How to use this Page

  Writers do not write with words and conventions alone; writers write above all with meaning. ~Lucy Calkins, A Guide to the Writing Workshop Grades 3-5 When I began using the writing workshop… Continue reading →

With our youth patrons returning to school, now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your community’s demographics and set goals to “Get Away” and connect with those underserved populations. As you consider where to start, the first step may seem daunting, but tackle the unknown in a way that is most comfortable for you. We’ll be sharing our ideas about setting goals during our Teen Read Week Twitter chat Setting Goals to Reach Underserved Teens onFriday, September 11 at 2 pm EST. If numbers and statistics read like a first language, you’ll probably have your own plan of action in which to gather information and compile results into charts and graphs. However, many of us need a different approach in order to ease our way into such unfamiliar territory and we offer a few ideas here.

Demographics from an insider view

Consider your teen patrons’ habits as a diving board into better knowing your community. For instance, if your teens often ask library staff for change to spare for food, comment about not eating breakfast, or are eager to attend library programs especially for the free snacks, you may want to further explore this trend. Start by investigating the nearby school’s stats on free and reduced lunches, the city’s poverty percentages, or the state’s caseload counter for food stamp families. The location of these resources will also provide other relevant data that may offer a more detailed view into the issue. Once you have a baseline of data, connect with local food pantries and other social service providers and start a conversation. You may discover any number of ways to partner with these organizations from creating a bookmark for the public listing the location of these services to facilitating meal programs.

Demographics from a bird’s eye perspective

Map the government, parks, nonprofit, and other community agencies within your library’s service area. If a particular trend in services exists, investigate its related statistical topics and connect with those organizations. Also, the types of businesses in your service may offer a starting point into better understanding your community. If you notice an unusual number of liquor stores in your area, you may check the location of rehabilitation centers or AA groups and connect with them. Another way to address your map of agencies, is to first connect with the organizations located nearest to your library, as those service are directly targeting your immediate area.

Take action with us in better understanding your community by joining the Teen Read Week Twitter chat on Friday, September 11 at 2 pm EST. Come ready to share your goals and gain new ideas and resources from your peers. When joining the Twitter chat, be sure to use #TRW15. See you there!

Amanda Barnhart is the current chair for YALSA’s Teen Read Week committee, an MLIS student, and a Young Adult Associate for the Trails West branch of The Kansas City (Mo) Public Library.

Save the date!

On Tuesday, August 18, at 4:30 pm ET/ 1:30 pm PT, there will be a Little, Brown Twitter Chat with Jennifer E. Smith about her new book, Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between (publication date September 2015).















I'm happy to say that I've been invited to be part of it; and I'm looking forward to it very much.

As you can tell from my reviews of Smith's previous books (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and This is What Happy Looks Like), I enjoy Smith's works and her writing so I'm looking forward to chatting with her on Twitter.

Twitter handles to know for the chat: @LBSchool, @JenESmith, and @LizB; and the hashtag to follow is #HelloGoodbye.

Make a note on your calendar; and don't worry, I'll be reminding you again before it starts!

Amazon Affiliate. If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

So, a little more about last week’s Twitter chat…

Librarian Colleen Graves has written about the chat from her perspective. Here’s a bit of that —

I loved, loved, loved being able to take teachable moments while Chris was typing to talk with students about what he was saying. At one point, the students asked Chris, “What do you do when you don’t know what to write?” To which he so eloquently said, “Pay attention to what you can’t stop thinking of.” So while he was typing up his next response, I told the kids, “What great advice! Think back to your research, what was something you learned that you can’t stop thinking of?

— but I think her entire post is worth your while, especially if you’re a librarian or educator and think you might be interested in doing this with your own students.

From my own perspective, here’s what I told Colleen afterwards (pieced together and lightly edited from a series of private messages I sent her via — what else? — Twitter):

My thoughts on our chat: It was a lot of work! In our standard presentations, we authors can more or less stick to a script. Not here!

And I don’t mean “a lot of work” in a negative way. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. But it called for constant engagement and thought.

It had a big advantage over the Q&A sessions with an in-person audience: I knew that each question you chose to include was widely relevant.

The challenge for me was in distilling my answers into 140 characters but also in having to decide for myself when I’d sufficiently answered.

We didn’t have the immediate, glazed-eyes feedback loop that you get in person when an answer is going down the wrong track.

But then, that’s what follow-up questions are for, right?

Following up on my “widely relevant” remark above: You never know if the kid who asks a question in person is the ONLY one who wants it answered.

As for structure, I think it worked out great having main questions come from you and visual questions from students on different account.

I don’t think I could have stayed on top of questions from more than two accounts, and having the visual from students reinforced the fact that it was the kids doing the asking so that I could keep them in mind as I answered.

As for attempting a chat between a classroom and multiple authors simultaneously, I’d recommend against it, unless it’s two authors or an author and an illustrator who collaborated on a project. In that case, I can see how their comments would complement each other. Otherwise, I think it would be cacophonous for authors and students alike.

This chat was an experiment for Colleen and me alike, and I’m extremely happy with the results. So happy, in fact, that I’m henceforth adding Twitter chats to my school-visit offerings.

If you think you might be interested in scheduling one for me and your students, just drop me a line!

Tetralogue by Timothy Williamson is a philosophy book for the commuter age. In a tradition going back to Plato, Timothy Williamson uses a fictional conversation to explore questions about truth and falsity, knowledge and belief. Four people with radically different outlooks on the world meet on a train and start talking about what they believe. Their conversation varies from cool logical reasoning to heated personal confrontation. Each starts off convinced that he or she is right, but then doubts creep in. During February, we will be posting a series of extracts that cover the viewpoints of all four characters in Tetralogue. What follows is an extract exploring Roxanna’s perspective.

Roxanna is a heartless logician with an exotic background. She would much rather be right than be liked, and as a result she argues mercilessly with the other characters.

Roxana: You appear not to know much about logic.

Sarah: What did you say?

Roxana: I said that you appear not to know much about logic.

Sarah: And you appear not to know much about manners.

Roxana: If you want to understand truth and falsity, logic will be more useful than manners. Do any of you remember what Aristotle said about truth and falsity?

Bob: Sorry, I know nothing about Aristotle.

Zac: It’s on the tip of my tongue.

Sarah: Aristotelian science is two thousand years out of date.

Roxana: None of you knows. Aristotle said ‘To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true’. Those elementary principles are fun­damental to the logic of truth. They remain central in contemporary research. They were endorsed by the greatest contributor to the logic of truth, the modern Polish logician Alfred Tarski.

Bob: Never heard of him. I’m sure Aristotle’s saying is very wise; I wish I knew what it meant.

Roxana: I see that I will have to begin right at the very beginning with these three.

Sarah: We can manage quite well without a lecture from you, thank you very much.

Roxana: It is quite obvious that you can’t.

Roxana: It is quite obvious that you can’t.

Zac: I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.

Roxana: Of course you didn’t. I didn’t say it.

Zac: May I ask what it is?

Roxana: You may, but it is irrelevant.

Bob: Well, don’t keep us all in suspense. What is it?

Roxana: It is ‘Roxana’.

Zac: Nice name, Roxana. Mine is ‘Zac’, by the way.

Bob: I hope our conversation wasn’t annoying you.

Roxana: Its lack of intellectual discipline was only slightly irritating.

Bob: Sorry, we got carried away. Just to complete the introductions, I’m Bob, and this is Sarah.

Roxana: That is enough time on trivialities. I will explain the error in what the woman called ‘Sarah’ said.

Sarah: Call me ‘Sarah’, not ‘the woman called “Sarah” ’, if you please.

Bob: ‘Sarah’ is shorter.

Sarah: Not only that. We’ve been introduced. It’s rude to describe me at arm’s length, as though we weren’t acquainted.

Roxana: If we must be on first name terms, so be it. Do not expect them to stop me from explaining your error. First, I will illustrate Aristotle’s observation about truth and falsity with an example so simple that even you should all be capable of understand­ing it. I will make an assertion.

Bob: Here goes.

Roxana: Do not interrupt.

Bob: I was always the one talking at the back of the class.

Zac: Don’t worry about Bob, Roxana. We’d all love to hear your assertion. Silence, please, everyone.

Roxana: Samarkand is in Uzbekistan.

Sarah: Is that it?

Roxana: That was the assertion.

Bob: So that’s where Samarkand is. I always wondered.

Roxana: Concentrate on the logic, not the geography. In making that assertion about Samarkand, I speak truly if, and only if, Samarkand is in Uzbekistan. I speak falsely if, and only if, Samarkand is not in Uzbekistan.

Zac: Is that all, Roxana?

Roxana: It is enough.

Bob: I think I see. Truth is telling it like it is. Falsity is tell­ing it like it isn’t. Is that what Aristotle meant?

Roxana: That paraphrase is acceptable for the present.

Have you got something you want to say to Roxanna? Do you agree or disagree with her? Tetralogue author Timothy Williamson will be getting into character and answering questions from Roxanna’s perspective via @TetralogueBook on Friday 20th March from 2-3pm GMT. Tweet your questions to him and wait for Roxanna’s response!

The post Trains of thought: Roxanna appeared first on OUPblog.

       

Tetralogue by Timothy Williamson is a philosophy book for the commuter age. In a tradition going back to Plato, Timothy Williamson uses a fictional conversation to explore questions about truth and falsity, knowledge and belief. Four people with radically different outlooks on the world meet on a train and start talking about what they believe. Their conversation varies from cool logical reasoning to heated personal confrontation. Each starts off convinced that he or she is right, but then doubts creep in. During February, we will be posting a series of extracts that cover the viewpoints of all four characters in Tetralogue. What follows is an extract exploring Zac’s perspective.

Zac wants everyone to be at peace with everyone else, whatever their differences. He tries to intervene and offer a solution to the conflicts that arise between the other characters, but often ends up getting dragged in himself.

Sarah: It’s pointless arguing with you. Nothing will shake your faith in witchcraft!

Bob: Will anything shake your faith in modern science?

Zac: Excuse me, folks, for butting in: sitting here, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. You both seem to be getting quite upset. Perhaps I can help. If I may say so, each of you is taking the superior attitude ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ toward the other.

Sarah: But I am right and he is wrong.

Bob: No. I’m right and she’s wrong.

Zac: There, you see: deadlock. My guess is, it’s becom­ing obvious to both of you that neither of you can definitively prove the other wrong.

Sarah: Maybe not right here and now on this train, but just wait and see how science develops—people who try to put limits to what it can achieve usually end up with egg on their face.

Bob: Just you wait and see what it’s like to be the vic­tim of a spell. People who try to put limits to what witchcraft can do end up with much worse than egg on their face.

Zac: But isn’t each of you quite right, from your own point of view? What you—

Sarah: Sarah.

Zac: Pleased to meet you, Sarah. I’m Zac, by the way. What Sarah is saying makes perfect sense from the point of view of modern science. And what you—

Bob: Bob.

Zac: Pleased to meet you, Bob. What Bob is saying makes perfect sense from the point of view of traditional witchcraft. Modern science and traditional witch­craft are different points of view, but each of them is valid on its own terms. They are equally intelligible.

Sarah: They may be equally intelligible, but they aren’t equally true.

Zac: ‘True’: that’s a very dangerous word, Sarah. When you are enjoying the view of the lovely countryside through this window, do you insist that you are see­ing right, and people looking through the windows on the other side of the train are seeing wrong?

Sarah: Of course not, but it’s not a fair comparison.

Zac: Why not, Sarah?

Sarah: We see different things through the windows because we are looking in different directions. But modern science and traditional witchcraft ideas are looking at the same world and say incompatible things about it, for instance about what caused Bob’s wall to col­lapse. If one side is right, the other is wrong.

Zac: Sarah, it’s you who make them incompatible by insisting that someone must be right and some­one must be wrong. That sort of judgemental talk comes from the idea that we can adopt the point of view of a God, standing in judgement over every­one else. But we are all just human beings. We can’t make definitive judgements of right and wrong like that about each other.

Sarah: But aren’t you, Zac, saying that Bob and I were both wrong to assume there are right and wrong answers on modern science versus witchcraft, and that you are right to say there are no such right and wrong answers? In fact, aren’t you contradicting yourself?

Have you got something you want to say to Zac? Do you agree or disagree with him? Tetralogue author Timothy Williamson will be getting into character and answering questions from Zac’s perspective via @TetralogueBook on Friday 13th March from 2-3pm GMT. Tweet your questions to him and wait for Zac’s response!

The post Trains of thought: Zac appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• Trains of thought: Bob
• The impossibility of perfect forgeries?
• On the dark side of devoutness

 

Tetralogue by Timothy Williamson is a philosophy book for the commuter age. In a tradition going back to Plato, Timothy Williamson uses a fictional conversation to explore questions about truth and falsity, knowledge and belief. Four people with radically different outlooks on the world meet on a train and start talking about what they believe. Their conversation varies from cool logical reasoning to heated personal confrontation. Each starts off convinced that he or she is right, but then doubts creep in. During February, we will be posting a series of extracts that cover the viewpoints of all four characters in Tetralogue. What follows is an extract exploring Bob’s perspective.

Bob is just an ordinary guy who happens to be scared of witches. His beliefs are strongly rooted in personal experience, and this approach brings him to blows with the unyelidingly scientific Sarah.

Sarah: That’s unfair! You don’t expect all the scientific resources of the Western world to be concentrated on explaining why your garden wall collapsed, do you? I’m not being dogmatic, there’s just no reason to doubt that a scientific explanation could in prin­ciple be given.

Bob: You expect me to take that on faith? You don’t always know best, you know. I’m actually giv­ing you an explanation. (Mustn’t talk too loud.) My neighbour’s a witch. She always hated me. Bewitched my wall, cast a spell on it to collapse next time I was right beside it. It was no coinci­dence. Even if you had your precious scientific explanation with all its atoms and molecules, it would only be technical details. It would give no reason why the two things happened at just the same time. The only explanation that makes real sense of it is witchcraft.

Sarah: You haven’t explained how your neighbour’s mutter­ing some words could possibly make the wall collapse.

Bob: Who knows how witchcraft works? Whatever it does, that old hag’s malice explains why the wall collapsed just when I was right beside it. Anyway, I bet you can’t explain how deciding in my own mind to plant some bulbs made my legs actually move so I walked out into the garden.

Sarah: It’s only a matter of time before scientists can explain things like that. Neuroscience has made enormous progress over the last few years, discov­ering how the brain and nervous system work.

Bob: So you say, with your faith in modern science. I bet expert witches can already explain how spells work. They wouldn’t share their knowledge around. Too dangerous. Why should I trust modern science more than witchcraft?

Sarah: Think of all the evidence for modern science. It can explain so much. What evidence is there that witch­craft works?

Bob: My garden wall, for a start.

Sarah: No, I mean proper evidence, statistically significant results of controlled experiments and other forms of reliable data, which science provides.

Bob: You know how witches were persecuted, or rightly punished, in the past. Lots of them were tortured and burnt. It could happen again, if they made their powers too obvious, doing things that could be proved in court. Do you expect them to let them­selves be trapped like that again? Anyway, witch­craft is so unfashionable in scientific circles, how many scientists would risk their academic reputa­tions taking it seriously enough to research on it, testing whether it works?

Sarah: Modern science has put men on the moon. What has witchcraft done remotely comparable to that?

Bob: For all we know, that alleged film of men on the moon was done in a studio on earth. The money saved was spent on the military. Anyway, who says witchcraft hasn’t put women on the moon? Isn’t assuming it hasn’t what educated folk call ‘begging the question’?

Sarah: I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. Do you seriously deny that scientific journals are full of evi­dence for modern scientific theories? Isn’t all of that evidence against witchcraft?

Bob: How do we know how much of that so-called evi­dence is genuine? There have been lots of scandals recently about scientists faking their results. For all we know, the ones who get caught are only the tip of the iceberg.

Sarah: Well, if you prefer, look at all the successful tech­nology around you. You’re sitting on a train, and I notice you have a laptop and a mobile phone. Think of all the science that went into them. You’re not telling me they work by witchcraft, are you?

Bob: Lots of modern science and technology is fine in its own way. I went to hospital by ambulance, not broom, thank goodness. None of that means mod­ern science can explain everything.

Have you got something you want to say to Bob? Do you agree or disagree with him? Tetralogue author Timothy Williamson will be getting into character and answering questions from Bob’s perspective via @TetralogueBook on Friday 6th March from 2-3pm GMT. Tweet your questions to him and wait for Bob’s response!

