"What's a Classic?"

February 5th (School Library)

Today I worked 4.5 hours in the library but things were so busy that I barely had enough time to choke down a decent lunch.  When I arrived, I realized I had forgotten about an English teacher's 2nd period class that was coming in to browse the fiction collection for a good read. I had several requests for recommendations - this took me pleasantly by surprise.  I was told that one student really liked Gary Paulsen's The Hatchet and was looking for something similar that was challenging to read - I came up with The Transall Saga. 

I could be imagining things but it feels like the teachers are more comfortable this year with having their students utilize the library for general class reading assignments beyond the classics, biographies, or history/constitutional amendment research.  It tells me that the faculty have a little more confidence in the collection this year and my ability to help students navigate the stacks.   However I think the library has also been made "more legitimate" by the rehiring of a credentialed certified teacher librarian on a half-time basis.   It might also have to do with the fact of simple accessibility - the library doors are open M-F now from at least 9:30am-2pm.  Predictability of hours and familiarity with staff go a long way in making a library functional within a school environment.

A few hours later, just before lunch, I had a young woman walk in and blindly me ask me "What's a classic?"  This caught me off guard so I decided to probe a little. "Is this for a class?  Do you need it for an assignment?".  "Yes!" she says eagerly, "My English teacher wants me to pick a classic.  I need a classic. Can you help me?" 

OK, so I had to think about this a little - here's a 8th grade student who clearly doesn't know what the word "classic" means in the library/literary world.  Sadly, I think in the age where student digital literacy is being emphasized, traditional education in print literature is suffering.  The backroom stacks of our library is filled with classic novel sets - To Kill a Mockingbird, Treasure Island, The Hounds of Baskerville, to name a few.   Somehow this particular student was yet been given an education of how these works define classic literature.  This surprises me as surely she's already been assigned a classic novel in any number of courses - Language Arts, History, Social Sciences.

Yet she has a decent grasp of "genre" so I start from there.  What types of book do you like to read?  Historical fiction? Mysteries?  Sci-fi?  "Sci-fi, umm yeah, I like sci-fi," she says indecisively.  "OK well who's your favorite sci-fi author?"  "Well, I liked The Hunger Games series".   So I'm running through my mental list of who's who in the sci-fi literary world - Asimov, Le Guinn, Tolkien - "Well have you read The Hobbit?"  "Yeah I have, well wait I think so - I just need a classic though.  Can you recommend any?"  Sigh - let's take a different tactic, I'm not a sci-fi reader but maybe just recommending any classic will steer her in the right direction - "well I have some favorite classics of my own, how about these?"  I pulled Watership Down and The Good Earth off the shelf.  She examines the Pearl Buck book - "oh yeah, this looks good" she says, "where is this set?"  "In China."  "Oh yeah that's great because my teacher said it had to be multicultural classic. Thanks!"  Of course, I should have known, uggh.

I'm understanding that as a school library tech, I possibly have a greater role in educating these kids about literature.  Concepts like genre and classic seem to be lost on majority of young adults.  I'd like to start a literary circle but am told that only the certified teacher librarian is authorized to supervise these.  So in the meantime I'm looking for a way to reclassify/reorganize the collection to make it easier for students to understand what it is they're looking for.   The genre label identification project, I'm thinking, would be a good way to measure progress towards helping students find what they're looking for.  A seems like many school library teachers are moving towards shelving books by genre rather.  Again the board http://www.pinterest.com/lauraholton/genre-shelving/ has some interesting ideas. 

I may also have to develop some other strategies, like say recommended book lists, to assist both the teachers and students in their assignments.