Refreshing the Canon

If you have certain touchstone books you like to recommend but are looking for some updated read-alikes, School Library Journal has a great feature, Refreshing the Canon, with recommendations for fans of:

• Hatchet
• The Outsiders
• Little House
• Little Woman
• Island of the Blue Dolphins
• and others that skew more toward HS readers. 

Some of the suggestions are books I have here, and others are ones I"m working on getting! Definitely some are more for HS in terms of content, so just be a little cautious about suggesting them to our younger students unless you know the book or have found out a little about it first. It may be helpful in terms of diversifying your classroom books too.

Cost of Education vs. Salary Infographic

Good infographic here

https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/salaries-vs-education-costs-of-50-common-u-s-jobs/

Portuguese Interface of Sora

The Portuguese interface of Sora is now live! To set this up, go to the menu (3 horizontal lines on the top-right hand side of Sora), scroll down to Settings then Language and you can change the Sora interface language. Other available language interfaces are Chinese (simplified & traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish. 

Note that changing the language interface doesn’t change the language of the titles in the collection. It just changes the navigational words of Sora itself. (do remember that there are ebooks in a few languages of varying numbers).

May the 4th Be With You

If you've never seen it before, you may enjoy the 1978 spoof,  Hardware Wars (12 min.)

Read more about it

Massachusetts Reading Challenge

From the Mass Center for the Book:

Massachusetts Center for the Book in partnership with Massachusetts School Library Association is delighted to announce the inaugural Reading Challenge: Massachusetts Student Edition, a companion to the Adult Reading Challenge, which launched in January.

The Reading Challenge: Student Edition gives students of all ages a chance to set and meet the goal of reading a book each month in a specific category and to share their experience within their reading community.

We invite your library to host this Reading Challenge locally by signing on to become a Reading Partner using this form. This would entail:
- Promoting the Reading Challenge to the students you serve in your community. Attached you will find flyers (color and black & white versions) with the category calendar and a QR code linking to our the Reading Challenge: Student Edition page on our website, accessible here.
- Creating a way for students to sign up for the challenge and tracking the number of participating readers monthly.
- Reporting out to us once a month with the number of students participating, using this form.
- (Optional) creating an incentive plan to encourage students to read! Note that your library would be responsible for obtaining these incentives.

That's it! We ask that your library signs on as a Reading Partner by May 31. The first month students will be reading for this challenge is June.

Note that Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners is supporting the creation of a Beanstack component to this challenge, which will be made available early summer.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at kzapal@massbook.org.

Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis

Teens Turn to TikTok in Search of a Mental Health Diagnosis - NY Times
This is actually from October 2022 but it was featured on the homepage of the Times today.
Some excerpts from this article:

• While social media can help people feel less alone, using it to evaluate symptoms has several downsides.
• In some cases, this information can lead them toward getting the help they need, but it can also result in people incorrectly labeling themselves, avoiding a professional assessment and embracing ineffective or inappropriate treatments.
• Some will say, “I’m so O.C.D.,” she added. But “if you’re organized and you have structure and you like things a certain way and you’re functioning, you don’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder — you’re organized,” Ms. Barsch said. “People who have O.C.D. cannot function because of their compulsions.”
• Kids are searching for a community, and are using their current struggle with mental health symptoms as a way to find like-minded people, sometimes wearing their symptoms as a badge of pride or a shorthand way to explain themselves to others, Dr. Prinstein said.
• “A great concern is that adolescents may be making faulty self-diagnoses and treatment plans in the absence of professional insight,” said Corey H. Basch, a professor of public health at William Paterson University of New Jersey and the lead author of the study. And teenagers may also come across inaccurate information or accounts that encourage harmful behavior, like cutting, or trigger those who are struggling, she added.
• On the flip side, she added, finding a positive, supportive community online can be powerful, especially for those who are marginalized or who lack access to mental health resources.
• Often the information presented on social media can be inaccurate or overly simplistic, so Dr. Dube also recommended pointing kids toward reliable sources like the A.P.A.’s directory of mental health topics, which is also available in Spanish, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s resources page for families and youths.

Raspberry Pi Debuts a Code Editor for Young People

Review Geek: Raspberry Pi Debuts a Code Editor for Young People. "Python is the preferred coding language for beginners (particularly young people), as it’s the most intuitive language utilized by professionals. For this reason, Raspberry Pi’s Code Editor uses Python (specifically the standard library and P5). Support for web development languages, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript will arrive at a later date."

Board Games in Library

We have MANY (like 70+ I think) board games and card games. They involve:

• words (ELA!)
• logic (STEM!)
• math (math!)
• geography & history (social studies!)
• cooperation (SEL!)
• Bingo and some others can work with a target language (FL and EL!)

Some take only 15-20 min. to play. Some are for 2, some for 2-4, some for up to 20 kids. I can lend them to you with a page that has QR codes to a quick overview/how to video and links to rules and more.

