Internet Competency

Rationale: Over the course of this semester, I have performed many searches on the topic of book clubs for children and have become familiar with many of the websites on this topic. For the Internet competency, I decided to search for literature circles, a version of a book club that has a base in literacy research. Literature circles have been implemented in schools across the country; even I have used this method in my own fourth grade classroom. The research on and guidelines for using literature circles make starting book clubs in an elementary school, which is my ultimate goal as a librarian, a much easier process. For this reason, I selected the website for the Literature Circles Resource Center developed by the College of Education at Seattle University as a pertinent resource on this topic. This website provides a plethora of information and resources to help classroom teachers and librarians to implement literature circles in their own schools. The Literature Circles Resource Center website includes everything from printable handouts to use with children to criteria for selecting books and has resources for early elementary school through middle school.

Search Engine Used: To locate this website, I used the LYCOS search engine. A discussion of the actual search that produced this result can be viewed at the following link.

Citation: Schlick Noe, K.L. (2009). Literature Circles Resource Center. Retrieved from http://www.litcircles.org/

Research Visual Competency

For the research visual competency, I selected a figure from the article PiggyBacking, which discusses implementing a book club for children in a classroom setting and focuses on including students with learning disabilities in the book clubs. The authors determined that the following model for a book club best met the needs of students with learning disabilities.



Rationale: This figure directly correlates to my topic of interest: implementing book clubs for children in schools. As a future elementary school librarian, this information will be helpful in starting my own book clubs and will also be useful information to pass on to classroom teachers so they might begin book clubs of their own. Because this method has been shown to work with students with learning disabilities, it provides a way for book clubs to be accessible to all studens, no matter what their ability level may be.

Citation: Paxton-Buursma, D. and Walker, M. (2008). Piggybacking. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(3), 28 - 34.

Interested in reading the entire article? Copyright Link

Image Competency

Citation: Books for Kids Africa. (October 2009). Machava after-school book clubs and the Simon J. Kirby grant. Retrieved from http://www.booksforkidsafrica.org/news-and-events/

Rationale: In searching for information on book clubs for children throughout this semester, I came upon the website Books for Kids Africa in Mozambique, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding literacy in Africa. In reading through the website, I located a section discussing how the organization had received a $4000 grant from the Simon J. Kirby Foundation to purchase books for the Machava After-School Book Clubs in Matola, Mozambique. In July 2009, sixteen teachers were trained on how to how to read books aloud and engage children in real conversations around books. The book clubs began later that month and more than two hundred students attended. The image above is a photograph of one of these meetings.

This image really touched my heart. As a future elementary school librarian, one of my goals is to organize voluntary book clubs for students. To see passionate teachers halfway around the world with the same goal in such different circumstances made me feel a deep connection to these fellow educators.

For further information on this great cause, please visit the website Books for Kids Africa in Mozambique.

Module Eight: DIALOG Competency

Database: DIALOG – Library Literature and Information Science (LIBLIT 438)

Search Strategy: Building Block

Initial Question: What techniques are effective in developing successful book clubs for children?

Key Terms/Facets:

Key Terms or Facets	techniques	book clubs	children
Descriptors	▪strategies ▪methods ▪teaching methods ▪techniques	▪literature circles ▪book discussion groups ▪literature clubs ▪book clubs ▪group reading	▪kids ▪elementary students ▪children

Search One:

• Command One: ss strategies OR methods OR teaching methods OR techniques
  
• Command Two: ss literature circles OR book discussion groups OR literature clubs OR book clubs OR group reading
  
• Command Three: ss kids OR elementary students OR children
  
  

Results:

Set	Term Searched	Items
S1	STRATEGIES	1437
S2	METHODS	1948
S3	TEACHING METHODS	0
S4	TECHNIQUES	1914
S5	STRATEGIES OR METHODS OR TEACHING METHODS OR TECHNIQUES	5065
S6	LITERATURE CIRCLES	0
S7	BOOK DISCUSSION GROUPS	200
S8	LITERATURE CLUBS	0
S9	BOOK CLUBS	93
S10	GROUP READING	0
S11	LITERATURE CIRCLES OR BOOK DISCUSSION GROUPS OR LITERATURE CLUBS OR BOOK CLUBS OR GROUP READING	293
S12	KIDS	851
S13	ELEMENTARY STUDENTS	0
S14	CHILDREN	20612
S15	KIDS OR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS OR CHILDREN	20969

Combined Facet Command: ss S5 AND S11 AND S15

• Results: 5 records
  

Pertinent Records:

• 16/8/1 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0318964 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB91002494
  Commentary on an approach to discussion: the CCBC guidelines for book discussion
  
  
• 16/8/2 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0318963 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB91002493
  Guidelines for book discussions
  
  
• 16/8/5 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0318960 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB91002488
  Book discussion as an evaluation tool
  
  Library Lit. & Info. Science (Dialog® File 438): (c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rights reserved.
  

Reflection: The first search I ran was successful in locating a few pertinent records that would be helpful in answering my initial question, but the results were quite limited. Based on previous experience with this same initial question, I knew that sometimes the 'techniques' facet could throw off the results. With this in mind, I decided to run a second search eliminating this facet to see if this would be successful in producing a larger number of pertinent resources.

Search Two:

Combined Facet Command: ss S11 AND S15

• Results: 38 records
  

Pertinent Records:

• 17/8/3 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0550339 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB09109960
  Literature Circles in Library Class
  
  
• 17/8/4 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0543510 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB06104513
  Going Clubbing
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/10 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0489483 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB02002956
  Book club on a budget
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/14 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0460995 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB06000200
  Reading raps a book club guide for librarians, kids, and families
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/19 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0356536 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB03002089
  Talk about books! a guide for book clubs, literature circles, and discussion groups, grades 4-8
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/20 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0346177 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB03000359
  Connecting with Boys at Lunch: A Success Story
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/21 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0321056 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB98004015
  Having their say: how to lead great book discussions with children; bibliographical essay
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/23 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0319920 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB94001996
  Children's book discussion groups; for ages 9-12 in Hennepin County
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/34 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0317522 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB02000136
  Children to chatter about books; Orange Chatterbooks program launches at several PLs
  
  

  
  

• 17/8/35 DIALOG(R)File 438:(c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rts. reserv.
  0317415 H.W. Wilson Record Number: BLIB01009027
  Talkin' the night away; book discussion group for children's librarians in Albany, N.Y.

Library Lit. & Info. Science (Dialog® File 438): (c) 2010 The HW Wilson Co. All rights reserved.

Reflection: As I suspected, the removal of the 'techniques' facet was successful in producing a greater number of pertinent results. Interestingly, all of the pertinent records located in my first search were also present in the second search.

Conclusion: The DIALOG database was quite an interesting experience. It was extremely different from the other databases I had used in the past, but was very successful in producing pertinent records that I had not come across in the many other database searches I had completed using the very same question. While expensive (the brief time I was on DIALOG cost $11.76), if access was provided I would certainly take advantage of this unique searching tool.