Hosting a Successful Literacy Week in Middle School

Elementary schools seem to have the market on Literacy Week. They do it big and the kids love it. Dr. Seuss stuff everywhere, dress up days, community readers, the whole nine yards.

In my experience, most middle schools and high schools hardly even acknowledge the existence of Literacy Week. Reasons for that seem to range from uninterested students, the lack of school-wide literacy excitement, focus in other areas, and activities that are too "babyish" for secondary students.

I work in a literacy rich school. My students read. Our school-wide 20 Book Challenge has breathed life and excitement into our school. We use events all throughout the year to keep the excitement and engagement levels up and Literacy Week is no exception.

It can be quite the challenge to design a week full of activities that students and staff will enjoy and participate in on the secondary level. I thought I'd share some of the things we have done that have been successful.

Every morning we do a trivia contest over the loudspeaker and the first class to email me with the right answer wins a breakfast treat for the whole class. I send time stamped screenshots so everyone can see who won and then deliver the treats. I use our most popular books and pull questions from there. There is a different question each day. Everyone seems to get pretty excited over it.

We run a week long door decorating contest. It has to be literacy themed and is done through the lunch class. The class with the best door wins an ice cream sundae party. I usually share pictures from the years before and I always hype it up with the staff and students. I remind them to go big. :) We use a group of students who are readers and this year we added some business partners as our judging panel. I give them a basic rubric and I take them room to room scoring the doors.

We do a dress-up day where students and staff can dress as their favorite book character. I give away gift cards as prizes. We don't have as much participation as I'd like but we do have kids and teachers who really enjoy it. I don't always do a great job of making sure everyone knows it's happening and that's on me but the kids who do know, really enjoy it.

We do a DEAR Day--Drop Everything and Read. All of our ELA and Reading classes are assigned a "mystery" reading location (somewhere around the school and usually outside). Teachers often bring blankets, pop-up tents, lawn chairs, etc. for the kids to read in. This year it was unusually cold for Florida so our teachers stayed in their classrooms but many of them moved the desks out of the way and still use the blankets, beach towels, fuzzy chairs, etc. Some of them even put up the crackling fire video from YouTube on their projector screens. The kids really loved it!

The past few years we've done a scavenger hunt where we use unique facts about teachers and their favorite books and send kids to figure out who they are and report back. This year I accidentally deleted the file I'd been working on and got it back, but not in time for the the hunt to actually take place. The students have always enjoyed it though.

We do a book logging challenge for the duration of the week. The team with the most books successfully logged during the week wins donuts for the whole team. It gets pretty competitive. This is also the week that we have the largest number of books logged. We will have thousands of books logged during the week. Not all of them will be accepted but we get a lot of kids logging their books.

We take a group of students to the Elementary School that is next door to us and read to the younger students. In the past, we've taken our 8th grade Reading students to read to the kindergarten kiddos. This year they requested that we bring enough students to read to 15 classes worth of students. It was amazing! Our kids enjoy going and their students love it.

My FAVORITE way to end Literacy Week is with a an author visit but I blew my budget for author visits in October when we hosted Kwame (totally worth it!!!!). Author Skypes are also always an awesome option but we just did that the week before. This year our last day fell on World Read Aloud Day so I read some of my favorite picture books to our ASD and ESE Self-Contained units. Those kids have my heart so it was fun to get to go read to them.

What ideas do you have to make Literacy Week work in your school? I'd love to hear from you!

Author Visits

When I first became a Media Specialist, I heard about other schools having authors come to their schools for a visit. My immediate thoughts were that it would be awesome to do that but...

1. How do you know these authors/get in touch with these authors?
2. How do you pay for a visit like that?

Some schools or districts may work differently, but in my school in my district, I am given funds from the state to purchase materials that circulate (books, maker space materials, etc.) but I can't spend it on anything else. Any other funding needed for things such as basic supplies, processing materials, prizes, promotional materials, events, etc must be fund-raised.

