Presentation at NMLA 2013 about serving middle school students in the public library and in the school library.

1. Don’t Forget
the Middle
Tweens at the public library and
the school library

2. Keep it Tween Friendly
Focus on building a relationship, not
controlling. Pam Leo, author of Connection
Parenting makes this point:
“The level of cooperation parents get from
their children is usually equal to the level of
connection children feel with their
parents….”
Many times, as school librarian or even as
public librarian, we are in loco parentis, so
we must think in terms of our parenting
skills.

3. Keepin’ it Tween Friendly,
cont’d.
Focus on praising good behavior,
not punishment.
Be as honest as possible without
being rude.

4. Programs for Tweens
• Programs should focus on what THEY like, not what you like. Choices
and buy-in are very important
• Activities focused on the self, surveys, quizzes—adolescents are
building the self. Example: Abbreviated Myers Briggs survey.
• SLAM poetry: view video example, read examples and write our
own poetry (see next slide for details)
• Healthy Snack program: involved local food coop, they brought stuff
for a smoothie and had a trivia game about nutrition (use your links
to the community)
• Getting to know you activities to break the ice and build
relationships. Example: Snow Ball Fight.
• School environment: multiple intelligences—they find out how they
learn best. Assessment of Multiple Intelligences.
• BEST OF program.

5. SLAM Poetry Program
Books I Read From or Offered as Inspiration
• The Rose that Grew from Concrete by
Tupac Shakur
• Poetry Speaks Who I am: Poems of
Discovery, Inspiration Independence and Everything Else
edited by Elise Paschen with CD of recorded poems
• Time You Let Me In, edited by Naomi Shihab Nye
Activities:
• Show some videos from YouTube of tweens reading their
own poetry as inspiration. Search for Middle School
poetry SLAM on YouTube.com.
• Write an example of your own to share with kids.
• If available, record their poetry readings on video or
audio recording device.

6. Poetry Presentation for School
• ..DownloadsPoetry(3).ppt Suitable for grades 6 to 9.
• Naomi Shihab Nye "One Boy Told Me“

7. Survey sent to 6th grade classes &
Middle School
HAWK Hangout Survey
• What activity would you like to do this summer at the Mesa Public library
during Hawk Hangout (Tuesdays from 2:00 to 4:00pm)?
• What is your favorite book you have read recently?
• What is your favorite movie you have seen recently?
• What is your favorite music right now?
• What games would you like to play at Hawk Hangout?
• What are your favorite snacks to eat?
• If you have ideas or suggestions for Hawk Hangout, please contact Ms.
Ellie at eleanor.simons@lacnm.us

8. Survey Responses (real life
examples)
• Play games like Apples to Apples, DDR, Just
Dance, Twister, UNO, Poker & Duck-Duck Goose
• Do crafts like Duct Tape Crafts, Bead Bracelets &
coloring extra large Posters
• Do digital projects with apps like LaDiDa and
Songify
• Watch movies like: Holes, Yellow Submarine,
Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro,
Twilight, etc.
• Water Balloon Fight party at the end of summer

9. Keep yourself connected
• http://www.teenreads.com/
• Middle School Matters
• Social media: Facebook, Pinterest,
Tumblr Ms. Ellie's pinterest board YS
• Good Reads website: look for groups like
“Addicted to YA”
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/64233-addicted-to-ya
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) in print and online
Blogs by colleagues:
http://www.fatgirlreading.com/ Angie Manfredi
Public Libraries Online:
http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/03/unattended-children-no-
easy-answers/
RSS Feed—ListServs, both easy ways to keep up with professional
ideas and writings. Ex.: PUBYAC ListServ

10. Orientation for School Library
• Examples:
• Prezi school Library Orientation
• Welcome to LAMS Library Media Center

11. Library Lessons
• Mythology Powerpoint and Mythology Assignment
Children's Literature: Creative Writing powerpoint
Folklore as Genre powerpoint
Since so many of my lessons depend upon computers being
available, I ALWAYS have an emergency plan for if the power
goes out. The Quote Box.
“Bringing the Mountain” --I take a cart full of attractive fiction
books to a classroom and do a book talk for several titles and
take my laptop to check books out to students after the book
talks.

12. Information is Power—
Empower your students
• Using databases: Funded by state of New Mexico (free to
every school) Cengage Databases
• Every student who leaves middle school should know what a
database is and basically how to use it. (A database is reliable
information, a wiki is not.) They should know the difference
between these: 1) website 2) database 3) wiki 4) blog
• Evaluating information found on the internet (see next slide)

13. Evaluating Websites—Teach
students to evaluate their sources
• Especially for Middle School Students
• Excellent video on YouTube about Using Websites
• Lesson Plan for teaching evaluation of websites
• Make sure your students know the difference between .org,
.com, .net, .edu, .UK, etc.
• Middle School Library website
• Professionalwebsite evaluation handout.pdf

14. Reading Nonfiction—
Teaching the Skills
• Offer this to Language Arts teachers,
especially before research projects.
• Demonstrate effective nonfiction reading
on overhead, online or on the interactive
whiteboard (SmartBoard)
• Go through the techniques—see chart and
outline that follow

16. Teaching to Read Nonfiction
Reading Nonfiction or Textbooks
I. Preview
A. Look at title, subtitles & headings
1. gives you a map of what's ahead.
B. Look at pictures and tables
1. These give hints about the topic too.
II. Get the Gist
A. Find the main idea or theme
1. Make notes or highlight text
B. Summarize the main points
1. Take notes or draw a mind map.
What do you know and what do you need to know?
I. CLICK! I know about these things!
A. This is your foundation--everything ties to this.
II. CLUNK! I don't understand this.
A. Resolve: Get more information in order to understand
III. Make a record--usually notes or a graphic organizer

17. Resources I use over and over
• TeacherTube.com : Free downloadable educational videos
• Slideshare.com : Free shared powerpoints
• QuestGarden.com : search and find webQuests and/or make
your own. Example: Harlem Renaissance Free to search and
use, but to make your own, you must have a membership.
• Animoto.com : free Educators membership
• Prezi.com : really cool presentation app, free educator
membership.
• Camtasia app: super easy to use way to make screen capture
videos—really useful for instruction. See this Review.
• Padlet: I use this as a kind of scrapbook for our programs:
• Hawk Hangout Summer 2012

18. Insert Creativity
•Creativity video wit Naomi Shihab Nye
Huge advantage the school Librarian
has:
We teach, but we do not grade.
Like the school counselor—we have an
opportunity to be an asset for the
students. See 40 developmental assets
Get out of YOUR story and into the BIG
story.

19. Graduate your tweens to the
Teen program
• Quote of one of our teen patrons: “I didn’t know who I was
‘till I read this book….” About reading Through to You by Emily
Hainsworth.
• This is one of our patrons who is now in the Teen program
who was a tween program patron.

20. The big picture: Connecting
tweens to the world of BOOKS