Students are continually exposed to news and information from multiple media resources. The competencies that students need to make good decisions with the information they are exposed to need to be taught, modeled, and practiced continually. In this article, the author explores how school librarians can make sure students graduate with the skills…

Pennsylvania school librarians have ongoing professional learning opportunities to build compelling and inclusive experiences for learners in their libraries and within the school community. From learning the basics about the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Integrated Standards Frameworks to building innovative curriculum and…

Literacy does not happen in a single lesson or course. There are no shortcuts to gaining mastery over a skill set, whether it is reading literacy, information literacy and research skills, online literacy and digital citizenship, or visual literacy. School librarians dream about a perfect integrated curriculum: there is ample time for…

This article will explore the basic tenets of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in relation to collaborative curriculum development and implementation; provide a case study examination of UDL principles in action; and suggest school library curricular activities that provide opportunities for multiple means of representation, action, and…

In this article, the author states that school librarians can contribute to an atmosphere that supports intellectual freedom by drawing attention to the subtle messages about community values--messages that are communicated by virtue of what is included or excluded from curricular and co-curricular offerings. The author address issues with…

To cover everything, they often must race through mandated chunks of content knowledge, making it impossible for students to savor and reflect on any new ideas that might motivate them to read personally interesting materials outside of class. This is a lost opportunity for students to engage in authentic reading and learning on their own terms.…

Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop directed the five trustees of her estate to erect a school for Hawaiian children (Bishop 1883). Her wish was to improve the capability and well being of her people through education, and to provide an environment where each would have an opportunity to practice and perpetuate Hawaiian values and traditions. In 2008…

Synergy may be defined as the collaboration between two or more parties to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate parts. That is exactly what happened in Denton, Texas, when all types of librarians collaborated on a community reading initiative. In 2007 Denton Reads--a One Book, One Community organization--was formed with…

Creating a game for third-grade students that school librarians and teachers can use in their school libraries and classrooms is a unique challenge, especially if that game is based on teaching anatomy. But that's exactly what an instructional team from Auburn University in Alabama decided to do. The team--which consisted of a school librarian who…

In this article, the author contends that ethics ought to be an integral part of school curricula and that the most effective way to achieve this is to include ethics themes within the broader study of history. In this way students experience, in context, the timeless nature of moral questions and see the emergence of some universal ideas. The…

Students learn best from well-designed instruction. To what extent can a school district design a curriculum that supports inquiry learning? How can a district implement consistent inquiry practices in forty schools? In this article, the author discusses Newport News Public School District's journey to inquiry which began in 2004 with a…

Differentiated teaching focuses on the student--the varying needs, interests and abilities in the classroom--in order to design curriculum which results in student understanding through application. Some differentiation implementations are little more than tweaks, but if one is ambitious, differentiation modifications can require substantial time…

In this article, the author describes the development of a storytelling unit she introduced to her school. She got the idea for the storytelling unit from the National Storytelling Festival she had attended several years ago in Jonesboro, Tennessee. When she proposed her idea of a storytelling unit culminating in a festival modeled on the national…

Discusses definitions and types of multicultural literature and why it should be included in school curriculum. Describes Banks's four-level model for integrating ethnic content into the curriculum with increasing levels of sophistication and discusses how to select and evaluate multicultural resources to include in a media center collection. (LRW)

Presents an historical overview of the rise of conservative pressure groups after 1980 and their association with an increase in censorship activities in schools. Discusses the influence of the Reagan administration; library materials selection; textbook selection; secular humanism; and trying to affect the curriculum rather than targeting…