Hey everybody, I am back and we've got, I want to think of this as a return guest, but this is actually the first time Ryan's been here on this particular podcast, but he was here with me in one lesson at a time when we were doing that and he had an awesome lesson to share, which we're going to do as a throwback at some point soon, I promise.
But today we've got Ryan here to talk about some other awesome ideas and how school librarians can help support the teachers and the students in some different ways than maybe we usually think of. So without further ado. We've got Ryan. Ryan, why don't you take a second, introduce yourself to everybody so they'll know who you are. Sure, it's good to be with you, Steve. My name's Ryan Bonney-Thomasov. I'm a academic coach and author. I also do some curriculum development these days as well.
I'm also a former school librarian and English teacher. You have had quite a journey as you have made your way from place to place in your career here. So how did you, what was your journey actually to get to the school library? And then where did you, you know, how did you kind of evolve from that? Sure. Well, I loved teaching English. I taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade English for eight years or so. And I loved it. mean, just reading and writing with students, such a dream.
And I think the desire to kind of branch out a bit started, you know, I started feeling that deep inside. I wanted to work with not just middle school students, I wanted to, you know, try working with some younger students as well because I worked at a K-8 school at the time. So both as an English teacher and as a school librarian, I transitioned from English teacher to school librarian at that same school. And I also wanted to do some co-teaching was the other part of it.
You know, Yeah, that's something that as English teachers, we don't always get the opportunity to kind of collaborate with others. exactly. And I did do it from time to time and it was always my favorite kind of teaching because you get to bounce ideas, you know, back and forth, you get, you know, extra support in the classroom. And just, I love those collaborations. So I was looking for more of that.
And I was also seeing from things I was reading and seeing that school librarians were doing such interesting things. Yeah. And it wasn't just, you know, the kind of the guardians of the books and the library. Right. And so I was like, they're doing all sorts of things with like different kinds of literacies, like digital literacy, visual literacy. And I always have been interested in those things. Even in college, my degree was in media studies. And so I studied film, TV and radio.
And so I had all, you know, interest in not just textual literacy, but visual. literacies as well. And so anyway, I just felt like it seemed promising to break into school librarianship at that time. And I did. And it proved to be just as fruitful and as exciting and collaborative as I was hoping. And then I did that for seven years. And then for because of a variety of different reasons, I ended up our family moved from the greater Boston area where we had been for a long time.
to the southern coast of Maine. So we're actually not far from where we were before. We're at the kind of bottom tip, the southeast coast of Maine, and we're just like an hour from where we were before. Might only be an hour physically, but that is a big hours difference in terms of mindset and location. I mean, that's a, as somebody who grew up in New England, believe me, I know that Massachusetts to Maine may not seem like much on a map, but it's a world of difference. It really is.
Yeah. When you cross over the bridge that is in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is only about 15 minutes from us, it is like, yeah, it's like you're crossing over into like a kind of a different mode of being in some ways. Where did you grow up in New England? I was in Rhode Island. I grew up, spent all of my childhood and early adulthood down in R.I. And so I was all over New England, especially New Hampshire, loved going up there to go skiing and hiking and stuff. yeah, fond memories.
Yeah, we were practically neighbors. If you ever find yourself in like the Portsmouth, New Hampshire area, southern Maine, would love to connect. yeah, that'd be great. Love it. So sorry, you made that move. I interrupted you. No, no worries. That's great. I love that you're a New Englander. Yeah. So I moved up here and I knew when I was leaving my school that I wanted to start my own academic coaching business.
And so I had lots of connections with the schools in the greater Boston area from all the years I had spent working down there. And so I knew I could kind of build on those a bit. And so, yeah, I now work as a, the bulk of my work these days is working as an academic coach with students on reading, writing, and executive functioning skills. And given my own son's learning profile, he's only seven, but he was diagnosed, I think two and a half years ago now with ADHD.
And he's also gifted academically, cognitively gifted. so that. That combination where you have some form of neurodivergence and giftedness is called twice exceptional. That's that learning profile. And it's, it's pretty rare, but it's often, you know, it is under diagnosed. and so I would just, I'm just putting it out there for any listeners who, you know, might have students or even, children who kind of, might fit that criteria. It's really worth looking into.
And there's lots of really helpful resources out there about Anyway, now, given our own son's experience in school, I've found myself working primarily with neurodivergent students. So it's really, it's been a really rewarding experience doing that. And, you know, having these, I've been telling people I've loved building these long-term one-on-one. relationships with students. It's so different from the classroom. Like I didn't, I don't know, I didn't expect to love it as much as I have.
