Project LIT at Spring Harbor

I am so excited that we have a Project LIT Book Club chapter at Spring Harbor this year! I have been following Project LIT on social media for years and this year with our lunch schedule allowing time for clubs I knew we could get it going! We have over 40 students participating in our first read and have 22 students who are part of our leadership committees.  Our design committee came up with several logo designs and the above one is the winner.

For those that don't know... Project LIT is a national, grassroots literacy movement, a team of dedicated educators and students who work together to:

• Empower our students as readers, writers, and leaders
• Promote a love of reading in our schools and communities
• Support and inspire one another as we improve our practice and pedagogy
• Read, discuss, and celebrate books that make our students feel seen, heard, affirmed, and valued
• Nurture authentic reading identities by increasing access to high-quality books, building community, and fostering a sense of belonging
• Develop our cultural competence and expand our thinking, regardless of individual starting point
• Amplify voices and stories of students and educators of color
• Advocate for literacy policies and practices that will build lifelong readers
• Champion young people and books that reflect their lived realities, communities, and identities
• Rewrite the narrative about which texts and authors are deemed worthy of academic study
• Create as many positive literacy experiences as possible

You can learn more by following this hashtag linked to Twitter (#ProjectLITBookClub) that highlights what Project LIT book clubs are doing. Here is the original Project LIT Twitter account to follow as well.

We have also chosen our first book and are patiently waiting for the copies to arrive so we can start reading!  Our first book is Land of the Cranes by Aida Salazar. We posted about our book selection on our social media accounts (see below for our Social Media accounts and please follow us!) and she responded to us! Everyone in the club was pretty impressed and excited to see that she replied to us:

It's been a bit of a slow start, but we are excited to finally get going! Thanks to the SHMS PTO for providing the money for us to get our books!

Please follow us on social media:

Twitter @SHMS_ProjLIT

Instagram @springharbor_projlit

TikTok @springharbor_projlit

We Celebrate Banned Books Week and the freedom to read what we want!

 

Books Unite Us Censorship Divides Us is the theme again this year for Banned Books Week and could not be more true in our world today. As you probably have seen in the news there are concerted efforts across the country to restrict access to books written by Black authors, LGBTQIA authors, and books with themes talking about racism or sexuality. And it's not just fiction being banned or challenged, books that are researched and presenting history and facts are also included. 

We encourage our students to read all books, and if they come across a book that they may not like, may not agree with, or may make them uncomfortable, to stop reading and find a different book. Not every book is for every family or student. But the book is for someone and we need to have access to books for all students. 

If you are interested in learning more about the current surge and coordinated efforts to ban books from schools and school libraries here are some things to read:

This year is the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision protecting students first amendment rights.

From PEN America - Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools

From the American Library Association: Voters Oppose Book Bans in Libraries

From the American Library Association: Information on Banned Books Week that includes links to banned book lists.

Information on Intellectual Freedom from the American Library Association

Bring on 2022-2023 School Year!

We have had a really great start to the school year at Spring Harbor! 

As summer was ending the "corn kid" was all over the place on social media.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you are missing out! But you can take a look at this libraries interpretation of the corn song which is amazing. 

One of the benefits of our schedule this year is that our students have many options during their hour long lunch/recess. One of those options is to come to the library!  We have been packed with students all lunch and recess long with over 50 students signing in yesterday (9/6). It is so amazing to see students coming in to check out books, to sit and read, and to see the library as a comforting space.  

As we get more new furniture in this year (we just added 2 booths) and continue to add to it in the next few years, we hope the library becomes more of a go-to space for students. 

What I read last school year

In the 2021-2022 school year, I started sharing the book(s) I was currently reading/listening to and all the books I read during the school year on the library slideshow I have displayed on the TV in the library.  This was a way to show students what I was reading as well as to keep me accountable for reading.  Audiobooks have been one of my favorite ways to read this past year, as I have a bit of a commute to and from work and listening to a book makes it much more enjoyable!

So, here is what I ended up reading/listening to from July 2021 to June 2020:

I really enjoyed all of these books, some more than others.  I do wonder sometimes if reading a book or listening to a book could sway how much I enjoyed it. Listening to The Firekeeper's Daughter I was able to hear how some of the Native words were pronounced - the same is true for listening to I Must Betray You. And I really appreciated this about these books and found the experience of listening to them very enjoyable. I read The House in the Cerulean Sea and the characters came so alive in my mind while reading. I heard from others who listened to the audiobook that the reader did voices for all the characters and made them come alive... but I wonder if listening to it will ruin my interpretation of the characters.  As readers, we make choices in how things are pronounced if we don't know how it is pronounced, and on how we think characters are saying the dialogue the author has written for them. So, while audiobooks are an interpretation of a text done by a reader/voice actor, reading the book allows you to use you to do the interpretation on your own.  This might be why I really do enjoy listening to audiobooks of nonfiction - mostly memoirs or autobiographies read by the authors, because there is less characters to interpret.