5th grade can offer a lot of challenges for students. Transitioning from Lower to Middle School means learning your way around a new building, being given letter grades for the first time, and adjusting to no longer being the oldest, but the youngest. Also, we, as librarians, expect much more from students in terms of research. They learn how to search, access and cite a variety of sources. We also work a great deal on taking notes and paraphrasing. While this may seem like a simple task, reading information, plucking out the facts and piecing those facts back together into your own words is no easy task for a 5th grader...and some adults, for that matter.
At times, it seems like the information is going in one ear and out the other, but around this time of year I see glimpses of the true learning that has taken place in the past months. Donna and I began the Ancient Rome unit this week by asking the kids to define plagiarism, common knowledge, paraphrasing, and citing in their own words. You could hear a pen drop when they were asked this in September, but hands shot into the air this time around. We touch on these areas every time we do research (much to the kids' chagrin), because these are terms and concepts that many assume students know, so they never intentionally teach them. Yet, they are outraged when they plagiarize. Just because these "digital natives" have been surrounded by speedy internet and electronics for most of their lives doesn't mean that they know how to disseminate that information and use it responsibly. In fact, with so much available at the click of a button, one has to be even more savvy in terms of identifying the different source types, evaluating the quality, and giving proper credit. We must give students the tools they need to swim in this ocean of resources rather than leave them gasping for breath. I can send this group off to 6th grade knowing they can swim. We'll work on some new strokes in the years to come.