The post Trains of thought: Bob appeared first on OUPblog.

        

Related Stories

• Thomas Aquinas and God
• Free will, libertarianism, and luck
• Fluorescent proteins and medicine

 

This Wednesday at 9pm EST, I will be talking on #YAlitchat (on Twitter) with the wonderful authors Ellen Hopkins @EllenHopkinsYA (author of Crank, Glass, etc) and Laurie Halse Anderson @asklaurie (author of Speak, Wintergirls, etc) about controversy and banned YA books. I hope you’ll join us in the conversation!

To join in a Twitter chat, one of the easiest ways is to go to TweetChat.com, log in with Twitter, and then type the hashtag “YAlitchat” into the search box at the top (and then click on “go”). From there, you’ll be able to see the entire conversation and join in any time. Your tweets will automatically have the hashtag added at the end of them, so others following the chat see what you say.

Hope to see you there.

Here is an attempt to create a list of the various tags used on Twitter that relate to the field of children's literature. This will be a "living" document, changing as Twitter changes and as new tags pop up.

#kidlit - used all the time. used for news of interest in children's literature. (To be honest, this tag isn't used as often as it could be!)

#kidlitchat - used on Tuesdays at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific for a weekly chat about all things kidlit, but used sporadically through the week, too.

#YALitChat - used on Wednesday at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific for a chat about YA, but also used all week long for YA Lit type topics.

#kidlitart - used on Thursday at 9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific for a weekly chat about the art of picture books. Used some during the week, too.

#PBlitchat - another picture book chat tag, writing based. The chat has moved off Twitter, but the tag still used for picture book stuff during the week, too.

#scbwi - used to tag news and information related to or of interest to SCBWI members (local, national, and international)

#titletalk - a Sunday chat, but the tag is used during the week, too, highlighting specific titles

#amwriting - a cross-genres and cross-age groups tag for those who are writing

#speakloudly - this tag deals with a situation involving Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, and is still heavily involved in issues involving challenges to children's books.

#nfmon - used to tag posts related to non-fiction Monday.

#poetryfriday - used to tag posts related to Poetry Friday.


There are many more tags that cross into children's literature from time to time:

#askagent, #publishing, #books, #poetry, #amediting, #literacy, and no doubt dozens more I'm forgetting.

There are also tags like #kidlitcon that relate to individual events and others that relate to one-time chats. I am trying to list only tags that work year round.

Have any to add to this list? Please let me know so we can keep this list up to date. Leave a comment here, email me, or even tweet me!

We're chatting with the amazing Ally Carter at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern. Her latest Gallagher Girls book is on the New York Times bestseller list for the fourth week.

If you've never used Twitter before, here's how to do it:

First, create a Twitter account if you don’t have one already. It’s easy and free, and all you need is an e-mail address.

From here, there are two choices:

• Log onto Twitter at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.
• Type @officiallyally plus your question, followed by #rgz. This asks Ally your question and funnels it into the readergirlz chat stream.
• To follow along the chat, go here (the #rgz Twitter stream).

• Go to TweetChat (http://tweetchat.com/). 
• Enter in the rgz hashtag in the box on top of the page. 
• Then, sign in to Twitter (there's a button on the top right). 
• Type @officiallyally into your questions. The hashtag will be added automatically.

Bonnie Adamson and I are excited to announce a brand new Twitter chat that we'll be co-hosting. The first chat will be Wednesday night, 7/15, at 9 PM EDT/6 PM PDT, and we're using the hashtag #kidlitchat for now. Neither time nor tag are set in stone, by the way, but we wanted to get up and running sooner rather than later.

We hope that ANYONE with an interest in the craft and/or business side of writing for children, from board books through YA, will come join us.

The initial plan is that each chat will feature topics from a range of craft and business areas (hopefully suggested by all of us chatters!). We also hope to incorporate special guests in future chats. This first one will also include a focus on what we all would like to get out of a children's literature Twitter chat - be it community, knowledge, specific topics, a recreation of an SCBWI schmooze or...????

If you have any ideas, questions, or want more information, please leave a comment here or find Bonnie or me on Twitter.

Hope to see you there... and look for updates here and there as the chat evolves!