Successful launch of Grade 9 Project

After months of research and planning, and a little bit of anxiety, I launched the grade 9 project with the students today.  It seemed successful!  At least there were no melt down during the introduction and the brainstorming session afterwards.  I suppose as always, time will tell.  I did see worried faces when I told them that the Human library presentation slot would be 20 minutes long but they were reassured when we reminded them that a Human Library 'reading' involves conversation among the participants.

I must say a big THANK YOU to Kadri Tomson at the International School of Estonia for inspiring me to do this!

Today we gave a presentation to our grade 9s and handed out the following information to accompany the presentation:

If I Were a Book?

If I were a book, what would my subject be?

If I were a book, what would I look like?

If I were a “human” book, how would I present my book to my readers?

These are three questions that each person will be answering over the course of the next few months, culminating in the presentation by each person in grade 9 of their ‘human book’, as part of the ACS Egham First Annual Human Library Project​.

What is a Human Library?

“Just like in a real library, a visitor to the Human Library can choose a Book from a range of titles. The difference is that Books are people, and reading is a conversation…
The Human Library was created for the 2000 Roskilde Music Festival by a group of Danish activists who formed in response to a violent hate crime. Their idea was to use the language and mechanism of a library to facilitate conversations that challenge prejudice, thereby reducing the risk of tension and violence. From a base in Copenhagen the creators and founders of the Human Library Organisation have helped the movement to grow steadily across the world, and it is currently active in over 60
countries. The movement is growing!” (Human Library UK)


What will our Human Library be like?

1. Our library and books will be different from the one described above, in that our books will be about something that we are passionate about or have a keen interest in. Otherwise, it will be very similar.
2. Each person will be conduct research and create a 20 minute oral presentation based on their passion or interest.
3. A ‘blurb’ about your book will form part of the library catalogue, which will be given to the ‘readers’ to choose from.
4. On the day of the Human Library, you will be borrowed by at least 3 ‘readers’ at a time. These ‘Readers’ will come from various parts of the ACS Egham community, and will include one grade 9 student per book. In other words, one of your classmates will be one of your readers.
5. To assist our ‘books’ in improving for their next ‘edition’, readers will be asked to write a short ‘book review’, which will be shared with the ‘books’.


How will I prepare for the Human Library?

1) The majority of work will be done during your Study Skills Classes.

What will this preparation consist of?

1. Through the preparation stage of our project, you will have the opportunity to develop and refine your skills through weekly workshops in three particular areas: project management, communications and research.
2. Workshops and activities will include:
i. organising time allocation for each stage of the process;
ii. preparing and delivering an oral presentation;
iii. negotiating the ACS library online catalogue, databases and search engines to find information; using search tools such as keywords, boolean operators, and advanced search tools;
iv. Developing various skills for academic writing such as: note taking; paraphrasing, summary and referencing;
v. Collaborating with other students as ‘study buddies’ or as peer reviewers;
vi. Self assessment;
vii. Oral presentation skills.
 3. The preparation stage will also include:
 i. Time to carry out your research
 ii. Time to practice your presentation

How will I be assessed?

1. Study Skills receives a pass/fail grade.
2. You will receive feedback from their peer reviewers throughout the preparation stage.
3. You will also receive feedback from your ‘readers’ after the Human Library presentation.
4. Finally, you will have opportunities to self assess throughout the process and after the presentation

After this presentation we broke up into groups and started an activity to help students identify their interests, and perhaps their passions.

They worked on it by themselves to start with and then shared with a partner. After that, students shared with another pair. We only had 7 pairs so Alicia, one of the other study skills teachers, and I joined in. Finally, we had one of the pairs at each table of 4 move to another table, and this included Alicia and I. Thus we were able to talk with most of the students. It was interesting to see the difference among them. Some had filled their paper, others had little on them. Dianne McKenzie said that when she did a "My Passion" activity, a lot of work was necessary to get students to the point of identifying something they were passionate about. I can see that we will probably face the same hurdle!

If you are interested in looking at the google doc of the outline of the unit to date, please follow this link. I would greatly appreciate feedback.