Middle School Library Structure
Hey everyone, I’m looking for some advice from you all on how to structure library visits for 5th to 8th grade students. Right now, at my school, it is left largely up to the teachers to decide when and how to visit the library. In my school, there are two libraries: an elementary library with tons of things like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and other great middle grade books and a high school library with books with more adult themes and manga. I find that my library visits are largely unsuccessful for several reasons:
1.) Behavior Management— when I take students to the library it is often just me in there with the students as the librarian has several other tasks at the school, including co-teaching a number of elementary school classes. So the burden of helping students check out books, help students find books, and to manage the chaos of a different environment falls pretty decisively on me. Also, if we take a biweekly trip to the library, there are some students that will need to go to the library quickly, others that don’t know how to use the library at all, and others that are just excited to goof around in a place that is not their classroom.
2.) Time— I find it hard to justify the loss of instructional time when we go to the library. I go to the library with the intention of spending 20 minutes there 10 minutes in the elementary and 10 minutes in the high school. With transitions, it tends to be more like 25 to 30 minutes. My issue is not with the transitions (I know they can be tighter but I haven’t been heavily incentivized to spend time on our library visits) so much as it is with the loss of instructional time. When only about 25% of my students are actually checking out books and even fewer are actually reading them, why would I spend so much time on a library trip?
I’m looking for ideas from you all on how your school handles your library and how our system can be improved so that students actually read more, the activity is genuinely enriching, and doesn’t create a logistical nightmare.