A CIRCLE OF SHARING

Teachers, librarians, and others in the community of educating adults who aspire to help young people grow as competent and caring makers of meaning need to identify more effective means of communication among themselves if they are truly to assist students. Too often our attempts to share information and ideas with each other never get beyond a very superficial level and we go away from the encounter without any meaningful communication. Even worse, we may assume either that the other person has nothing to offer that will help in our work with young people or that there is no willingness to share. While this may sometimes be true, more often it is just that we all have been too busy with our own efforts to reach students that we have not thought through how we might magnify those efforts by working together. What follows are a series of fairly specific statements that may trigger dialogue between school librarians and teachers of writing and lead to our sharing in this circle of collegiality.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS?

About Goals, Expectations and Aspirations

Each statement reflects an alternative standpoint or a slightly different focus.

1. My goal is to have every student write competently.
   
2. My goal is to have students express their ideas in whatever form or medium they deem appropriate.
   
3. My expectation is to have students express themselves in a variety of media and forms.
   
4. My aspiration is to have students write imaginatively.
   
5. My goal is to have students write competently in all disciplines.
   
6. My expectation is for students to publish written work.
   

About Materials and Products

Each statement reflects alternative strengths and needs.

1. I have been successful using this book or this film or this cd-rom in this particular way.
   
2. I have been looking for a book or film that will accomplish this particular thing.
   
3. I want a group of stories that demonstrate different types of humor.
   
4. My students loved this novel and I want to suggest several more that will have the same kind of appeal.
   
5. I would like my students to read award-winning books ( not just Newbery and Caldecott winners) and I need specific titles to suggest.
   
6. I would like my students to see a variety of interpretations of a story such as Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast.
   
7. I would like my students to learn about authors and their works.
   
8. I want my students to be capable of finding adequate resources to inform the plots and settings of their stories.
   
9. I want a multicultural collection for my classroom that links to my teaching of immigration.
   
10. I want stories that emphasize female roles and demonstrate the importance of girls/women in history and society.
    
11. I would like visual presentations of women and/or minorities in advertising.
    
12. I would like to have my students publish in magazines designed for young people.
    
13. I would like to have my students participate in collaborative projects with students in other parts of the country or the world.
    

About Student Abilities, Progress and Performance

Each statement suggests points on a continuum of learning.

1. This student is talented in conveying ideas and feelings visually but needs help in putting words with his/her pictures.
   
2. This student has great ideas and does good quick first drafts but then loses patience before getting to a polished product.
   
3. This student creates powerful dialogue but does not develop settings effectively.
   
4. This student constructs a strong plot but lacks background details.
   
5. This student creates well-developed protagonists but the antagonists or minor characters are too sketchy to give the major character anyone to play against in the development of plot.
   
6. This student does not understand how to do research to build the factual details that will make a story believable.
   
7. This student needs help in the physical presentation of a final copy of a work.
   

About Particular Specialized Interests

Each statement establishes a starting point from which many different learning experiences can originate.

1. I really love African-American poetry.
   
2. I am very much into puppets and creating plays using them in the cast.
   
3. I value mythology and would like a range of tellings of myths for my classroom.
   
4. I really love science fiction and see it as a way to encourage imaginative thinking in my students.
   
5. A number of the boys in my class collect baseball cards and I want to capitalize on that interest.
   
6. Several of my students are into origami and I would like to incorporate this art form into a project.
   
7. Many of my students seem to be reading nothing but the Goosebump Series if left to their own devices.
   

Created February 8, 1996 and is continuously revised

SCILS, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey