4.2 Professional Development

I have attended the Jan Paris Bookfests for the past two years. I have attached photos of my certificate from the 2014 Bookfest as well as one of Dr. Lesesne reading to us. I have also attached photos of me meeting authors Stephen Kellogg and Ellen Hopkins at the 2013 bookfest. By attending the Jan Paris bookfest in 2013, I learned about LGBT literature in children's and YA books that I used in both my elementary and middle school classrooms. I also learned about Banned Books Week which led to my "Banned Books Club" at the middle school I work at where we read banned books. In 2014, I attended a workshop by Tammi Sauer on how to write children's books that I shared with my students who were interested in writing their own books. I also listened to Dr. Lesesne discuss YA throught the past 5 decades and found many books that I suggest to students to share with their parents as well. I also listened to Todd Rasser discuss growing up in a bomb shelter underground and shared this with my students who had been listening to his audiobooks. I attended these conferences alone, but made many librarian friends and had a chance to meet my professors and network with other teacher-librarians and share ideas.