I should have, you know, probably understood from the get-go that, you know, meeting one-on-one regularly with individual students would, you know, would lend itself really nicely to building and sustaining these kind of really cool relationships. But it kind of took me by surprise. I just, really love it. And... So I do that and then I also do some curriculum development like I I create lessons or curriculum guides sometimes for publishers and authors. And I love that work as well.
And then the other reason for this new kind of career for me is that I also am an author. So I write primarily for children and young adults. And I wanted to have daytime hours to devote to that because you know, Obviously most of my student facing work is in the late afternoons and evenings when students are home from school. So that gives me daytime hours to do the writing projects that are close to my heart. I love it. And you talk about working with students one-on-one.
For a while, I was tutoring a student for several years through his high school years. he was a student that I had had in school, and I knew him around the school. But you're right. That connection that you build gives you such a different set of insights into the student and really helps you to not just understand them, but work with them in ways that you might not otherwise get the opportunity to in school. Yeah. so special. Yeah, agreed.
And it sounds like the stuff you're doing is kind of sort of almost an outgrowth of like one-on-one school librarianship in a way, because you're kind of like working out with these kids on a lot of the skills that you would have been working with the entire school on as the school librarian. Absolutely. Yeah, and I work with a range of students too. So it's not just neurodivergent students and it's not just, know, yeah, not one type of student.
I also do kind of academic, what I would consider academic enrichment for students who are like huge readers and really talented writers and just want to be stretched and also have kind of like a creative writing mentor too. And so that's been really fun as well, being able to meet with students who love writing. And you're right.
It is an extension of the school librarianship because I'm drawing on all of the skills I developed as a school librarian in terms of curating books, staying on top of what's out there in terms of new books. and just like having kind of a, you know, a broad understanding of what kinds of resources are out there, even for things like, like I just got an email from a parent a couple of days ago.
asking for like they're doing some kind of long-term, their child is doing some kind of longer term independent reading and writing project and just asking me for tips and or books that they might you know use with that student or child and so I was able to you know just like look in my you know personal library and kind of like go through old emails and just find pretty quickly some resources and ideas to send along.
And those are all skills and resources that, to your point, that I've kind of built up during my time as a school librarian. It's funny.
mean, until we started having this conversation, I wasn't really thinking about it, but it's school librarians almost, and I'm not trying to slight any tutors or individual instruction coaches that are out there, but school librarians almost have an unfair advantage in that area because that one of the things we do is we're always looking around for like, what else is new? What else can I bring my students?
And as an English teacher, and I'm only speaking to my own experience and there's probably other much better English teachers out there than I, but I kind of was in a silo of, here are the things that I have to teach and here are the things I have to pay attention to. And so I knew those four or five texts inside now, but like my wider reading experience maybe wasn't as there as much.
And now I feel like I've got a much broader collection to work from, know, both figuratively and literally, it's, that's, hmm, it's interesting. Yeah. I feel like incredibly underrated. Yeah, I mean, I have students whose families reach out to me because they are not big readers. That's not the majority of the students I work with, but that's definitely, especially the first few students I kind of took on. was like, you know, they're.
I wouldn't call them struggling readers exactly, but you know, maybe reluctant readers is probably a better term.
And, you know, I feel like I'm as a librarian, you know, those, don't have to have read all the books that you're going to recommend, but you know, you you just from, you know, working with students over the years and recommending books and hearing what students like, and you getting, getting a sense of a student's personality and being able to, you know, recommend books based on their personality, that kind of stuff has been really important in the work that I do now.
Yeah, can see, I can totally understand how that would be the case. That's, mean, like I said, I think you've almost got an unfair advantage, but it's a good unfair advantage. It's a good way to help kids. So you're helping them with reading sometimes, but you're also helping them with writing. And that's kind of where we're going today is to talk a little bit about bringing that writing, those writing skills to our students in some ways.
So what are some things that you're looking at or thinking about as you're thinking about the writing skills for our students? Yeah, I mean, I feel like one of the things I've noticed as I'm, so I'm working not exclusively, but primarily these days with high schoolers. and I'm noticing, and I was so guilty of this as an English teacher. but really I would argue kind of going overboard with the analytical writing.
And while that's really important, there's no doubt that learning how to analyze a text, well. effectively and develop a unique argument that you can support with the text. It's not just helpful for doing well in English class, but I think that's a skill that does transfer more broadly. That said, would argue creative writing is just as important to teach.
Again, now that I'm working primarily with high schoolers, I'm noticing they're just doing less and less of it as they go up the years in school.
And I, that's one of the things I want to talk about today because I feel like it's so important to, you know, not only practice creative writing and I'm going to argue primarily for fiction writing today, not only to develop their own unique voice as a writer, but also those are skills that again, talking about transferring skills, like those also transfer more broadly as helping them become effective communicators in general.