If you need any this week, please let me know and I can help you find the right ones for your needs, and also be sure they're going out and coming back with all the pieces.

Turkey-Syria earthquake of 2023 resources

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qiL3gAHGH3gefHj2pMkqcZfXejf6Jet_jJPM-tMAGsw/edit?usp=sharing

Your brain wires itself to match your native language

 Your brain wires itself to match your native language

Wiring patterns seem to reflect grammatical characteristics specific to different languages

Brain Breaks

I stumbled across this nice set of Brain Breaks I scanned from a spiral bound book a while back that could be good to use during short breaks in MCAS. They only take 1-2 minutes and most can be done sitting or standing in place.

DEIB Speaker & Resources

MSLA had an excellent DEIB keynote speaker named Lawrence Alexander. He lives in South Dartmouth, MA. He may be someone to think about if we are ever looking for a good DEIB speaker for our educators. 

Lawrence recommended writings by Elizabeth Pryor, and It turns out that she has an upcoming webinar through the National Humanities Center on April 13th called "The N-Word in the Classroom: Teaching Racist Language without Harm." Her webinar and a some other fantastic looking ones (all free but requiring registration) can be found online here. Some happened already and you can view the recordings, while others are coming up and people can register for them
https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/education-programs/webinars/

Somerville company rolls out menstrual pads… on a roll

Somerville company rolls out menstrual pads… on a roll

I'm not sure if this is something we might or might not be interested, but I did want to draw your attention to the fact that there are districts here in Mass. that make period products available to all staff and students who might need them, like Cambridge. In addition, this article highlights yet another creative solution to the issue of menstrual supplies and equity. There are new things coming up all the time!

Vedad Konjic, director of facilities for Cambridge Public Schools, said he "has made it a mission for years now to bring free, quality, and accessible period products to its staff and students."

BBC Future Articles about Language

These BBC Future articles were fascinating!

How dyslexia changes in other languages

Writing in English can be a challenge – even if it's your mother tongue.

The weird way language affects our sense of time and space

The languages we speak can have a surprising impact on the way we think about the world and even how we move through it.

Books Recommended by BMS Staff

Here's a presentation to share with your students with some recommended books.

If you want to add to it, please fill out this form.
https://forms.gle/ftE3HkdQZ8qS4Sde9

New Research Explores the Rise of Digital Music-Making in Schools

Syracuse University: ‘The Barriers Have Been Removed!’ New Research Explores the Rise of Digital Music-Making in Schools During COVID-19. "New research by David Knapp, assistant professor of music education in the School of Education and College of Visual and Performing Arts, sets out to assess the extent to which creating, arranging and storing digital music online has increased in music education classrooms, especially during and after the coronavirus pandemic that sent learning online in 2020-2021."

Missing the Home You Needed to Leave

Missing the Home You Needed to Leave

There is a name for the specific type of grief that both refugees and migrants experience. It’s called “cultural bereavement.”

Civic Learning Week

The first-ever national Civic Learning Week runs from March 6–March 10, 2023

CivXNow coalition

In honor of the intrinsic connection civics has to ELA and literacy education, NCTE has compiled resources accessible to a variety of audiences, including a recently published guide, Reading, Writing, & Raising Voices: The Centrality of Literacy to Civic Education.  

Access resources for civic learning engagement

Looking for other ways to engage or spark inspiration? Attend a virtual event hosted by partner organizations, including a student-facing conversation with Associate Supreme Court Justice of the United States Sonia Sotomayor on Friday, March 10! You can even attend virtual portions of the Opening Forum at the National Archives on Tuesday, March 7, by registering here.

See the full list of events and register

Join the excitement and share how your classes are celebrating Civic Learning Week on social media with #CivicLearningWeek.

General Resource Databases

General Resource Databases - Middle School Level

Gale in Context: Middle School
link: https://libraries.state.ma.us/login?db=MSIC&locid=mlin_n_bmscho
Made specifically for middle schoolers, this resource combines reference content with age-appropriate videos, newspapers, magazines, primary sources, and much more.

Britannica School: Middle School
link: https://libraries.state.ma.us/login?db=MSIC&locid=mlin_n_bmscho
With easy-to-read articles and age-appropriate reference and learning materials, the middle school level of Britannica Online School Edition is ideal for 6th-8th grade students.

Constitution Scavenger Hunt with Political Cartoons

Constitution Scavenger Hunt with Political Cartoons from National Archives

In this lesson, students will analyze 16 political cartoons drawn by Clifford and Jim Berryman during the early to mid-20th century. They will search through the Constitution and associate each cartoon with a specific clause. Through networking exercises, students will analyze all 16 cartoons and read the entire Constitution. They will learn about the outline and structure of the Constitution, as well as the content of many of its clauses.