Communications Lesson on Identifying Fake News

According to a study conducted by Stanford History Education group (2016, November 22), “in open web searches, only nine percent of high school students in an advanced history course were able to see through” the language on a biased website to determine that it was a front for a “D.C. Lobbyist.” College students performed even worse on the same task…

I find this statistic to be appalling and deeply disconcerting - especially because I know how susceptible I am, as an adult, to the deluge of advertisements constantly bombarding my social media feeds (just this morning I bought a pair of Chucks from an Instagram ad that had books all over them...BOOKS! I mean, how could I not?!). But I worry that students may not always know that the ads their friends "like" are trying to sell them something or the article that their favorite celebrity retweets may contain sponsored or blatantly false content. So, our communications teacher graciously allowed me to conduct a lesson with her students on evaluating resources...ie identifying "fake news."

Nearpod is the best format for this lesson, as I was able to control the presentation on

student screens, students could respond to short answer questions analyzing ads and articles, and I was able to provide full color photos and news samples (whereas our copy machines do not provide this option). I could share exemplary student responses to all iPad screens, which sparked discussion and gave students a sense of pride for their thoughtful responses.

Additionally, I incorporated a a two-minute audio clip from the NPR podcast Planet Money, which told the story of one fake news producer. Students then had the opportunity to discuss what his motivation may have been for creating fake news, which was not necessarily what students had anticipated. I was thankful to have the excellent work of the Stanford History Education Group that I could incorporate into the lesson. Their activities with sample student responses were the basis and inspiration for the lesson.

Overall, the lesson was engaging and relevant. Much of the lesson structure I learned from Nearpoders and teachers at the PioNear Summit I attended a couple of weeks ago, so I am very thankful to them for their help in structuring this lesson. Check out the embedded links to resources, as well as the Nearpod presentation below!

Stanford History Education Group. (2016, November 22). Evaluating Information: The cornerstone of civic online reasoning. Retrieved from https://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/Executive%20Summary%2011.21.16.pdf

Perseverance in the Library

At the beginning of November, I received the call that I have feared every year since I started my school library career: as of that moment, library funding was completely cut. To be fair, all "non-emergency" funding was cut in the entire district. According to the new algorithm for determining federal funding, my district would be receiving significantly less than expected. This "moratorium on spending" of course trickled down to each professional in each building. In some ways, I was fortunate that I got the call in November instead of July because I had already purchased a few staples like our online databases and our reading team books. But I was expecting to spend approximately 70% of the library budget sometime before February, which is our usual yearly spending cutoff date. I took a little bit of time beating myself up for not focusing more on purchasing at the beginning of the school year, but there was no point in brooding over something that I had no control over. Instead, I listed my major goals for the year to determine exactly what I needed in order to continue having a successful year for the library. The first goal was to purchase a list of 50 books that were primarily student recommendations. Contrary to popular opinion, fiction reading in my school library has increased this year, and I am absolutely determined to continue this trend. Secondly, a student last year took the initiative to start a student-run book club during lunches after the reading competition concluded in the Spring. They had selected two books, and we would need at least 25 copies of each. Finally, we need funds to attend our annual field trip to the county reading competition. I needed a plan.

First, I recalled our local Barnes and Noble store contacting me in the past about facilitating an in-store book fair. I contacted them again, and set up a meeting with the manager to discuss all of the details and to set up the date. We chose a date approximately two weeks before Christmas, which proved to be an effective time to have the fair. We advertised in school, on social media, and to parents and community members. We also brought copies of our donation code with us in case people in the store asked us who we were (we were all wearing our school colors or our reading team t-shirts). With a combination of luck and hard work, we earned over $1,600 in books for our library. I am incredibly thankful to Barnes and Noble for helping us to fill our library with new books, and I feel so lucky to work with such wonderful and motivated students. We had students who offered to stay at Barnes and Noble all day to give our donation code to parents and community members who asked for it, although we had such a great volunteer response that we only needed students to stay for 1-2 hour shifts. It was such a great, uplifting day!

