You are designing an activity for students to interact with lots of information they have gathered from a variety of sources and you need some form of activity that causes them to work with, use, and think about what they have collected. Nessesel and Graaham to the rescue.  They have collected a wide varety of techniques and strategies that they describe and demonstrate briefly in just enough detail to use the ideas with classes to keep them learning rather than cutting and pasting.  Here is the list of familiar and not so familiar strategies they cover: analogies, anticipation guide, carousel brainstorming, cloze procedure, cubing, directed reading-thinking activity, facts and inferences, Frayer model of concept development, freewriting, fames for thinking, graphic organizers, I-search reporting, jigsaw, journals and learning logs, key word notes, key work prediction, list group label, notetaking, paraphrasing, possible sentences, read and think math, read talk write, readers’ theatre, reciprocal teaching, saturation reporting, think-pair-share, and writing frames. If half of these techniques are unfamiliar to you, then this is a book worth purchasing for its ideas to experiment with. Recommended for both the teacher librarian and the classroom teacher.

Stop everything you are doing, get a copy of this book, an read it cover to covwer in one sitting. Kuhlthau joins forces with a curriculum expert an a museum professional to propose a solid initiative for teachers, teacher librarians, and administrators. What is that initiative? It is a constant stream of collaborative, constructivist, and information-centered learning experiences. They propose that a teacher librarian and two complementary subject area teachers join forces to build a learning experience using the best of curricular topics with a simple but powerful information literacy model: Locate; Evaluate; Use. This is to be one in a rich learning environment ranging from the traditional library resources and beyond to the community of museums and other public information spaces. The trio proposes assessments along the way that look at student motivation, responsibility, and learning all along the way. They see student sharing and collaborative learning as the building blocks to lifelong learning and forming the bedrock of what 21st century learning is all about. We wish every new teacher librarian would not only be able to consume, study, and think about this approach, but have an opportunity to practice this method before taking the helm of a library. There are a couple of drawbacks as the book’s authors did not have the new AASL learning standards, and Web 2.0 opportunities are not explored in depth, but this book will hold up under a variety of environmental changes. Of course, the book sits squarely in the center of constructivism, but we belive that many of its recommendations could be valuable in a school where direct teaching is the center of attention. So, for one of the best reads of 2007, our assignments stands: read this book, talk about it, and begin to understand why it is more important that teaching a few information literacy lessons on a schedule to students as they encounter teacher’s assignments.

It is always instructive to see what teacher librarian’s academic cousins are up to in their quest to push information literacy into the curriculum. Well, they have come a long way in the past few years. One usually thinks of a required course on “library” being a part of a college student’s curriculum, but the boring and largely ineffectual model has given way to closer and closer models of collaboration. The editors have assembled essays from a wide variety of academic librarians who have been experimenting beyond library orientation into deeper understanding of information and the various delivery methods. Academic librarians, who generally lack degrees in education struggle at times with educational theories, but they recognize that the product that teacher librarians send to them from the lower grades is insufficient for many students to adapt well to the academic environment. As we look at the collection, we hope that we can do a better job in both preparing the information literate student and also in communicating to these professionals what true collaboration looks like when professor and academic librarian collaboratively build learning experiences together. If you thought collaboration was tough with high school teachers, meet the professors our colleagues have to deal with. Recommended for readers who are trying to get an overview of information literacy efforts beyond the K-12 arena. David Loertscher

Media literacy and information literacy are intertwined as part of the information world students need to manage rather than be managed. This book, one of many on the topic, provides a sensible overview and justification for teaching the topic. This section is followed by numerous lessons on television, movies, photography, radio, advertising, and a few web 2.0 technologies. The lessons are designed to be given independently but the authors encourage that these be integrated into the existing curriculum. It is unfortunate that at the end of each lesson that they did not provide tips for integration into various curricular topics which would have added to the value of the collection. The CD-ROM contains all the lessons in pdf format so the teacher or librarian can print out the lesson of interest, although, it would be just as simple to photocopy it from the text. While web 2.0 technologies are mentioned, a whole book could be created about managing messages or being influenced by messages in this newer technology where most kids and teens are. Look over your shelf on media literacy and assess the number of ideas for teaching. If you need a fresh set, here is a good collection to acquire. David Loertscher, Dec. 2007

The term research here refers really to the finding and citing of information for whatever project you have been assigned.  Quaratiello concentrates on: locating books, doing database searches, finding periodicals, exploring reference sources, selecting electronic resources, navigating the world wide web, and citing information from those sources. In this edition, the author updates every section to bring it as current as possible. So who is this manual for? High school seniors and college kids could use it in lieu of a library orientation session where finding is the central element  of the librarian’s contribution. But, somehow, we just can’t see loads of students impatient to get their assignments done, spending any time at all reading a book on refining their search techniques. Worked in cleverly into collaborative topical searches, maybe. But our quarrel is that research is so much more than finding and citing these days and the librarian who just concentrates on finding and locating with the students is missing the boat. We all have to remember that our comfortable friend Google is always there and returns instant results. All the more reasons to pull student attention away and into weightier issues such as quality information, analysis, synthesis, and big picture issues. Perhaps we are unfair suggesting what the author did not set out to do, but such a guide keeps reinforcing the stereotype of the librarian’s role in information  is to help in finding and locating.  Perhaps this guide is a check for librarians who are teaching finding and locating as one aspect. Are there ideas here or tips we could use to help students in specific disciplines as we do focused research on topics as opposed to those plagiaristic “pick any topic” assignments? Recommended with reservation.

We are usually enthusiastic about the AACD titles that come with premium membership, bnut this book doe not measure up.  Sullo is on target to consider motivation to learn as a major problem in schools today. His tactic is to help children and young people develop an inner control mechanism that helps them not only regulate their behavior, but to consciously get involved in learning and perhaps even enjoy it. We prefer Dr. Mel Levine’s work better than this treatise as a real pro in helping kids develop internal controls. Sullo’s techniques, while helpful are not on the same level.  Not recommended. David Loertscher, Jan. 2007

A popular topic of library research is the investigation of an issue and the writing  of  some type of persuasive paper or the creation of such a document preceding oral take a position arguments in front of the class. Whether or not this book will be of value depends on the results teachers and librarians are getting from their students using whatever current system is in place. If results need improvement, then this book is one to consider. It goes through each stage of creating a paper with teaching suggestions and some handouts. What it does not contain is the library research process and the discovery of quality information in databases, the Internet, and other information sources. Thus, the librarian must supply “the other half” of this book. Thus, we recommend this book with the reservations stated. David Loertscher, July, 2007