LIBR 264-01
Seminar in Services to Children and Youth (Focus: Booktalking)
Summer 2006 Greensheet
Joni Richards Bodart
E-mail
Address:
9029 E. Girard Ave.
Denver, CO 80231
Phone: 303-668-0360
| Greensheet Links Required Text and Readings Course Requirements |
Resources Blackboard Blackboard Tutorials |
Students must self-enroll on Blackboard. You will be required to use a password access code, which I will provide on the MySJSU Messaging system.
Course Description
This course is designed to teach students the skills, techniques, and procedures for developing and implementing booktalking and school visiting programs for middle and high school aged students and adults. Students will be required to learn how to "read for booktalking," which types of talks work best with different writing styles and genres, how to put together a group of books to present to a specific audience, presentation skills, changing presentation styles for different groups, and how to work with school faculty and administration to set up a booktalking program in schools. How to teach booktalking to both adolescents and adults, and how to set up a curriculum unit on booktalking for middle or high school students will also be included.
Course Objectives
Students successfully completing this course will be able to:
- Demonstrate a knowledge of the different kinds of booktalks, and which are most effective with different writing styles, genres, and audiences.
- Analyze a book effectively in order to select the most appropriate part to emphasize in the booktalk.
- Write booktalks of different styles and lengths the will entice audiences of varying ages to read the titles presented.
- Select books and talks appropriate for the audience and the purpose of the presentation.
- Demonstrate a wide variety of presentation skills, enabling them to develop their own style and method of working with different audiences.
- Adapt previously written booktalks to their own style of presentation.
- Revise talks that are not effective.
- Work with props effectively during booktalking presentations.
- Write effective readers' annotations for booklists and bibliographies.
- Understand the book display and merchandising techniques necessary to support an extensive booktalking and school visiting program.
- Work with school faculty and administration to set up and run an extensive school visiting program.
- Understand the impact of an extensive school visiting program on their library, and know techniques to implement that will ensure that impact is as positive for all library departments as possible.
- Write a curriculum unit on teaching booktalking to middle or high school students.
- Perform booktalks in a wide variety of settings, and for different audiences.
- Develop and implement booktalking presentations designed for specific audiences and settings.
This course supports the following SLIS objectives:
- evaluate programs and services on specified criteria
- demonstrate oral and written communication skills necessary for group work, collaborations and professional level presentations
- design training programs based on appropriate learning principles and theories
- apply the fundamental principles of planning, management and marketing/advocacy
- use service concepts, principles and techniques that facilitate information access, relevance, and accuracy for individuals or groups of users
Required Text and Readings
- Bodart, Joni Richards. Booktalk!2: Booktalking for All Ages and Audiences. H.W. Wilson, 1985.
- Bodart, Joni Richards. Radical Reads: 101 YA Novels on the Edge. Scarecrow, 2002.
- Bromann, Jennifer. Booktalking That Works. Neal-Schumann, 2001.
Course Requirements
Course Format
All classes are required. All classes will run from 9-5 with a 1.25 hour break for lunch. Please be on time in the morning and after lunch. You will be videotaped during the third class (everyone will have to do a presentation that day), and will be required to review and evaluate your performance on the tape. You will be required to hand in a written evaluation of each performance your classmates do and to give them oral feedback as well. During the first class, I will demonstrate booktalking, give you instructional information (detailed below) and answer questions about what I left out. Please bring two books with you that you have read and enjoyed, and be prepared to begin creating booktalks for both of them. During the last four classes, you will make three 30 minute presentations for three different groups and settings. You may choose the day you will not be making a presentation. You can e-mail me about the schedule for the first day, and then we'll do the rest of the days that morning.
Assignments
Students are required to complete the following assignments:
- Read texts. Students are expected to read the instructional portion of all of the texts, but the actual booktalks are not required, but are examples.
- Attend all class sessions. All sessions are required.
- Students will be required to write and present three 30 minute booktalking presentations, and will be evaluated by themselves, their classmates, and myself. Each presentation will include about 6-8 books, and each will be for different ages and audiences. For each presentation, students will hand in a one page description of the visit, including its goals (those for the group leader/teacher and the booktalker), the audience, the situation, and the text of the talks they will be presenting. Students will be required to write at least half of these talks, and to adapt others from various print and online sources. Students will be required to post their talks and to read and comment on each others' talks. This means that at the end of the semester, each student can potentially have a database of all the talks done for the class.