And I also, years ago, at a course I took at the University of New Hampshire. I think this is Tom Newkirk. It was a talk he was giving. was a University of New Hampshire professor for a long time in their English department. And he made a point that has stuck with me ever since. And that was that any form of effective communication is a narrative, is a story. Mmm. from a, you know, like a business presentation, a commercial, a letter of email, like, it's not just stories.
It's not just short stories or novels, but good communication tends to be framed as a story. And so that idea has stuck with me. And so that's one of the reasons too, that I feel like fiction writing and teaching effective fiction writing can be such a helpful thing for students to practice. throughout their kind of K to 12 experience. And it's for most students, if taught effectively, is really fun too. yeah, absolutely.
And it's funny, like you're talking about how analytical writing is something we tend to focus on in English class. And I think that's 112 % true. Like that is so much of what I taught and so much of what my colleagues taught, teach still. And it's funny, we talk about, I was just having a conversation recently with somebody about how we talk about reading across the curriculum, but we don't really do it. Like it's always English class is reading and writing.
And I think we miss the fact that writing should also be an across the curriculum skill. they, and our, I'll say our social studies department in my school is very good at getting the kids working on that kind of analytical writing where they've got to have the primary sources and explain why they think what their idea is based on the evidence that they have.
That's something that I think we absolutely could be taking off the English teacher's plates and saying, okay, look, social studies is doing this science class. You're going to have to explain how you drew your conclusions based on the evidence. Like there's so many opportunities to do it. And I think we underutilize those opportunities. Right, 100 % agree.
This idea actually came up when I was doing some research for my first book, which is a professional development book for teachers and librarians and administrators about school librarianship. And this idea of the meta-curriculum, I had never heard that term before, but it's basically what you're saying. Like this idea, like writing would be a skill that should be a part of the meta-curriculum, the curriculum that's kind of like above all the individual curricula. Right.
Writing is a skill that should be in that, as should, I think I would argue others, especially in an elementary school, social-emotional learning should be part of the meta-curriculum. It shouldn't just be for a social-emotional class. It can be that, but it should also be integrated into all the others as well. Right, right. And talking about creative writing, mean, and communication.
One of the things I have heard so many times in the past several years with all of the advocacy that's been going on for school librarianship is who's telling your story. You need to tell your story. And I mean, hearing you say we need to think about how we teach those skills. We absolutely do. Because like you're saying, telling the story, telling our story from our perspective is going to give people a different understanding of what's going on than just giving facts and figures.
So. Yeah. that you're incorporating this and thinking through like the ways that this applies beyond just in a classroom, forward grade. Like this is actual important life skills that I think it's easy to sort of push aside when we think, they're writing stories, but yes, they're writing stories, but they're writing stories for purpose. Like they're writing stories for building those skills. Hmm, man.
Yeah, and the other piece that I feel like is really important too is, and this is something that I've written and talked about a lot, is the importance of writing with and for your students. I feel like a lot of us do this already to some extent, but I do think there are ways to do this as a school librarian too.
Like when you're asking your students to create a specific kind of project that involves writing, actually taking the time beforehand to produce a model or an attempt at a model, at least of that piece, even if it's just a paragraph. We do this with like showing them how to you know, cite something properly, you know, at times. Like that's like a micro example of it, I suppose. But I also feel like, yeah, I learned this a few years into teaching English.
Like if I'm going to... ask my students to draft regularly and share their writing with an audience, which requires a lot of vulnerability. And I should model that as well. And I mean, it's kind of a separate conversation, but that's ultimately what led me into doing more of my own creative writing in the first place and taking my own writing more seriously. That's just an aside, but either way, it's so important because then they see that you're invested in the process.
mean, the benefits are endless from that, what I just shared about they're seeing that you're invested, that you care, that you're taking it seriously. But also you learn pretty quickly how difficult some of the assignments that you're giving them are, and you can talk them through how you navigated through those challenges. Mm-hmm. and you can break it down for them quite specifically after you've been through it. And obviously it takes more time on the front end.
It does take a little bit more time, no question, but I feel like the kind of learning that happens after you've done that pre-work is so rich and so ultimately rewarding that the benefits kind of... far outweigh the small con of it. The pros outweigh the one con of it taking a little bit more time on the front.
Well, and I think too, there's this belief among a lot of educators, and I will count myself among them for the longest time until very recently, that we're supposed to be the possessors of all knowledge and we're supposed to arrive to class completely prepared to handle every situation and every possibility. And here are all the examples you might possibly need already ready to go so we can show it all.
And I feel like it's only recently that I've come to really think about the fact that we are robbing our students of the opportunity to see how did we reach that point? Because we don't arrive fully formed with all of the answers. And sometimes we're not even gonna have the answers, but there's often this concern that like, no, if I don't have the answer, people are gonna think I don't know what I'm doing.
It's like, no, you are the expert because you know how to overcome those challenges, not because you have arrived preloaded with answers. And if we could... take that time to show the students, yeah, okay, know, sometimes I don't know exactly how this is gonna go.
And there was a point in my English career where I started to try and do what you're talking about and write the examples for the students, like as we were talking about the main class, be like, okay, let me see if I can, what I can come up with and write on the projector, try and do it out. And there were times when I got stuck and I was like, you know what guys, this is what I came up with and it's not great, but.
you can at least see where I'm trying to go here and talking through my process and showing them. Sometimes I get stuck too. And like, I'm supposed to be the expert and it's okay that I got stuck. So there's so much value in that. And I think even as whether you're a teacher or school librarian or whatever it is, being willing to accept that we may not have the answer or the example right there is an important part of the learning process. And I think it's too easy to skip over, you know?
Yeah, that live writing in front of your students on a projector that you're talking about is such a vulnerable thing for teachers sometimes. It becomes less so the more you do it, but it doesn't ever stop being vulnerable in some way. And it's so helpful.
And I would argue, and I'm sure, well, I'm not gonna speak for you, but I would imagine that you'd tell this way too, that it's actually in the moments where you do get stuck because it happens that... and you're narrating your own kind of thinking and, you know, when you do that, that actually, I would argue, is the most helpful part of that process for the students.
Not because they're seeing you struggle, but because they're seeing you think through a problem live and you're narrating it for them so they can kind of mirror that or mimic that when they go to do it on their own. And I feel like that's invaluable. Well, I would and I would say yes. And I think the struggle is a very important part for them to see, because I think they need to know that they're not the only ones that might be struggling with something like they need to to see that.
no. When I run into a mental block as a student, you know, sometimes I think a lot of our students when I was a student, this happened to me all the time. I'd hit a point where I was like, I don't know what to do. And I must just not understand what's going on. And I must just not.
be very good at this and not understanding that struggle is part of it because all the time before that, I was handed stuff without any apparent struggle by the people around me, by the teachers and the other students and just everybody was, here's my finished product and look, isn't it so great? And I'm like, I really had to pull teeth to get to where I was. So I think the struggle element of it absolutely can be an important part too, but.
Sorry, we could, I mean, I'm sure you and I could talk ELA all day, but. Yeah, no, it's good. I do think it transfers. I mean, think a lot of the stuff does come up, you know, when school librarians are asking students to kind of complete projects of any kind of writing or sharing their work with others.
We talk, you know, as school librarians, we talk about so many different literacies and I think writing literacy is one that tends to get kind of foisted off in other directions, but there's a place for it, I think, in the library as well as in other classes. So, sorry, I keep proselytizing. I'm preaching to the choir here, so I apologize. No, no, it's good. This is all stuff, you know, that's important to me and I think hopefully will resonate with listeners as well.
Yeah, I mean, and then another thing I thought might be worth sharing is in terms of, you know, asking students to write and the importance of fiction writing in general and doing more of it with students is helping them to identify, especially when things are more open-ended. specific topic ideas that they can get behind, that they can get excited about.
And I have found that rapid fire prompts, like sharing prompts and giving students time, like just a little bit of time to respond to each of them is really helpful in idea generation. And then at the end of the process of you reading a prompt, they write some ideas for a few, you know, 30 seconds or maybe even up to like four minutes. And can break this down a little bit more after I share about it more generally.
But then they, once they have a bunch of ideas on the page or on a Google doc or wherever, they can choose one of those to pursue because chances are if they've generated a bunch of ideas, there's at least one in there that they will want to pursue. Usually with some enthusiasm.
And so, yeah, I mean, I, you know, I feel like they, there's so many times where students feel like, I don't know how many times you've heard this, but I've heard this all the time that I don't have, know, a student will say, I don't have any interesting stories. Like I'm 13. Like nothing much has happened in my life. and they always do, of course, it's just a matter of helping them get to them. And so.
Yeah, like I have, for example, like this especially comes up when they're asked to write like personal stuff, like personal essays or, you know, memoir type writing where I have some prompts that I've kind of gathered from various places over the years. Like, I'm just like looking at some of these that I've used before. Like, what is one of the most serious conflicts you've been involved in? Write about a big mistake. Write about a time when you took a big chance and what the result was.
Write about an interesting experience you've had with a neighbor. Write about your most memorable birthday. I love this one. Write about questions you have for the universe. Optional, include an answer key. And so, there's so many. So with those, for example, would read them out, read one, give them about 30 seconds to jot down ideas. And I tell them beforehand, you're not going to have time to write down like a lot right now.
