon, but Chad did tell the kids that they were not to do that on school time. 
In between the first and second class I worked with, I whipped up a page on Lunik II and posted it. As the day wore on, I learned more and more about the events surrounding the Lunik launch: Kruschev was coming to the US and there was a belief that the launch was planned to coincide and make the Americans envious of Soviet rocket technology. During his visit, he asked to visit Disneyland and was told his security could not be guaranteed if he went. This caused his famous temper to flare and he demanded to know what it was that was hiding at Disneyland that was so dangerous: among his list of possibilities was a rocket launch pad.
I repeated the same type of lesson yesterday with another two groups of 8th graders who are conducting research on famous mathematicians. Everything has gone very well. Two teachers have praised my efforts to their colleagues—and the principal.
On top of all of those things, I read proposals for the Literacy Through School Libraries grant. Fortunately, there was one clear most-deserving applicant. Some of the proposals looked as though they’d be recycled and didn’t follow the required format. Some of the school districts are really in very sad shape. I wish we could have recommended funding several of those we read but that wasn’t an option.
Life’s been busy but good professionally. 
