Volunteer at a Library: Gallagher Middle School
On Friday morning, October 25th I spent a few hours in the middle school library classroom at Vincent J. Gallagher Middle School in Smithfield, Rhode Island with School Library Media Specialist Lisa Girard. I observed Ms. Girard teaching two sixth grade library classes at the very end of the quarter and assisted her as requested. Each class was finishing up a project developing a comic based on a book group experience. Earlier in the quarter, each book group had read a book and developed a poster (online or on paper) that they had previously turned in. Now each student was individually developing a comic strip to represent a scene or incident from the book.
I circulated around the class talking to groups about their book selections from the book discussion groups and their comics. Ms. Girard also showed me how to check out books, although unfortunately there were very few students interested in taking a book home.
One thing that surprised me was that students really appreciated the less-structured format of the library class (as compared to their core classes). Several students took the opportunity to sign out and retrieve items they had forgotten in their lockers or other classrooms or use the restroom. While Ms. Girard was clearly in control of the classroom and set expectations for the group, the time also seemed like a bit of a needed breather within the school day.
Ms. Girard kicked off each class by bringing the room to order (students sat at tables) and presenting an agenda for the class period. Once she explained the activities of the day, she gave the students independent work time then regrouped with about fifteen minutes left in the class time. At that point, she did a book talk (including showing a book trailer) and allotted time for book selection and check out.
I was very impressed by the library setup including the book displays and passive programming options, including Book Trivia Question of the Week:
And the option to decorate a donut and recommend a favorite book:
Notice that beneath the donut display, Ms. Girard also curated baskets of novels by topic. She said that students still ask questions like “where are the war books?” in middle school all the time, even though novels are shelved by author’s last name. My overall impression was that Ms. Girard’s library is a safe space for students to exhale a bit, explore new ideas and process their day.