Nancy Stenberg, Editor
School Librarian, West Springfield High School

It's time to SHOUT! MSLA Members do amazing things constantly... this column will celebrate these accomplishments. By nature, school librarians work to make others successful and forget their own celebrations. 

Please let me know about your job changes... promotions... collaborations... committee work. If you have news about a new initiative you are involved in or something great that has happened to you in your school or library please let me know so that I can include it in this Forum! Contact Nancy

I'll kick off this column with a celebration of my own:

Race to the Top English Language Arts Curriculum Subcommittee

The state has been awarded a federal Race to the Top education grant.  Last fall I applied to become a member of one of the Race to the Top Subcommittees. My number one choice was the English Language Arts Curriculum Subcommittee.  I had to fill out an application and write a short essay about why I was interested.  Early this year I was notified that I had been assigned to the Grades 4 and 5 ELA Curriculum Subcommittee.

One of the main components for the grant is to rewrite the states curriculum to align with the newly adopted Common Core Standards.  The ELA Subcommittee will meet periodically until the summer of 2014 to create 100 new curriculum units for use by all Massachusetts teachers by the beginning of the 2014/15 school year.  Beginning this summer we will start to release new units for classroom use and feedback as we continue our work.  We are lucky enough to be working with J. McTighe and the "Understanding by Design" curriculum writing method.

I am excited by this work because the new Common Core Standards include research skills within the context of other nonfiction text work which is something we librarians have been advocating for years! All in all I think this new curriculum is going to further validate our work as librarians and provide fresh arguments for maintaining school libraries and more importantly school librarians!

Picture from Race to the Top Website: http://racetotop.com/