Mary+Morgan


 * EMAIL: ** mmorgan@cherrycreekschools.org
 * SCHOOL: ** Cherry Creek High School
 * LIBRARY WEB SITE: **Cherry Creek High School library website
 * DISTRICT: ** Cherry Creek School School District

I participated in our district's high school librarian cohort and we met monthly throughout the school year. Here is a brief description of our meetings, and a final reflection. This was an initial planning meeting. We started brainstorming questions and planning for a meeting with a panel of university librarians. We discussed upcoming changes in the high school curriculum and assessment, including Common Core standards and the PARCC test. We discussed strategies for locating and using complex texts. We held a panel discussion with four academic librarians from area colleges and universities (Regis, Colorado School of Mines, Auraria) We discussed research skills needed to be college-ready, the need for students to understand the context of information, evaluation of sources, critical thinking of text. Academic libraries are by far online and more of a gathering place. We discussed research done by one of the district's libraries on the correlation between library book checkouts and ACT scores and complex text resources and how to evaluate text complexity. We toured the new Academic Commons building at the University of Denver. This state-of-the-art facility was built with a great deal of student, faculty, and community input, and reflects the trend toward academic libraries as a gathering place with collaborative study rooms, writing centers, one-on-one appointments with research librarians, as well as individual study carrels and silent study rooms. The library focused research on how to bring more students and faculty into the library. How can we do the same? Librarians and a representative from science, English and social studies departments will be attending a district-sponsored workshop called //Raising Rigor in Reading.// Amanda Wahlborg, the district's secondary literacy coordinator, spoke to us about the workshop and how librarians and classroom teachers would be working together to develop lessons focusing on teaching students to read and understand complex text. What can we take away from the //Raising the Rigor in Reading// workshop, and what content sources (such as databases, print, ebooks) can we share with classroom teachers to develop complex reading for students? National Library Week is next week and we discussed different programs we have planned. **Congratulations to Eaglecrest High School for being named the National School Library Program of the Year!** In this year-end meeting we talked about special programs different libraries have planned or have completed - World Book Night, author visits, summer reading programs. We also discussed plans for next year. Possible points of discussion include the new teacher evaluation and how it fits, or doesn't fit, with the role of teacher librarians, trends at the college level for assigning formal research/term papers vs. alternate assessments.
 * REFLECTION OF LEARNING: **
 * October 3, 2013 -**
 * November 7, 2013 -**
 * December 15, 2013**
 * Jan 9, 2014**
 * Jan. 17, 2014**
 * March 6, 2014**
 * April 9, 2014**
 * May 1, 2014**

Attached is my final reflection for the cohort:


 * GROWTH PLAN: **


 * GROWTH PLAN EVIDENCE: **
 * Colorado Association of Libraries conference
 * Teaching with Primary Sources Teacher Librarian Day conference
 * Example of text sets developed with English teacher for a Literature Circle project based on **The Help** by Kathryn Stockett and **The Handmaid's Tale** by Margaret Atwood and **Slaughterhouse Five** by Kurt Vonnegut
 * Research paper - works cited and annotated bibliography grading rubric