It's just like getting the initial, even if it's just a few words that will trigger, you know, your memory when you go back in a few minutes to choose one idea to pursue. Just the act of coming up with all of these different ideas is incredibly fun and generative time. It doesn't take that long, especially when you're doing With fiction, found you need to give them a little bit more time. so, the website Readzy, R-E-E-D-S-Y, has some great fiction writing prompts.
I mean, if you just Google Readzy fiction prompts, or just Readzy prompts, you will get a list that's updated regularly. of great writing prompts and with those I typically give them about four minutes to write. And it's amazing. Typically, even the students who like are able to get a story going very quickly for the first, it's almost like they produce more text as they go because those creative muscles are warmed up. They tend to be able to get going with more efficiency.
Yeah. Yeah. I love this idea. It's almost like a combination in my mind. I'm sort of seeing like choice board assignment sorts of things because you're giving them options. You're giving them agency. You're giving them the ability to find the thing that works for them.
And it's also a little bit like doing speed dating for books where you're like, you're giving them just a little bit of time to try out a couple of different things and figure out what works, you know, what's the one that's grabbing them the most.
Like there's Yes. that shared thread of how can we expose them to a lot of things and help them find the thing that works best for Right, yeah, because that's ultimately what I feel like is one of my primary goals for my work with students is helping them to identify what they enjoy and giving them the freedom and agency to pursue those interests.
Because without fail, when we give them that freedom, the work that they do is inevitably much stronger, much more enjoyable for them to do and much more enjoyable for us to consume. Yeah. Yes, yes. It's like the, you know, the idea of like no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. This idea that, you know, if you are putting the emotion into the writing, it's going to translate, whoever's reading it or listening to it later is going to pick up on that energy in the writing.
And yeah, and then even with, like things like classroom management, like that becomes less of an issue when the students are more organically or innately engaged in the work. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Man. now I'm like, now you've got me thinking about what a fun thing this could be to do with like collaboration with an English teacher to be like, I'm going to come in and I'm going to book talk like 10 books.
And as I book talk, I'm going to pause and then the kids are going to write their, where they think the story goes or, you know, what's their take on how that might be. Cause you know, book talks only going to give you the barest thumbnail of what's going on. So, you know, giving them the opportunity to sort of like, guess where things go next. And then, okay, so like based on that, now you've got some reading or some writing seeds to get started with.
And maybe also remind you later of, that's right, that's a book I wanna borrow. So like win-win for everybody involved, right? Yeah, yes. And librarians can also be really supportive with this in terms of like, let's say that students are being asked to write in a specific genre or even format. The librarian can of course come in prepared with a kind of curated selection of books that are good examples or good models of that particular genre or format.
and then can share with the student and the teacher, the students and the teacher, some excerpts from those that you find particularly effective for whatever reason. And then, there are so many benefits to that, of course. And then most notably that students have specific examples or specific models that they can look at and try to imitate in their own way.
Mm-hmm. That's a really, you I used to love that kind of stuff as a school librarian, like finding like different examples of a particular kind of book.
It's funny, I, yeah, I think of us, I think of school librarians as being partners in literacy, often with books and reading, but you're opening up this whole new way of thinking for me that we are also, we can be partners in writing by, like you're saying, curating selections that we like and sharing those with the English teachers, sharing them with classes, talking about why we like particular passages.
What is it about the writing that grabs us and take our ability to, sort of inspire the students beyond just reading on the page and thinking about how do we create our own works that sort of emulate these. Totally. Yeah, and then so that's all the idea generation phase of things that we've been talking about so far. But I also feel like school librarians can be incredibly helpful.
This is like another area of expertise is like once they actually, it's time to write and produce the thing, the piece of writing that they're supposed to produce. The school librarian can talk to the teacher about possibilities of helping students tell their stories in multiple modalities, in multiple ways.
Whether that's creating their own comic strip or any kind of, maybe a series of interrelated stories paired with their own illustrations for those who enjoy creating art, or drawing, or painting, or whatever. I've had students tell stories in which they've recorded themselves narrating. a world that they've created in Minecraft. It could be an ebook that they create with Book Creator. There's so many different possibilities and giving them maybe a list of options is helpful.
going back to this idea of lists and options, that can be really helpful to kind of... Get their ideas off the ground a bit perhaps or just to inspire them But they also often have specific ideas like can I do I thought you know I saw this was an option Can I do this and they have some idea that's better than any that you listed on the page that is all the time of course But yeah, just giving them they'll need some basic parameters So
think rubrics are helpful in that regard like you know it has to include these specific elements and you know and to show them specifically you know like not show them, but maybe name for them specifically what the qualities of those aspects done effectively would be, you know, just like a pretty standard rubric for a project.
