Tag Archives: scyaba

SCYABA Voting

Posted on by

I just turned in my school’s votes for this year’s SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees.  To say I was disappointed is an understatement.  We have 300 students in our school.  I sent one ballot for every student to our English classes = 300 ballots.  The ballot asks students to circle the titles they have read and write the title they want to win on the line at the bottom.   This allows me to track which of the titles are being circulated as well as recording votes for the program.  I received a total of 32 ballots back, with only 10 containing votes I could record.  Sigh.  While the number of votes I can record is usually low, I typically get at least half of the ballots back with some votes on them.   Since the number I received back are so few, I can’t run any statistical analysis of the titles this year.

Now, I have to figure out what went wrong this year.  Two (of four) teachers emailed me back stating that the kids said they didn’t read any of the titles.  Hmm, but the books stayed off the shelves, so SOMEBODY checked them out.

We did all of the usual promotions:

  • Bulletin board outside the library
  • Display of the books at the circulation desk w/ Follet bookmarks
  • Books were taken to classrooms for the book swap activity
  • When kids asked me for a good book, I always talked up the YABA books before taking them to the shelves to find books

Possible reasons why “nobody” read them:

  • limited copies (only 2 per title)
  • our long circulation period (3 weeks) plus ability to renew means one person monopolized a book the whole time = highly possible
  • apathy = kids just didn’t want to participate (in reading them)
  • apathy = kids just didn’t want to participate (in the voting process)
  • not enough and/or enthusiastic enough promotion of the books

Possible solutions for next year (in addition to our normal promotions):

  • Purchase a class set of at least one title to use for book club and English novel assignments (budget permitting) – Two members of the YABA committee are from Aiken and I’ll get their recommendation on which one(s) to purchase
  • Have (ahem – MAKE) English teachers participate in the banner completion
  • Utilize the school’s website to promote (both front page and media center page)
  • Partner with the public library’s Summer Reading program (“Own the Night”) and have something special (sigh, yeah prizes) if students read a certain number of books from the YABA list AND write a review on our library’s blog 2 Read or Not 2 Read or comment on another person’s review with their own review of the book

What else can I do?  Have any suggestions, please comment!

2011-12 SC Young Adult Book Award Nominees

Posted on by

Presentation1The nominees for next year’s SC Young Adult Book Award have been announced.  Why not get ahead by checking one (or more!) out today.  The titles include:

Angry Management by Chris Crutcher
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Brutal by Michael B. Harmon
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
Diary of a Witness by Carol Ryan Hyde
Dirty Little Secrets by Cynthia Jaynes Omololu
The Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-year Old GI by Ryan Smithson
The Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Gray Baby: A Novel by Scott Loring Sanders
Hate List by Jennifer Brown
Hold Still by Nina LaCour
Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern
King of the Screwups by K.L Going
Leviathan by Scott Westerfield
Muchacho: A Novel by LouAnne Johnson
Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough
Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick
Rock n’ Roll Soldier: A Memoir by Dean Ellis Kohler
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Unsigned Hype: A Novel by Booker T. Mattison

Voting for the 2010-11 nominees is open through February 28th.  Ask your library media specialist how you can cast your vote!  Remember, you must read at least three nominee titles to be eligible to vote.

Taking time to smell the roses

Posted on by

Butterfly

I know, the picture doesn’t have a rose in it, but I’m very proud of this photo – taken just minutes ago while out “walking” the dog.  I’m REALLY enjoying my new Nikon D5000 camera!

This is Labor Day weekend.  Labor day “is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” (US DOL.gov)  I planned to take this weekend off -  to sit back and relax, get some reading done, and generally be a sloth!  However, I just can’t seem to turn off my work switch.  There are so many things needing to be done and/or planned for in the upcoming weeks/months.

2 Read or Not 2 Read – Midland Valley and I have finally gotten our book club blog up and running.  I’m still waiting on some last minute approval before I can give out applications to my students; however, Midland Valley introduced the blog to their students this past week.  I’m VERY excited about having our students interact and share book reviews/discussions through blogging.

Library Card Sign-up Month – September is library cards sign-up month and I, along with the librarian from the Wagener public library, have been asked to visit/speak with the middle school English classes on Sept. 22nd.   We are supposed to share what we are doing/offering in our programs.  Still not sure what I’m going to speak about, but I was specifically asked to share the library’s web page, the new blog, and other “multimedia for 21st century skills” – hopefully I’ll figure out whatever that means by the 22nd!  Wish me luck.

SC Young Adult Book Awards – The nominees for the 2010-11 SC Young Adult Book Awards have been announced.  As always, there is a display of these title in the library.  In addition, I am on the SCYABA book award committee and have been reading a bunch of new YA titles.  I’m really excited about many of them and can’t wait to recommend them to our students.  Being on this committee forces me to read a wide variety of YA titles I wouldn’t normally read.

WSHS Book Club – tentatively, the first book club will meet this Friday, Sept. 10th, during both lunches.  We will be adopting the Midland Valley book club monthly themes – September’s theme is Mystery.  Please encourage your students to join the book club.

Technology Workshops - the new Technology Committee for WSHS has been tasked to provide workshops for the next Early Release Wednesday.  We’ve come up with a proposal and are waiting for the okay before developing our workshops.   All TC members are working on finding and reviewing web resources.  Right now, we are reviewing the AASL Top 25 Websites for Teaching and Learning (2009) to determine which of the blocked sites we want to petition to have unblocked.  The classroom teachers are supposed to review and provide feedback as to whether or not they would be useful in their classrooms.  I’ve created a Diigo account for WSHS where I’ve begun bookmarking these and other useful or interesting links.

These are just a few of the items on my mind this weekend.  Others include: library advocacy, August monthly report, WSHS Drama Club (meets this Wednesday); Banned Book Week (begins Sept. 25th); pull-out classes begin soon; Teen Read Week (Oct. 17-23); signing up for another photography class; submitting a proposal for the SC Association of School Librarians conference, and making plans to attend the SC Title 1 (Oct. 25-27) and  SC EdTech (Oct. 27-29) conferences.

*Sigh* – I think I’ll just go read a book instead!  Enjoy what’s left of the Labor Day weekend ya’ll!