- Each student will turn in a brief paper (no more than four pages) on their philosophy of booktalking, explaining their conceptualization of it, its value, its place in librarianship, and their own individual and unique style of writing and performing booktalks. These papers will be posted on Blackboard during the week of the final class.
- Students will be required to participate in class discussion about booktalking in general, presenting their ideas and their questions, participate in appropriate and constructive criticism of their colleagues, and exhibit appropriate skills in giving and receiving feedback from myself and their colleagues.
Grading Percentages
The assignments will contribute toward your final grade as follows:
Assignments |
Percentage |
| Assignment 3 | 50% |
| Other assignments, class attendance, readings, final paper and class participation | 50% |
SPECIAL NOTE FOR THIS CLASS ONLY:
I am going to be working on the second Radical Reads this summer. If you choose to do talks on the books I am considering for it, I will give you the chance to submit your talks to me for publication, and after the quarter is over, we will work together to make them perfect. I won't be able to pay you, but you will get publication credit, and a free copy of the book when it comes out. The class as a whole will also be included in the Acknowledgements, if anyone takes me up on this. I will be posting the list of titles on Blackboard under course documents.
Class participation is essential in this course.
It is defined as:
- responding to questions from me and from other class members pertaining to the lecture and the outside readings
- bringing up questions about the lecture and readings that require clarification, that you wish to dispute, or that you agree with
- being an active participant in your own learning process
Comments and questions should be relevant to the topic under discussion, and take into consideration both that humor can enhance learning, and that this is a graduate classroom and some level of analytical thought is expected.
To some extent, my perception of your level of class participation is qualitative, however, after almost 20 years of paying attention to who contributes and who doesn't, my evaluation of you in this area is not without quantitative support.
You will learn from each other as well as from me. However, you do NOT have to agree with me in order to speak. I am not always right, by any means, and welcome your dissension as well as your agreement. I want to learn with you.
It is important for each of us to remember that no question is dumb, no response silly or invalid, and no idea unworthy of consideration. This pertains to all comments, whether they are made by you, by me, or by someone else in the class.
Please read, think, and share your thoughts with the other members of this class, both in and out of class. Bring your ideas, your questions, and your insights with you to class, so we can all learn and grow together.Course Outline
The following gives an outline for our class meetings:
- Class One, June 11
- History of booktalking
- Benefits of booktalking
- Types of talks
- Plot summary
- Character description
- Anecdote or short story
- Mood-based
- Styles of talks
- Hot
- Cold
- Long
- Average
- Flash
- New perspectives on booktalking and booktalks
- How to 'read for booktalking'
- Writing talks
- Adapting talks
- Practice techniques
- Presentation techniques
- Setting up a school visiting program
- Working with administration
- Working with faculty
- Working with school librarians
- Scheduling and organizing class visits
- Maximizing the positive impact of booktalking on your library
- Book merchandising and display techniques to support booktalks
- Using bibliographies and booklists to support booktalks
- Budgeting for booktalking
- Teaching booktalking
- To middle school students
- To high school students
- To adults
- Giving effective feedback
- Classes Two-Five, August 3-6
Student presentations and critiques - each class member will present booktalks at three of these class meetings (Depending on the size of the class, I may dismiss you prior to 5:00, if all presentations and critiques have been done, and all your questions answered.)
- Class Five
Philosophy of Booktalking - Class will discuss their philosophies of booktalking and their preferred styles, and how they anticipate using the information learned in class. (I am setting aside the final two hours of the last class for this discussion.)
Grading Scale
Final grades will be based on the following grading scale established for graduate students by San José State University:
| 97-100 | A |
| 94-96 | A- |
| 91-93 | B+ |
| 88-90 | B |
| 85-87 | B- |
| 82-84 | C+ |
| 79-81 | C |
| 76-78 | C- |
| 73-75 | D+ |
Academic Integrity
Read the SJSU Academic Integrity Policy at
http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/S04-12.pdf
Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, please e-mail me as soon as possible. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to establish record of their disability.
No matter where students reside, they should contact the SJSU DRC to register. The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/
One Washington Square - San José, California USA, 95192-0029
Phone: 408-924-2490
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