But otherwise, giving them the freedom of how to express it, again, that's even more of that, that's helping them tap into their own strengths and interests in a way that's going to provide all those benefits that we already talked about, like. Yeah. you know, less issues with classroom management, more engagement, more interesting to read or look at or listen to later. And we can also give them those opportunities to understand that their writing is valued by saying we are going to feature it.
I, we always have different kinds of student displays going on the library, but so often I feel like they're like, the art teacher has, you know, paintings and sculptures. And I think it's very, in my experience, and I could just not be aware. So I'm not trying to denigrate anybody, but I feel like in my experience, I have very rarely seen writing projects featured in the library and need day, was funny. had a student who was in the library.
Just, he was there to just spend time in library and he was working on a computer and he said, I'm working on a book. Can I, when I'm done, can I put it in the library? And I was like, let's talk. Like we can, we can definitely make something happen here, but what a great opportunity that would be to have students, like to give students a shelf in the library and be like, these are student works.
Come check out what your peers have put together or, you know, sections on your website for student writing projects or whatever they might be. So kind of. show that value, like we value what you create. We don't just expect you to make it because we say to make it. Yes, absolutely.
One of the most challenging, at least for me initially, but rewarding experiences I had, actually as an English teacher, but collaborating with the then school librarian was to have our students, I was teaching middle school English again, and we had our students create their own picture books. for the younger students.
And so it was a wonderful project that involved, you know, researching picture books and what makes them tick and then creating their own art, whether hand drawn, digitally, however they wanted to make them.
We also involved the person, you know, they have different titles at different schools, but if the school has a maker space and maybe a teacher who who works, and this, as you know, is often the librarian, but in some schools, they have their own dedicated person for a makerspace at times, or just a technology teacher in general might be the person that I'm thinking about here.
But the idea is it can be multiple teachers, multiple adults, kind of navigating the students, creating something to be enjoyed by younger students. So they also have a specific audience in mind, which is really helpful. And, you know, involves research, it involves writing, it involves making.
And so I think this is what I'm talking, like this is the kind of project, for example, that I was talking about kind of going back to the beginning of our conversation about like the exciting world of school librarianship, because you have these opportunities or you can create these opportunities to work with other professionals and do some really cool projects that teach the skills that you need to teach as a school librarian.
Like you have these, know, ideally you have understanding goals, whether those are, you know, dictated by or influenced by the AASL standards or whatever, but you have these goals, but what are some fun creative ways that you can kind of help students create something? create things that involve the teaching and use of those skills. Mm Yeah, I think too often, educators across the board see standards of whatever kind as a checklist of things they are required to cover.
And it's and that's that's an easy stance to take, you know, it's easy to see it that way. And I think sometimes we lose the fact that the standards aren't meant to be a checklist. They're meant to be sort of a guide for skills our students should know how to employ.
So when we can figure out ways like you're talking about to make those standards important to the kids, not as a standard, but as a skill that they are able to utilize effectively, that's when the kids not only learn the skill better, but we get better product out of them. So it's win-win when we can do that, know? Man, there is so much great stuff here.
I'm so glad that we're having this conversation, because there's so many ways that you're sort of... stretching my mind here as we are talking through these many possibilities here that we can do with getting our students, you know, engaged and involved in creating in so many different ways. So we had kind of started with a general, we're going to sort of help students with creative writing. And you brought us to like helping them think through a couple of different prompts.
When you were working them through a couple of different prompts, like where do you, is there a particular, direction you take them in once they've had a chance to sort of think through where they might want to go with some of the writing they're doing. Yeah, think it depends on how I've framed whatever the project is. if we're doing fiction, for example, then once they have an idea that they're excited about, actually, know what?
One thing, I haven't done this in a bit, because I'm working with individual students these days, but one really... fun way to help them choose what like ultimately come to a final decision on what to write about is to kind of along the speed dating idea line that you that we kind of you had mentioned earlier is having the students choose maybe their top two or three ideas that they might want to write about and then pitch them to a group of other students and to ask
them what they would be most excited to read. Yeah. that gets them really engaged in the whole process of, mean, it kind of at an early stage helps them remember that they're writing for an audience and just hearing what other people are excited about can be helpful. It may not, you know, ultimately sway them away from the idea they are personally most excited about. And I think that's probably a good thing.
But just like, you know, if an idea of this crazy thing that happened to them when that you know, their sixth birthday party makes two other students laugh, then, you know, that there's, they sense that energy around that idea right off the bat. And they're like, this could be really fun to write if I'm getting reaction from them right now.
Yeah, and if nothing else, I love when students can sort of cross-pollinate because sometimes the idea that I share maybe is not the one I'm going to choose to work on, but somebody else might go, that actually reminds me of, or wow, what if you did, and maybe that student starts taking that idea and exploring it too. So those giving them as many opportunities to work together as possible is always great. Absolutely.
Yeah. And I feel like, and from there, once they've chosen an idea, I think that's when it's helpful to share models with them of that particular genre or format done well. And that's where you can share your own writing. That's where you can have the school librarian come in and share examples of maybe an effective introduction or introduction is more of like an essay term, but an effective opening or first. first paragraph of a novel or whatever, or a short story.
Regardless, effective models that they can aspire to, not just reading them though, but reading this, it takes some time, maybe even a whole class period in some cases, depending on how long the class is, but breaking it, I feel like this stage is so important to read the example aloud together, and we look at it together as well. So we're looking at it on a screen. and reading it together and then simultaneously taking notes together.
what I would do is I would just create a Google Doc and I would be the one taking the notes and soliciting the ideas from students on what is effective about that particular piece of writing. And then once done, once we have that list, which again could take the whole period in some cases, then sharing that or printing that for students and then they have that list of things to keep in mind or try to imitate in their own writing and they can refer back to it as they go. That's really helpful.
Yeah. Hmm. I just recently a couple of weeks ago, one of my reading coaches came to me reading and writing coaches came to me and said, I've got a group of about 15 kids. Can you pull 15 books in like sort of different genres and styles and stuff that they could look at to get a sense of different openings for different stories? And I was like, that's interesting. So I got books, I spread them out all over the library.
was about, Yeah. And so she had the kids come in and instead of working together, they worked individually, but they were, it was basically like, okay, you're going to sit down, you're going to read for like five minutes and then you're going to write for like two, three minutes. What did you like or dislike about this opening? Like what were the moves that the author was making that you can take away from that?
And then she individually conference with them after maybe they'd seen three or four or five different openings and said, so of the ones you've seen, what most spoke to you and that's what you're going to try and emulate for your own memoir personal narrative.
And I was thinking like, wow, that's a really cool idea that she's doing, but I love yours, like taking that extension step and saying, let's work together to think about what the opening is and let's read it together because some of the students may not have the, maybe the reading skill to hear the author's intent in the words. So they may be reading the words, but not necessarily understanding what the moves are that are going on in the beginning.
So having the educator in the room read it out loud. to hear everybody, so everybody can kind of hear it the way the author intended it and then kind of collaborate. boy. Yeah, yeah, it's almost like they're scaffolding for each other. obviously, when you put a bunch of creative minds in one space and people start sharing, you're just inspired by what the other people say.
going back to this idea of students surprising you with better ideas, before I would do something like that, I would typically have specific things in mind that I want to point out and address like that I think are effective and whatever that piece of writing we're looking at together is. They always have ideas that I didn't think about that are even more interesting to me than my own. absolutely. Yeah. I I don't know how I taught Romeo and Juliet for 20 years.
And I, by the end I was like, I know everything there is to know. And as we talk through it every year, there was something that somebody said that I was like, how did I never see that before? Like it's we've, when we give them that chance. Yeah. into a little mini fake argument about the best Shakespeare play last time. I should, I was the tempest guy. Is Romeo and Juliet your favorite? I would say it's pretty darn close to the top of my list.
Yeah. It's there's so many cool things going on in it. Yeah. So, I mean, I love how you're helping sort of you're helping your students think through not just their own skills, but their own mastery and their own interests while they're doing this, which is, I think, the pinnacle of what we can do as educators when we can get them invested in their learning. And that sounds like so much of what you're doing here, which is awesome. I really love it.
If we've got folks out there who maybe haven't been working in this space as much, do you have any suggestions or recommendations that they might want to think about if they're going to try and help bring this into their libraries or their classrooms? I think the biggest thing is to just be in communication with the other adults who are working with the students.
mean, even if you're relatively new to the profession or to the role, I feel like pretty early in the school year, you get a sense for who is doing interesting things in the school building and who are people you might want to work with and collaborate with. And so I think, you know, starting conversations with those folks early on can be really beneficial and energizing. Yeah, yeah, very much so. I was very energized when that teacher came in and was like, hey, can we do this thing?
I was like, never even thought about it. This is great. the other thing I did I tried to do and you know, it's hard of course to not be to leave school and but sometimes when you're When you need you know, you need to do some professional development I feel like there I feel very strongly actually that the best form of professional development is simply going to other schools and and observing and seeing how different educators in your particular, you know, role do what they do.
I just like, you know, it could be a half a day, it be a couple hours. I think in some cases, the longer the better, because not only will you get really interesting insights into what other educators in your role are doing that can be helpful and directly applicable to your day to day.
work life, but also you tend to come away also with specific ideas and insights into what the school in general is doing well from like transitions between classes or signage in the library or in the hallways, class lengths. I mean, the list is endless. know, there's just, it's just, I feel like we are not given or creating opportunities enough, nearly enough for teachers to do that, there's so much that we can just learn from each other.
