We've celebrated Banned Books Weeks for 2 years now as a way to kick off literacy and get kids and staff thinking about the importance of reading for pleasure. Librarians #SpeakOut for our students' right to read what they want, no matter how much it may make them think or change their worldview. This year, the kids mentioned that many, many teachers were participating in DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time (music to our ears), and we had our most successful "uncensored" Poetry SLAM to date... the vibe was amazing. Click on the picture above to see this year's site and highlights from the SLAM!

"I Like #BigBooks and I Cannot Lie"

Check out the student led, created, and produced video to promote our first ever student-driven literacy week from spring of 2018. We wanted student ownership and engagement in literacy week and we got it! They hosted a book fair sponsored by Quail Ridge Books (promoted by Mariah in this awesome video bit.ly/bigbooks2), promoted poetry death matches, black-out poetry, a poetry SLAM, and participated in daily DEAR time. Our students helped plan and run the entire week, and we were super proud of them. Website with full events here.

My teammate and I LOVE to give booktalks to promote books around a certain topic that a teacher requests or just to promote reading. It lets me tap into my creative and dramatic side, and helps students understand that books are all about great stories. Other ways we've promoted reading are through speed dating (super fun, especially when your librarians get cheesy about it) and creating brochures and bookmarks. It's all in the name of getting high school students to READ!! Checkout out our YA folder for more products.

Every year, we engage our freshmen with an "Escape from the Library" orientation to get them comfortable with the various library resources, including the librarians. One of our stations is a Google "Personal Shopper" form. We try to match each student with 3 books and then deliver those to the students. This helps get them in the frame of mind that reading is a priority at our school, prepares them for DEAR time that many teachers promote outside of our special literacy weeks, and ensures that ALL students know how to check out and return books to our LC.