Image source: http://stephenslighthouse.com/2012/12/30/the-rights-of-the-reader-by-daniel-pennac/
While our grade 4 students inquired under the transdisciplinary theme Who We Are about rights and responsibilities, it was a perfect opportunity for us to look at these concepts in the context of the library as well. Our students were quick in pointing out what they thought were their rights (things they might chose to do) and their responsibilities (things they are required to do). Some of the rights mentioned were coming to the library, checking out books, choosing your own books, reading whatever you like, reading alone, reading with someone or not reading at all. Students also knew that among their responsibilities were returning books to the library, taking good care of books, and being respectful towards other library users.
Sparked by a read-aloud (The Librarian of Basra), we also talked about not everyone enjoying the rights we can enjoy in our beautiful library; that there are many children and adults around the world that don't have access to books. Fortunately, there are nongovernmental organisations that have made it their goal to provide access to reading materials and promote literacy. One of these organisations is right here in Hong Kong: Bring Me a Book Hong Kong (BMABHK). In November, our fourth graders will have the opportunity to experience first hand what BMABHK does to promote family literacy around Hong Kong and how our school supports their efforts. We will share more through this blog.
Sparked by a read-aloud (The Librarian of Basra), we also talked about not everyone enjoying the rights we can enjoy in our beautiful library; that there are many children and adults around the world that don't have access to books. Fortunately, there are nongovernmental organisations that have made it their goal to provide access to reading materials and promote literacy. One of these organisations is right here in Hong Kong: Bring Me a Book Hong Kong (BMABHK). In November, our fourth graders will have the opportunity to experience first hand what BMABHK does to promote family literacy around Hong Kong and how our school supports their efforts. We will share more through this blog.
To further look into our responsibilities as users of information, images and ideas, we organised a provocative learning engagement. Not only did we want students to become aware of the importance of giving credit when using information, images or ideas that are not our own; we wanted our students to experience what it feels like when someone else takes what we created and passes it of as their own. What followed were some heated discussions, with everyone agreeing that it is indeed important to refer to the original creator of a piece of information, an image or an idea. Otherwise it would be outright stealing.
So now that we knew why it is important to cite one's sources, we looked at how it is done. Our fourth graders did a great job in identifying the four main pieces of information that go into a citation as well as ordering these in the correct sequence (according to APA style):
1. WHO? (author, creator)
2. WHEN? (publication date)
3. WHAT? (title of book or website)
4. WHERE? (place of publication).
1. WHO? (author, creator)
2. WHEN? (publication date)
3. WHAT? (title of book or website)
4. WHERE? (place of publication).
Yesterday and today, our students had the opportunity to create a citation with the help of EasyBib (an online tool and citation builder). Many were surprised how easy it was. We hope that our students will make good use of their new understanding and knowledge around citing sources to avoid plagiarism and honour their responsibilities as information users. Below is a short video tutorial on how to use the EasyBib Bibliography creator add-on in Google docs.
Library 101: Citation Made Easy from tgaletti on Vimeo.
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