I think that's why these podcasts are so helpful and so interesting to people because it's kind of the virtual audio way of doing just that. It's just hearing how other people approach problems or a particular role and then having your own takeaways from there. So yeah, I think if you're new or looking, looking for ways into anything I've talked about here.
Or again, this applies more generally too, just like if you want to experiment with something, a particular kind of approach or particular kind of lesson seeking out people who are doing or might be doing it well elsewhere. Absolutely. And, you know, I think you're absolutely right that going to another school can be invaluable. But also sometimes like I was very fortunate that a while back I was doing a degree in educational administration and supervision.
So some of my classwork required me to go and observe teachers in my building and just sitting there, not not co-teaching, not collaborating, just sitting in the back and just taking some notes and watching what other people did and how they did it. truly changed a lot of the things I was doing. even though I would talk to them regularly as a colleague in meetings or in the hallway or whatever, watching them actually do what they do can be really eye-opening.
if you're looking for the easy, literally across the hall solution, that might be a place to start. And then absolutely talk to your admins about, I go to other schools too and see how they're doing things? Because like you said, you can get such a hugely different perspective on something that seems really straightforward because this is how we do it. That's not necessarily how everybody's doing it.
So. Yeah, some schools have, or I know have established professional development programs in-house that, you know, enable teachers to do just that. It requires some coordination, of course. But it doesn't have to be super formalized to your point. Like it can just be, can I, you might have, just observe, I, know, I'm just trying to, you come up with some, you know, you can come up with whatever reason you want really. I can just observe you and, you know, most teachers are totally cool.
Yeah, 100%. Well, this, mean, so many eye-opening and thought-provoking ideas here. I truly, truly appreciate it. We are now going to take our 90 degree turn and go into our book break. I love the book break. We are going to, you're going to bring us a title that you think people should know about. can be anything personal, professional for staff or students, for yourself, whatever it is. What's a book you think people might want to have on their radar? my favorite, so I'm a picture book author.
I mean, I write for middle grade as well, but I love picture books as I think many educators and humans in general do. but one I just read that is just so fun and so poignant and funny is, it's called the first week of school by Drew Beckmeyer. And it's, it's a really unique picture book that follows a class of students. through their, you know, as the title suggests, first week of school.
There's also a, I forget what kind of lizard it is, like a, there's some kind of lizard involved and there's also an alien involved. And it's really cool because you turn the page, it would be a fun, in some case, wonky read aloud because of the way it's written and the way it's structured.
But it would also, and for that reason, it would still be fun to read aloud, but it would also be a really fun one for, you know, upper elementary or even middle school students to kind of just like read independently because you can, it's like multiple stories are happening at once on each page and you can follow the sequence or trajectory of each of their stories over the course of the book. And so yeah, like I said, it's both funny and it's kind of moving.
and you also have the teacher story as well in that as part of it. And it's a really realistic and I think loving portrayal of teacher. That's not like a, the teacher is not a stereotype in any way. I'll just put it that way. So yeah, that's one that I really loved that I read within the past. That's going straight to the top of my TBR list because that sounds awesome. I love a middle school, a picture book for middle school or even high school.
Cause I feel like there's so many things that can be mined from a good picture book that the littles aren't going to necessarily get like the littles might enjoy the story, but when you can come to it with maybe a little more of a mature take on things, sometimes you can see things that you would never have noticed as a kid. And so I love when we can get those into kids' hands. So I'm Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. Well, this has been amazing. I truly appreciate you taking the time.
If people want to catch up with you, where should they go looking for you online? yeah, thanks. my website, Ryan Thomas, Ebb.com. So Ryan T H A S E B. I'm also on Instagram. I just, so sad. finally deactivated my Twitter account, early last this past week. I've just had so bummed about that. The fact that it's just devolved into the pit that it's become, it was such a helpful space for so many of us for so long. And it's just not that. Yeah, unfortunately.
yeah, so I and I'm I'm resisting at the moment blue sky not because I don't think it's great But I'm just like I'm just gonna take a step away from that kind of like that particular form of social media for a bit So yeah, I Instagram and my website you can get in touch with me. I'd love to hear from folks Yeah, those are the options love it. Well, I think you're very wise to take a step back from social media and take a breath. And I think I need to do that.
My wife is ready to just throw my phone through the wall. So that might be what I do this afternoon, but we'll see. But truly thank you. I really appreciate you being here and sharing all this great advice. And hopefully we can talk again sometime soon, because this was great. Absolutely, Steve. It's always great to talk to you. Thank you.