The Only Good Part of Testing
is that students cannot wait for the testing to end so they can read. Imagine a 55 minute test that has 95% of the students finished in 20. What will they do after testing? Nothing. They cannot read a...
View ArticleSpring books
Springtime and Easter present challenges. Most librarians have spent their book budgets, yet students get spring-book-fever and want new titles. What should you add to your list? 10 Hungry Rabbits:...
View ArticleLimitless Libraries and Weeding lists
The day has arrived. It looks like Nashville’s budget is going to include the elementary school libraries in the Limitless Library program next year. This will add tremendous access to the Nashville...
View ArticleFundraisers and School Libraries
Are fundraisers worth it anymore for school libraries? In Tennessee we can only have two tax-free fundraisers a year in a school. After that all fundraisers – even those occurring earlier in the year...
View ArticleNew Ideas From the Front
Some months ago I posted here about a conversation I had with my doctoral adviser and his efforts to broaden the horizons of Ph.D. students past the academy. That discussion led to the interview that...
View ArticleThe Famous “Appendix B,” Exemplars, and Short Texts
If, like me, you have become all too familiar with the Common Core standards, you have found your way to “Appendix B,” the list of IT (informational text) titles that are provided into sections, K-5,...
View ArticleLegal Implications
I was standing on line waiting to appear at the Rutgers Graduation yesterday when my colleague professor Nancy Kranich began discussing a legal ruling that had just been handed down: 3 publishers...
View ArticleCC Change and Challenge
By the time you get around to reading this, all of you will have noticed that David Coleman is leaving the Common Core effort to become the new head of the College Board: http://tinyurl.com/d4qfxry The...
View ArticleYA Biography — How Does it Differ From Adult Biography?
I am reading Kennethy Lynn’s excellent biogrpahy of Hemingway, not so very long after having made my way through almost all of the existing biographies of J. Edgar Hoover. I am reading the book in two...
View ArticleAnother Meaning of the “Common” in Common Core
Whenever Myra, Mary Ann and I talk about CC we stress the third “c,” collaboration — meaning librarians working with teachers and administrators. But I just read a review of a new book that made me...
View ArticleBoard Books – A Color Game for Chester Raccoon
A Color Game for Chester Raccoon Written by Audrey Penn. Illustrated by Barbara L. Gibson. Tanglewood Publishing, May 2012. Board book, 14 pages, Ages 1-3, $7.95 ISBN: 978-1-933718-58-3. Guided reading...
View ArticleBig Data? Big Questions — Reading Fast and Slow, Private and Public
I had the chance to attend a Tools of Change seminar on Big Data. The excellent main speaker was from bitly — and I learned a great deal just from who she is and what her company does. From time to...
View Article“Objectivity Is Not Neutrality,” Or, the Problem of Lag Time
I’ve noticed a pattern often enough to now propose it as a theory: discussions that take place in the academy — in the debates among experts in papers and conferences which then form into competing...
View ArticleHow the Troll Hunters helped with grieving
Skyfall by Micahel Dahl. #1 Troll Hunters series. Stone Arch Books, 2012. ISBN: 9781434233073. $17.99. Reading Level: 2-3; Interest Level: 5-9. 112 pages. Librarianship is a wondrous profession....
View ArticleChange Partners and Dance
Fred Astaire sings this lyric to Ginger Rogers in the 1938 film “Carefree,” so my quick search of Youtube tells me. I’m borrowing the irving Berlin lyric to announce my own change — and ongoing dance....
View ArticleWe Made You Out of Love
We Made You Out of Love: The Answer to the Number One Question on Every Child’s Mind: “Where Did I Come From?” written by Dr. Greg Marconi & Michael Marconi. www.FlyingMarconiBros.com Twenty-one...
View ArticleIs Flocabulary the “Schoolhouse Rock” for Today’s Students?
Have you heard anything about Flocabulary? I received an email advertisement that’s subject stated “The “Schoolhouse Rock” for Today’s Students” yet in the advertisement at the bottom it clearly states...
View ArticlePrivacy and Getting ebooks on your reader
Students come to peer over my shoulder and see what books are on my Kindle Fire. Sometimes I’m willing to show them, sometimes I’m not. Many of my Kindle ebook titles are lendable. I obtain many to...
View ArticleTwo poetry books you must have before we leave SLJ
As of tomorrow, June 1st, Practically Paradise will no longer be hosted on the SLJ page, but instead on our new domain site at www.practicallyparadise.org I am very excited about the new opportunity...
View ArticleTime Delay and Convergence
I had hoped to have the details on my column up by today but that will have to wait until next week. Until then, I hope to see some of you at the SLJ Day of Dialog on Monday, at BEA during the week, or...
View Article
