Advocacy in Reach. Bringing a Biography to Life

by Stony Evans, November 2016

Click to Enlarge +Advocacy in Reach. Bringing a Biography to Life

Fearless by Eric Blehm

In 2012, I read a biography about Adam Brown, a man from Hot Springs, Arkansas. Brown overcame great obstacles to become a Navy SEAL, and he made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. Our two 8^th grade English teachers approached me about presenting Fearless as a booktalk at the end of their unit. We had just adopted the Common Core State Standards in English classes. It was time to use this booktalk as an opportunity to present material in new ways to students.

We decided to present Fearless as a military event. At the time, my library assistant and I were both in the Arkansas Army National Guard. On the day of the event, we wore our Army uniforms and conducted the booktalk as an unofficial briefing complete with informational slides about topics mentioned in the book. This briefing took place in the library after students experienced a gallery walk of images from September 11, 2001. The program was a culminating activity for the unit, "It Happened in the City." Students had recently learned about the September 11^th attacks and had also written about what it means to be a hero. This book was a perfect fit for our new curriculum.

One would think that 8^th graders wouldn't take well to teachers "dressing up" and acting differently to create a new setting. The opposite was true; the students loved it. After a few days, they wanted to know when we would do a similar activity. The Fearless program actually generated numerous similar culminating library programs over the next few years. We continue adding new programs or modifying old ones each year.

Four years later, Fearless has evolved into a multi-day event with the second day including many learning stations in the library. We use technology to provide differentiated instruction to students. The stations include President Bush's 9/11 address to the nation, a music video "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning" by Alan Jackson, and military field gear (students tried wearing gear to better understand what it is like in the military). In 2015, we had local emergency medical teams and an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission officer visit the event. Each year, Fearless flies off the shelves following this program. As a result, Adam Brown's legacy lives on in our learning community.

Advocacy Outcomes

Several positive advocacy measures have come from this program over the years, within the school and across the community.

(1) Media Coverage: The Fearless collaboration has been featured in the local city newspaper three of the four years that it has been held in the school library. Due to this coverage, the local John Percifull Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution invited us to present our program during one of their meetings.

(2) Social Media Sharing: Each year, all participants have posted photos and information on Facebook, which has generated a lot of positive feedback from the community. In the past four years, two neighboring schools have had us visit and present the program to their students.

(3) Building New Collaborations and Leadership: Teachers from grades 8–12 have worked with us to create eleven new library collaborations since 2012. In addition to blogging about many of these programs, we have also presented about their success in state and national conferences. As a result of these events, our administrators and community now see the school library differently. They view it as a staging area for immersing students in content.

Conclusion

The Fearless program demonstrates that there is often rich, local history available to bring into our school libraries. Because we took a risk with Fearless by presenting the material in a new way for our learning community, other programs and connections continue to evolve. Navy SEAL Adam Brown will live on in the hearts of our students. I can't help but wonder how many times we miss opportunities to present local history and/or primary sources. I want to continue to bring these stories to life for our learners. I can't think of a better place for this to happen than in the school library.