My first year in the Media Center I connected with a local author named Jaimie Engle and we brought her in for Literacy Week. We paid for her to come for the day and we ran four sessions of kids through the Media Center. We worked with our Culinary Department to feed her a nice lunch and used our Young Author's Club to work the event for us.  It was a great event and the kids enjoyed the visit a lot but I think they would have enjoyed it a lot more if they had read her books before the visit. It was still a really awesome day and a great way to get my feet wet.
                                       
Last year, my second year in the Media Center, I met Christina Diaz Gonzalez at our annual FAME conference. She has several books out that are amazing but her book Moving Target was one of our SSYRA books for last year. It is SUCH a great book and my students loved the series so very much. When I started planning our 20 Book Challenge celebration day, I reached out to her to possibly schedule a visit. She lives in Florida so that definitely helped with the cost. Christina was so gracious and incredible with us. We got to have a special author lunch with Christina and all of our finishers and then we did an author session where I brought in other students as well. Even better, I was able to share her with another local school and we were able to split the cost. The students absolutely loved her and it was so much fun!

This week, in my third year as a Media Specialist, we were able to host Newberry winner Kwame Alexander, the DAY his new book Swing launched. If you've read this blog at all, you know how much our students LOVE his books so this was a really big deal.

Kwame and I met years ago when he was the Keynote speaker at a small conference I helped with. He had just published Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band and He Said, She Said was about to come out. P.S. He was just as dynamic then as he is now. We met again at my first FAME conference and he remembered me. The Crossover was an SSYRA book that year and as my students fell in love with it, I began to share that with him on social media. We continued to run into each other at conferences and I continued to share with him on social media. I was able to get on the launch teams for Solo, Rebound, and Swing. Kwame is such an awesome guy and he truly loves kids and wants to make the world a better place. When the opportunity came up to start the tour at our school, I knew I had to make it happen. He has been so gracious with me and so good to our students.

In just two days I was able to find enough support and raise enough money to fund the visit. TWO. That is how much our staff believed in this and wanted to make it happen for our kids. This is the biggest thing I've ever tried to pull off. Ever. I was so nervous and so worried about all the details and not letting anyone down.

We decided the visit would be in the Media Center and we'd put 200 students in there. We've never tried to put 200 kids in there but my Head Custodian is amazing and said he'd help me move all the furniture out and we'd make it happen and that's what we did. We announced to the staff he was coming and Follett and our awesome rep, Sherri Smith Dodgson, donated 100 copies of Kwame's books to our school. I handed them out to teachers like they were Halloween candy. Then, we announced to the students that he was coming. I told them that the first 200 students who successfully logged one of his books in our 20 Book Challenge would get to be in the Media Center. The rest of the school would get to watch through a live camera feed.

His books stay checked out anyway but we had kids coming in every day looking for them. We had two teachers do read-alouds with it and gave their students the opportunity to log the book. My team and I scored these responses until we were blue in the face. I did lessons with the classes on how to answer a prompt, what a response that wouldn't be accepted looked like, what a good one looked like, and how to fix their response if they didn't actually tell me anything about the book. I was up until 1 in the morning many nights scoring responses and giving these kids individual feedback so they'd know if they got in or not.  Monday morning we published the list and the visit happened Tuesday.

I decorated the Media Center to reflect the themes of the new book. We got copies of the book for all 200 kids. Our Art students made incredible banners to welcome Kwame and Randy to the school. Our Show Choir kids created a routine and performed "Be a Star" at the start of the event. We got the Mayor there, lots of important District people there, and District Communications came. I had more volunteers than I've ever seen before and it was THE BEST DAY EVER!

Days later, our whole school is still taking abut it. The kids loved it. Every single student I asked said it was way better than everything I said it would be. It was also such an incredible learning experience for me. I got to work closely with his booking agent, Carmen, who is awesome and I also got to work directly with his publishing company to make sure our books would be there in time. I got to meet the marketing person for a local independent bookstore and she is amazing. I planned and coordinated with another Media Specialist, Ana Woodbrey, who went in on the visit with me. I got to bounce ideas off so many people. The greatest thing I learned is how much support I truly have from the entire community and how much our staff believes in me to do good things for our kids.

