Cumbee_Destiny_Free Choice 2
Throughout the semester we have talked about many different forms of storytelling whether it be with a book, without a book, with manipulatives, etc. I have had so much fun reading children's stories and recording myself to see how that goes. I've also loved reading to my students so that they can experience storytelling again since they are in high school. This has made me more aware of how much storytelling we do on a daily basis. When I hear my coworkers telling stories about their weekends or my fiance telling stories about what happened at school I start to notice the things that we've discussed throughout the semester. This course has encouraged me to do more storytelling and to push myself outside of my comfort zone to do what's best for my students.
I'm currently in a high school library and we are open before school and during lunches for any students who want to just come in and hang out. Students are welcome to come check out books whenever, but we see the majority of our students during this time. We've noticed that more students who aren't "traditional" librarygoers have been showing up to the library during these times. This is fine because we are an inclusive space and we want everyone to feel welcome however, because of the number of students and their not being used to the library environment we had some issues with noise levels and following procedures. I really don't like making arbitrary rules like not allowing students to talk because I do want to be inclusive of all students. One morning on my way to school I had an idea of how to implement storytelling as a way to control our environment and to have a new program for our students. I would read to them every day.
In our library, we have a display for our South Carolina Young Adult Book Award nominees. Students who read three or more of these books are able to vote on which book was the best, which we then send to the state level. We do a district-wide read-in with one of these books so that students automatically can check one off of their list. We do this as a book club and we are actually in the middle of our book club currently. For that club, we are reading This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron. We have 12 students in this book club and a lot of those students also come to the library in the morning and during their lunches. So in order to push these students even further I decided that I would read another Award nominee during our morning sessions. I ran this idea by the rest of the library staff to make sure they'd be on board and they thought that it was a fantastic idea because high schoolers often don't get read to anymore.
I made my announcement to the morning crowd on a Thursday morning that I would be starting this new program the following morning. Friday morning came along and I didn't want to completely dictate this program so I picked two of our award nominees for the students to vote between to decide which book we would read. The book options were The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris and All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody. These books are very different, one being more realistic fiction and one being more fantasy. Ultimately, the students chose All of Us Villains. The first day I read straight from the book without reading it beforehand and I could tell that I wasn't doing the book justice. I wasn't giving the students exactly what they needed because I didn't know what was coming next in the book.
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A program that I thought would be so simple and no one would actually enjoy has already grown exponentially. I started with just three students and every day I get more and more. This past week I had 12 students listening to me read as well as several staff members who had heard about the readings going on during the morning sessions. Among these students are several different personality types, academic levels, and cultural backgrounds. One I would like to point out is that I have a group of English language Learners who are now sitting on my side listening to me read every day. They are currently in a program where they have to test reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. I didn't start this program with this in mind, but I know sitting in and listening every day is going to improve their scores. My next goal is to get a physical copy for each of these students to be able to follow along while I read to them every day.
As I said, I had no idea that this was going to be successful. I actually thought that it was going to fail or it was going to take several weeks for any students to be interested at all. However, within the very first days, I had students who were asking about the book, recording what page number we were on, and looking into more details about the characters in the book. This course has been wonderful and has really opened my eyes to the power of storytelling. When I first started the course at the beginning of the semester I was nervous that nothing I learned would apply to me because I am at the high school level. I thought that it was going to be a lot of elementary books, a lot of elementary content, and nothing that I could apply at my level. I have been proven wrong over and over again through the semester and I'm so glad that I have. There are so many things that I have already started incorporating into my library and so many more that I plan on doing in the future. Storytelling really isn't just for elementary schoolers and we can see that every single day throughout each of our lives.
Destiny,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your new library programming idea of storytelling during the morning session! I love that so many people, students and staff, are participating in this! I especially love that you have English Language Learners participating as well! I am in total agreement with you that listening to you read aloud will boost their ability level and test scores. I currently work in a middle school library as a library assistant and one day hope to be the librarian at a middle or high school library. I, too, was a little worried that this course would not be as applicable to me in those secondary settings, but I was definitely mistaken! I have learned so much from this course and my classmates here, and I am so grateful. I hope that you won't mind that I share your post with the librarian at my school. Maybe she would agree to trying something similar in our library. Thanks again for sharing! I hope that you have a wonderful week and a great Thanksgiving!
Cameron
Destiny,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experiences with older students. I teach middle school students and I definitely think they benefit from hearing me read aloud. You also make a great point about how much storytelling we do on a daily basis. I never had really considered these moments to be storytelling because they are usually informal, but I think they still count! Even if I am just telling someone about my day, I might use storytelling techniques to keep them interested in my silly stories or recaps. I’m glad that your program was successful and has grown!! That success is a great feeling. Thank you!
-Jess