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| Students check out libraries as reports come due By Mark Noack [ mark@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Thursday, March 4, 2010 10:41 AM PST It’s book-report season at Coastside schools, a time of the year when a rush of elementary-age students are scrambling to grab up the easy-to-read books on common topics, such as endangered species, U.S. presidents or foreign countries. And for teachers and librarians, helping anxious students with their first book report can be a challenging assignment in itself. Every year around this time, teachers begin requesting library staff set aside books on particular research topics. And soon after, the librarians see a pack of wide-eyed second- and third-grade students searching for books about subjects like sharks, Native Americans or famous athletes. And those young students usually need a crash course in how to avoid plagiarism, cite sources and know the difference between non-fiction and fiction. “I really enjoy helping them,” said Karen Choy, Half Moon Bay Library’s youth services librarian. “They usually have to come here because their teacher forces them, and they’re forced to use books.” “And I think that’s pretty great!” she joked. Choy says about a dozen students come by the library each day specifically for a book-report assignment. When one asks her for help, she starts at the obvious: Google, Wikipedia and basics of online research. With some precautions, the commonplace Web sites are essential tools for young students, and it leads them to other resources, she said. From there, the librarians help students find books on their subject. Sea Crest third-grade teachers Sande Anfang and Kathe Bybee are sending their students to find books at the library for their class project on the salt marshes. Each student is given one coastal denizen to research. Popular picks include sharks, falcons and butterflies. But some students get stuck with the less glamorous creatures, such as diatoms, plankton or the “fat innkeeper” worm. To make those unknown animals a little more interesting, the teachers have a special educational song on the wetlands. The chorus is: “Estuary, salty and fresh, / the river mixes with the sea. / Estuary, salty and fresh / life has diversity!” In their final report, each student has to cite an encyclopedia, one book, and one Internet source -- not Wikipedia. “We want them to use something else,” Anfang explained. “We want them to realize that information comes in bits and pieces.” A former local librarian, Anfang says the book reports she assigns are one way to get her students interested in resources at the library, even if it’s not necessarily by choice. Most teachers have their own spin on the standard book report. Second-grade teacher Pauline Shue at El Granada Elementary reminded her class that February is dental health month by assigning them a book report on the subject. Students had to go to the library and ask the staff for help. Just making a visit was a class homework assignment by itself — the library clerk has a checklist of everyone in Shue’s class. Eventually the class finished tiny Q&A booklets on dental hygiene, answering questions such as “How often should you change your toothbrush?”, “What foods are good for your teeth?”, and “What happen when your teeth fall out?” Involved in Sonrisas, the local dental nonprofit, Shue said many of her students are pretty confused when they start losing their baby teeth, which led her to design the assignment. Now she has her own library of student-made dental booklets collected from five years of organizing the project for her classes. Hatch third-grade student Nanci Garcia could choose anything for her book report. Visiting the bookmobile, she weighed whether she wanted to write up a report about sea turtles or the planet Jupiter. “I open the books and see if it’s good for my age,” she said. “It’s fun and exciting but I get a little bit nervous because I have to (read my report) in front of the whole class.” Back at the main library branch, Choy wondered aloud why so many book report assignments seem to coincide around late winter. “Maybe it’s because they just had a week-long break,” she speculated. “Maybe it’s because many kids tend to wait until the last minute.” |