Month: January 2024

Summary: Roxanne discusses her over thirty-year engagement with Indigenous children’s literature, focusing on representations of First Nations peoples in literature for children and young adults. She was motivated by personal connections to the Sweetgrass Cree Nation and a desire for realistic portrayals, she talks about her experiences as a librarian, and her role in building a diverse library for the Little Red River School.

Let’s start with the basics: why does having authentic sources matter? For me, it’s about making sure that every child can connect with the books they read and see themselves in the stories. Authentic sources also play a role in educating students about various cultures and ways of life, offering them the opportunity to explore and learn at their own pace. Ultimately, it’s about sparking curiosity, encouraging questions, and fostering a love for continuous learning. It also fits under the grade six social studies curriculum: “Apply criteria to evaluate selected sources for credibility and reliability”

From my perspective, an authentic source comes from credible and genuine authors, maintaining accuracy to the topic. When the source explores a specific culture, it has authenticity if it is written by individuals belonging to that culture or has received explicit permission from someone within the cultural community. This standard ensures reliability and a respectful representation, fostering a deeper understanding of diverse perspectives.

They had an unofficial classroom library. There were 2 shelves (one pictured) with a variety of fiction and non-fiction books. From my understanding, they were all easily accessible for students to use during soft start in the am or at any other reading times.

This activity that the students work on each morning was something I am definitely going to add to my teacher’s toolbox. Students were given a booklet (pictured above) and were required to come up with as many words ( 3, 4, 5, and 6+ letter words) using only the series of letters provided as possible. The main task was to figure out the big word, the word that utilizes all the letters provided. If students finished early, they could work on the last page. An activity like this allows students to expand their word and letter recognition and practice spelling in a fun and independent manner!

I also believe it is important to note that, as a class, they worked together to complete the Wordle. They do this every morning. Wordle is a daily puzzle that promotes problem-solving skills and in this case teamwork. I personally do the Wordle each day and it has enhanced my memory as well as problem-solving skills, even as an adult.

For my own classroom, having a little library is one of the things at the top of my list for promoting literacy. I believe having an area with easily accessible and interchangeable literature is one of the easiest ways for students to engage in reading. For my classroom library, I would ideally like to change the books out monthly and cater to my student’s interests by building meaningful relationships and doing a book survey.

I plan to have word walls up in my classroom. I would include a wall with simple words, a wall with adjectives, nouns, and verbs, and a transition word wall. These would all be created by the students, using their ideas and artwork!

One other idea I have for promoting literacy in my own classroom is a book-of-the-month bulletin board. Each month, my students will pitch their favourite book they’ve read that month to the class and we will all vote on which one we like most. The chosen book and author will be on display for that month!