Dog-eared & Overdue

Category: Motivation

  • 11 Books Behind

    11 Books Behind

    I’m generally more of a “the journey is the thing” person than a goal oriented person, but for the past few years I’ve enjoyed participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge. In years past, I’ve set reading goals that I knew would be pretty easy to blow past. My biggest challenge during those years was actually…

  • November Writing: 31 Days 

    Anyone else want to write with me? For the past six years, I’ve participated in posting 31 Days of November Thankful Thoughts on Facebook. The first year I did it, I was looking for an easy way to focus on the good things happening in my life at a time when I was feeling completely…

  • Reader Response: Ulysses

    Reader Response: Ulysses

    I look forward to doing a book review for Ulysses next, but a Reader Response based on my margin notes felt more appropriate given the nature of the work.  Okay so this may not be as bad as I remember I mean it’s just some dudes eating breakfast and borrowing money from each other and then…

  • Summer Road Trip, 2016

    The Vagabond Teen and I hit the road for a summer adventure as our Vagabond Soldier left for his own adventure afar. Here are but a few photos…and after the photos a sampling of our travel playlist. Our take away from the experience: America is amazing and wonderful and quirky. As are Americans!   Road Trip…

  • Transforming Stories Collaboration Celebration

    I’m excited to share this celebration video I’m creating for one of the classes I worked with during my practicum. I am going through their project packets to provide a final round of feedback—and am excited that their planning and creativity resulted in some amazing projects! Sharing a few snippets of their hard work seemed like a great…

  • Informal Leadership

    Last week I had the opportunity to attend a seminar in which we explored concepts of informal leadership, including strategies for problem solving, crisis and conflict management, and building diverse teams. While I consider the relationships built during the week the most valuable “take-away” from the experience, the following take-aways represent the moments from the…

  • Our Reading Summer

    “Reading Summer” at our house is that brief time of year when we have the opportunity to read whatever we want, without the distraction of assigned reading. I enjoy reading. I  actually find my textbooks engaging. There is something, though, about having an entire three weeks to binge on my own reading choices that makes…

  • Incorporating Informational Text Into Library-based Activities

    School librarians can serve an important role in supporting teachers and students as they adjust to new expectations. While I still have a number of questions about the best way to assist teachers as they integrate Informational Text into their lessons, I see a number of opportunities that these authentic texts offer. Check out my Goodreads…

  • Death To (Assigned) Summer Reading! Long Live Summer Reading!

    Alexander Nazaryan’s article Trust Me, Assigning Summer Reading Is Totally Pointless has set off a rather passionate discussion about summer reading among book-lovers and library-types. I’ve been baffled to see Nazaryan’s article characterized as anti-summer reading. I found the opposite in the article. I think the way to encourage summer reading, and the love of reading in…

  • Encourage Making Over Using

    The following is an actual question, posed by an actual school librarian:   You can’t use citation generators–why?? That is awful–we need to prepare kids for the real world. In the real world we use the generators. The original post that inspired this “question from an actual school librarian” was by a school media specialist asking…