Secondly, to ensure that we had enough funds to purchase books for our student-run book club and to possibly go on a field trip, I wrote several grants. For one grant, I was interviewed at the YALSA Symposium in Pittsburgh. My grant proposal was unfortunately not accepted, although the process was a positive one. For this grant, we were required to be able to speak on how individual conference sessions inspired our grant idea and how we might use what we learned in order to improve our home library. Although my grant idea was not selected, I am still hoping to be able to gain funds at some point to make my idea a reality.

Finally, Wal-Mart came through and granted us $750 to run our student book club this year! I am extremely thankful to our local Wal-Mart store for selecting our proposal. I recommend that other school libraries in need consider looking into grants offered by large and small organizations alike. Many companies are happy to support public education, and this librarian is incredibly thankful to them.

Fierce Reads Field Trip

On October 4, 2016, the Knight Readers had the incredible opportunity to take a field trip to the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. We took a fantastic tour of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, had dinner "dahn-tahn," and ended the evening with a YA author lecture at the Carnegie Lecture Hall attached to the museums. Multiple times I overheard students exclaim, "we need to do this every month!" In fact, I think the students would have been ecstatic just to tour the library, even if we didn't get a chance to geek out hearing from nationally known best-selling authors. Here's a little virtual scrapbook of our trip:

Walking toward the CLP - the Cathedral of Learning looming in the distance

The Knight Readers

CLP - all the knowledge "Free to the People"

Checking out some rare books - one was even from the mid-1400s

Excited for the authors to come on stage!

Caleb Roehrig, Emma Mills, Anna Banks, and Marissa Meyer 

The YA authors who participated in the Fierce Reads Tour were incredibly funny, thoughtful, and inspiring. Most of our students had never met an author before, let alone authors that they have read and admire. The authors graciously autographed tickets and books for us, answered all of our questions, and they even gave us a shout-out on Twitter! About a month later, I also Tweeted Caleb Roehrig to ask about #OwnVoices book suggestions for our Diversity Club, and I am so grateful that he provided so many wonderful authors and book titles to explore further. Finally, I am beyond thankful to RAD Works Here, a local organization that provides funding so that children and families can enjoy the arts for free. Without them, we could not have brought so many students to experience this incredible opportunity. Thank you!

PA School Librarian at the Young Adult Library Association Symposium

In November 2016, I had the opportunity to attend the YALSA Symposium in Pittsburgh, PA. The most fantastic part of the conference was meeting so many fabulously entertaining storytellers. I was introduced to the funny, smart, and lovely Meredith Russo, and I cannot wait to read her book If I was Your Girl. I was also especially geeked out to meet E.K. Johnston (pictured right), author of one of my favorite Westmoreland Interscholastic Reading Competition books from the 2017 list. The Book Blitz was fun but completely insane. Many of the participating authors from the symposium participated in the blitz, where each author had a table with a mesmerizing number of books primed and ready to be signed. If looking for a more low-key moment to hear from the authors, I actually preferred the author panels. No signed books during the panels, but we got to hear what events or moments may have inspired the stories we couldn't wait to share with our patrons. Perhaps my favorite session was the ending keynote starring a few Pittsburgh favorites: Jesse Andrews and Siobhan Vivian. Their hilarious anecdotes were the perfect way to end the conference.

One aspect of the symposium that I had not experienced at a conference before was the opportunity to  "Pitch a Program." This concept provided a thoughtful way to try to incorporate what we learned immediately and have the possibility of earning funds to put our ideas into place. I attended a number of sessions on programs about LGBTQIA+ issues and came up with the idea to do a book club reading of a contemporary YA book with characters or themes that would provide insight into the LGBTQIA+ community. My pitch inspired me to contact author Caleb Roehrig on Twitter to get his take on Own Voices authors that my students could read. I am humbled and thankful for his quick responses, with many wonderful suggestions of authors and books: some of which I am familiar with and others of which I am excited to get to know. Although I was not awarded with funds for my program idea, I am hoping to possibly put this program into place eventually.

Overall, the symposium was fantastically fun and I am so happy that YALSA came to Pittsburgh. As a school librarian, I knew the content would be geared toward the public librarian; however, I still found myself missing the ed tech sessions that I lean toward attending at school library conferences. Some of the very frank conversations on health and sex may not be possible in a school library, but I did walk away with some new concepts to try.