Tracy_J_ISCI 600_ Blog 5

 5th Blog ~ Reading Reflections

     I have attended story times at different public libraries for over 10 years with my children.  I felt that I had a good concept of what makes story time work and how they can quickly derail.  Greene and Del Negro's (2010) chapter on program planning clearly addresses how  storytellers should plan for their sessions. There is a section of the chapter that offers suggestions of ideal books for different age groups, which is very helpful.  My biggest takeaway from this chapter is the need to be flexible. Plan and be flexible should issues arise to take a different route with your story time session (Greene & Del Negro, 2010).  With this planning and being flexible is developing a connection with other librarians.  Engagement has increased among librarians, especially with social media outlets, like Facebook (Barchas-Lichtenstein et al., 2020).  Collaboration with other librarians and sharing ideas will help me, also, develop successful story times.  

        I appreciate the idea of incorporating family storytelling events for a public school library.  From my personal perspective, caregivers rarely attend events in the library at their child's school.  Inviting families into the school library, helps promote a sense of community and gives librarians an opportunity to listen to the needs in their community.  Plus, story time connects the caregivers with their child's literacy development by providing an additional outlet for caregivers to engage with the child.  A librarian can create family story times based on themes, like seasons and holidays.  The family story time needs to be effectively marketed to ensure attendance (Haver, 2014).  I would utilize the school with this communication.  Our principal does a very good job with communication to our community.  In addition, we have weekly communication folders that go home with all students that describe the events going on at the school.  

The following is an example of an online family story time provided by the Wake County Public Libraries

    

        Inviting a local author to story time provides students with the author's perspective on their book and writing.  I have attended a story time at our public school in Massachusetts, where an evening was designated to a local author presenting their book to the community.  The author discussed how they developed the idea for the book and was able to read the book in the voices, that they created for the characters.  An author presentation at the local library is beneficial for students because they can envision themselves as the authors.   Furthermore, incorporating this visit with family story time, brings the community into the library setting.

The following is a clip from a local author in Springfield, MA, which is near where we lived.   I selected this clip because you can see the excitement on the students' faces from Ty Allan Jackson's visit.

       

        The readings also discussed student and author collaboration on stories.  Pigeons is an organization in Australia that partners a student with a published author to tell a story.  The authors guide the students through the art of storytelling to help the student effectively tell their own story.  The project helped students with their literacy and writing development and also their creativity.  Ultimately the Pigeons project gives the students a voice for their ideas to be heard and express themselves (Watkins et al., 2012).

        I have addressed this idea in previous blogs, but I truly believe that it is extremely beneficial for students to learn and craft their own stories in a public school library program.  Storytelling helps students collaborate with their peers through humor and entertainment.  Students telling their own stories encourages intellectual freedom and the ability to discuss topics that they would not feel comfortable discussing in the general classroom.  In addition, students are sharing stories that are important to them, either about their family, culture, or life experiences (Piipponen and Karlsson, 2019).  I live in a diverse community with a significant population of students from Indian families.  As a school librarian, I really think that the storytelling would provide students from other cultures with the mode to express their cultural background and beliefs. 

        

        I have many ideas to formulate into plans with my future position as an elementary school librarian.  First and foremost, I want to craft a story telling program that builds a foundation for story telling in kindergarten and builds upon this framework in subsequent grade levels.  Also, in order to gain collaboration and support from the community, I want to open the doors to the library and create a family story time event, either with a local author or centered around a theme.  I believe that forming alliances with other librarians is critical to my success in garnering other ideas.  

        

References

Barchas-Lichtenstein, J., Norlander, R. J., Fraser, J., Fournier, M. D., Voiklis, J., Nock, K., & Danter, E. (2020). Categorizing library public programs. The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, 90(4), 563–579. https://doi.org/10.1086/710259

Greene, E. and Del Negro, J.M. (2010). Storytelling: Art and technique. (4th ed). Libraries     Unlimited.

Haver, M. K. (2014). Books, children, dogs, artists: Library Programs for the entire family. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 33(2), 211–217. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2014.897523

Piipponen, O., and Karlsson, L. (2019). Children encountering each other through storytelling: Promoting intercultural learning in schools. The Journal of Educational Research, 112(5), 590–603. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2019.1614514

Watkins, M., Macintyre, P., and Grant, G. (2012). ‘Aliens with Einstein heads’: Creative storytelling partnerships between child, author and artist. The International Journal of the Book, 9(3), 53–66. https://doi.org/10.18848/1447-9516/cgp/v09i03/36947

This week's selection of readings:

    I really enjoyed the selection of non fiction readings for the week.  I love this genre and can not wait to explore it with an elementary school audience.  Non fiction stories show students how ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things in everyday life.  For example, a young boy curious about the world, struggling with homework, too small to excel at basketball, attends Cornell University and becomes one of the most famous doctors in America - Dr. Fauci.  Non fiction stories are relatable for students and inspire them to dream of their futures.