LIBE 463 61A
Daniel Powell
Community Analysis and Report
Assignment 1
Being new to my school library this year, I am still spending time getting accustomed to the library collection as it stands. One key area I am interested in is exploring is the depth and richness of graphic novels in the classroom and the library. For that reason, I’ll be taking a look at the Language Arts section of the BC redesigned curriculum. I am hoping to improve the selection of graphic novels in the library, and explore how these kinds of books can deepen the collection.
Using the Know-Do-Understand model that the redesigned curriculum is prominently based around (2015), specific course content, curricular competencies, and encompassing Big Ideas can be explored freely in a manner that best supports the teacher facilitating the unit or lesson.
For our purposes—centering around the use and exploration of graphic novels—we may build a unit around the exploration of graphic novels as a medium. For this unit we could include content such as:
Story/text
Strategies and processes
Language features, structures, and conventions
The curricular competencies explored could be the following:
Comprehend and connect (reading, listening, viewing)
Create and communicate (writing, speaking, representing)
And Big Ideas explored could center around the following:
This model supports a “concept-based competency-driven approach to learning” (2015) that allows some flexibility to our unit. This allows teachers to take the unit in slightly different directions depending on their specific teaching style.
My school has a somewhat distinct profile and includes one or two areas of interest that make it unique.
One takeaway is the demographics of the families and spoken language at home. According to the census profile of Surrey, BC, (2016) roughly 20-25% of all families in Surrey speak Punjabi at home. This effect is more concentrated in the West Newton area where my school resides, although I had trouble locating specific data on that specific district
Informal conversations with the admin at both my current school and my previous school indicate a similar demographic - lots of ELL students and families who primarily speak Punjabi in the home.
I also explored the Middle Years Development Instrument, which seeks to measure and map children’s well being in all aspects of the child’s life, from social and emotional development, to the use of their after school time (2018).
There is quite a lot to unpack in this document, but the key finding for our purposes was the note on “reading for fun.” The data suggests that about 50% of students spend less than 30 minutes a day reading (including none at all) in the West Newton area. While I don’t think this is a particular cause for alarm, there is always room for improvement and increased engagement with more reluctant readers. I think a stimulation of the library’s graphic novel collection has the potential to help raise the enthusiasm, based on the popularity of the section I have seen so far.
I was able to connect with the school liaison and youth librarian at Surrey Public Library. They can provide a wealth of services ranging from story kits, to booklists, to school tour booking (which often happens at least once a year in the form of the summer reading club presentation in June.) In many ways the public library acts as our ally in reading, and by offering a wealth of after school programs, they can continue to instill a love of reading in our students even in off-school hours.
I also think there is some value in store contacts, such as those I have made with Kidsbooks in Vancouver. I realize that this is a potentially sticky situation, because they are a business with a vested interest after all, but on a purely suggestive basis I think they can offer some good ideas. My personal experience in the past has been very positive and helpful for collection development.
For a more unit-specific resources, there is the book: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (1993). Although this is an older book (and would potentially be facing scrutiny as a target for weeding if part of the general collection), it is still a very strong resource for deepening understand behind the underlying mechanics of comic books/graphic novels, as well as a strong assist for discussing graphic novel content with students. This has been a personally useful book on the subject, and I belive it would also be useful for staff pursuing graphic novel explorations in their classes.
This year there are two classes of students in grade 7, but the material being explored can be useful to all intermediate grades.
Our two grade 7 teachers are very experienced and have shown a strong interest in working collaboratively with: the Teacher-Librarian, as a combined class of 50+ students, or both. Anecdotally, these teachers have noted that students this year are on average more at the emerging level on their learning journey.
Graphic novel type books (Like Raina Telgemeier’s books, Amulet series, Bone series) and “mixed” books (Diary of a wimpy kid, dogman, dork diaries) are very popular with this grade level, though there is a smaller group that enjoys the Young Adult novels in our collection.
I am using a mixed schedule as the Teacher-Librarian, as is the case with most TLs at the elementary school level in Surrey. I have open book exchange for non-prep classes every day after lunch, which has been well-used in the first month. I have a number of bookable collaboration blocks for teachers to use and collaborate with in a number of ways. Prep classes are from K - grade 4, and grades 5 - 7 classes have separate ADST intermediate prep, which I also provide as part of my intermediate prep schedule adjacent to my library schedule.
In the Leading Learning: Standards of practice for school library learning commons in Canada (2014) document, there is a great visual for designing learning environments to support participatory learning. One subsection discusses “Designing for responsive print and digital collections.” (2014) Based on my own analysis, I think in many ways our library is still square in the emerging and potentially evolving categories, while still aiming to be considered leading into the future. One way to do this would be to assess the collection to obtain a starting point.
Moving forward, I think the sample report “Assessing your school library collection” by National Library of New Zealand Services to Schools (n. d.) has a good step by step approach to on the why, when, and how to assess a collection. This is important for taking this library to the next stage, and could help us hit the growth indicators that show successful advancement.
Area of Learning: English Language Arts (2016). Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/sites/curriculum.gov.bc.ca/files/curriculum/english-language-arts/en_english-language-arts_k-9.pdf
Assessing your school library collection. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/school-libraries/collections-and-resources/assessing-your-school-library-collection
BC's New Curriculum. (2016). Retrieved from https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/rethinking-curriculum
Canadian Library Association. Leading learning: standards of practice for school library learning commons in Canada. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Library Association.
McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics. New York: Harper Perennial.
SD36 Surrey. School District and Community Reports (2016). Retrieved from: http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/maps/mdi/nh/sd36/
Statistics Canada. Census Profile, 2016 Census (2016) Retrieved from: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=5915004&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&Data=Count&SearchText=Vancouver&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All