The photos and videos from the event are so incredible. Rachel Horst, one of our District Communications people, did an amazing job capturing the pure joy on the faces of these kids. It will be something I will always remember.

While I've only been through three author visits, I feel like I've experienced and learned a lot. If you are looking to host an author visit for the first time here are a few tips:

1. Don't be scared to try!
2. Reach out to authors. They are AMAZING! Really. They love kids and they want to come to your school. 
3. If you can plan well in advance, do it. 
4. Do all the fundraisers all the time so you have money in your account for times like this when a crazy opportunity comes up.
5. Believe in yourself and your abilities to organize and run an event.
6. ASK FOR HELP! 

Y'all. It took a village to make this visit happen and I'm so very thankful for everyone who helped. It makes everything better when we all work together. 

Another Week: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Let's work in reverse order for this post. I love sharing my week with you and all my adventures in the Media Center but not all of them are good and I am a firm believer in transparency.

Let's start with the ugly first:

In the past two weeks I've been told that...

• I make people feel inadequate
• that I'm too much
• that I'm just high energy
• No one reads as much as me

I kid you not. This is real. These statements came from people I would call Literacy Leaders (Media Specialists, Literacy Coaches, Literacy teachers). All these things were either said to my face, or about me to someone else, and all said with a laugh. Like it is funny to tear someone down. 

Don't get me wrong, I've also had SO VERY MANY people encourage me, tell me they believe in me, lift me up, HELP me carry my load in the last two weeks. I'm not telling you these things because I want a pity party or need a pat on the back. I share this because it bothers me that people think it is okay to say these things about anyone, not just me.  

It's true that I'm "extra" but why is that bad? I would never classify myself as high energy because I'm highly exhausted every day when I get in my car. I would classify myself as highly motivated to give my best to these kids and our staff. It's true I read a lot but IT'S MY JOB TO READ A LOT! If you are in a position that involves developing a love of literacy and you don't read often and regularly then you, my friend, are not doing your job. You cannot build a love of reading if you have no idea what books to give to kids. I read in pockets of time. Bathroom break? Read a few pages. Computer work or a car ride by myself? Audio book. Bedtime? Read until I fall asleep at least three times before I put the book down. Today I read at my daughter's volleyball game while her team was warming up and we were waiting for the previous game to end. Then I put it down and cheered her and her team on. 

I work really, really hard. I give and give and give and I do it for several reasons. I do it for these kids because we claim we are serving them with excellence and that is what I want to give each and every one of them--excellence. I give them my best as many days of the week as I can because they deserve it and many of them don't have anyone else doing that for them. I also do this because I am a woman of deep faith and Colossians 3:23 says to work as if I am working for the Lord and not for man. I firmly believe God uniquely gifted me with the talents I have exactly for this position and I work hard because I believe I was created for this job, for these kids, for this staff. The third reason I work so hard is because that is exactly who my parents raised me to be. Both of my parents gave and gave and gave. They worked hard all day and then they worked hard at home. They gave my sister and I their very best, always. I've had so many conversations with each of them about what it means to do our best and why that is important. The last reason I work so very hard is because the Media Specialist position is always on the chopping block, especially when budget cuts are coming. Many School Board employees and administrators think that what we do is simply check out books all day. I work hard to make myself a valuable member of the staff and to make sure my admin team knows exactly how valuable my position is for our school. I work to make myself hard to replace because I want to keep my job.  

Also, there is literally nothing I do that is done by myself. I have a team of incredible teachers who are willing to go above and beyond the scope of their duties for all my insane ideas and I have an admin team that will let me shoot for the stars. WE do it all together. THEY are the rockstars. I'm just the one that signs my name to everything. 

There are other Media Specialists that I hold myself to their standard because they are freaking amazing! Ana Woodbrey is a Media Specialist at another middle school in my district and she is nothing short of incredible. Instead of seeing her as someone who makes me look bad, I see her as someone to work with and learn from. We email weekly, collaborate, bounce ideas off of each other, share resources, and plan things together. There are other Media Specialists and Literacy Leaders that I follow on social media to see all the great things I can keep working towards. 

So please hear me on this. It has never, ever been my intention to make someone feel like they are less than, like they can't measure up. It has always been my goal to share where I came from, the things I try (never knowing if they will work or not), and to encourage other people who are champions for the love of learning. I see a lot of people who have better ideas than me, are more qualified than me, and have more experience than me working hard every day. Instead of feeling defeated, I learn from them. I borrow their ideas (with permission) and make it my own for my kids. One of the biggest problems in education is educators tearing each other down. We don't have to step on each other to rise. There is plenty of room for all of us to be great and honestly, that's what these kids and families deserve. They do not deserve people who sit at their desks and make excuses for all the reasons why they can't do something. 

The bad from this week:

This past week was Banned Books Week which is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I started out so excited because I read this amazing novel about a school that took banning books too far and I was pumped up to share it with the kids. I've had plans for WEEKS for these cool activities I was going to do during Banned Book Week. 

Guess what? 

I didn't do any of it. Seriously. 

I realized that when I scheduled classes for this week, I didn't schedule classes to do book visits. I scheduled classes for computer usage and technology lessons. 

I also couldn't find my caution tape ANYWHERE to set up our display and then when I went to pull our books that have been on the Banned or Challenged list almost all of them were checked out. 

So I just didn't do it. 

I sent out a cool infographic to our staff and put some things on the announcements and then talked to kids as they came in about books that people are trying to ban like The Hate You Give or All American Boys.  So it was something, but definitely not what I wanted it to be. 

The good from this week: 

There was SO MUCH GOOD. 

First of all, our students are so excited about Kwame Alexander coming to visit this coming week. They have been logging books like crazy to try and earn a seat in the Media Center for his visit. Which means that I've been scoring responses like crazy to see who earned a seat in the Media Center. Almost 400 of our 840 students have logged books in our 20 Book Challenge and many of them have logged more than one. That's AMAZING!!!! It's only the end of September and already almost half the school is reading. I'm so proud!

Wednesday was See You at the Pole which is a day across the nation where students and community members join around the flagpole at schools and pray. Our SYATP was amazing! We had tons of students and staff members join our FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) club that I sponsor. I was moved to tears. 

The other really great thing that happened this week is that our Girls PE teacher, Mrs. Casey asked me if we could partner up this year and do some projects. Our first one was a character education project. I did a lesson with the girls on positive character traits, showed them how to use Destiny Collections , and then tasked them with choosing a woman who has had a positive impact on the world displaying one or more of those traits. They loved it and it was fun trying this out. Destiny Collections is kind of like curating an academic digital bulletin board that can be shared with others. The girls researched these role models and then saved articles, videos, images, etc. that they found where this person was demonstrating that character trait to their Collection. I've built several collections myself but I'd never tried letting kids do it. It was interesting to watch them do it. There were a few minor issues that I'm planning on working with our Follett rep to see why those things happened but they were minor. 

I found out that I won a $250 grant from Publix Charities to go towards our 20 Book Challenge and reading promotion! I was thrilled because that is $250 more than I had before I read that email!

Project Lit for this month was small, but mighty! I didn't do as great a job as I should have on promoting it, making sure kids had the Google Class code for Project Lit, and planning our meeting but the kids rocked as usual and Lara Watkins was a super hero and totally picked up my slack.

Last but not least, I've been working with our self-contained ESE classes to make sure they get to join in on the fun we have in the Media Center. This year they are going to read the Florida SSYRA 3-5 books and we will have a celebration with them with Maker Space activities tied to the novel when they have finished the book. The first book they read was The Magnificent Maya Tibbs and The Spirit Week Showdown. I wore boots and my cowgirl shirt. We watched a Maya Tibbs Fibbs video, listened to "She'll be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes" and did several stations. Friendship bracelet making, beading crafts, drawing with Osmo, building activities. It was a blast! 

It was an excellent week in the Media Center. I exhausted myself but there was a lot of learning and excitement going on in our school. This coming week will be another big one with Newberry Award-Winning Kwame Alexander kicking off his Swing tour at our school. I'm so excited!!!!