ARE YOU A PERSON WHO’d LIKE TO SEE 7th to 12th GRADERS COME TO FOSTER A LOVE OF READING?
Would you like to help guide them in authentic conversations about recently published young adult novels and witness their maturation as readers and critical thinkers?
Be a part of a reimagined Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award, where students will be encouraged by their mentor to be self-motivated and book teams to be self-governed. They will be encouraged to read books critically and will be able to participate in the excitement of cutting-edge books being published now.
Mentors have been school or public librarians, interested volunteers, other school professionals, or even adult friends that the judges have asked to be their mentors.
Team Mentor Roles and responsibilities
The CBSA is a very permissive framework. The goal is for student judges to read and discuss (at least) three eligible books during the space of the school year, submit a book talk on their favorite book by mid-January and attend two remote statewide meetings. Some teams meet every week, some, every other week and some once a month. If mentors are able to hand over the organization and communication of the book group to their student judges, their time commitment, in addition to reading their team’s chosen books, should be limited to accessing books and book team’s meetings. Not every team can attend the CO Teen Lit Conference in April, but those who can, will be so glad that they did.
GOALS AND TIMELINE
RECRUIT AS SOON AS KIDS ARE BACK TO SCHOOL
Use that back-to-school energy to tell the kids about your school’s book team. Don’t be afraid to connect with your library kids who you think would be good judges. What student can resist: “I think you would be a terrific judge for the Colorado Blue Spruce YA Book Award?” Encourage them to invite their friends. Book teams can be as small as two kids and as large as a whole class. The earlier you start, the more easygoing and pleasurable your time together will be. (There is more about recruiting with sample posters under the recruiting tab on this website.)
*** NEW***OPTIONAL INFORMAL EARLY REMOTE GET TOGETHERS
The feedback from last year’s mentors was that the kids wanted more informal early remote time for them to get to know kids from other schools and talk about books. The form of these meetings has not yet quite crystalized. It could be just between the kids who can carve out the time and want to talk about what they want to read with kids from other schools. Most likely these will be arranged by Partners in Literacy to meet the needs of particular teams. Imagine 20 minutes. The goal is to make community and put more knowledge about the books into the kids and mentors’ hands before they have to make decisions about what to read.
The BIG PICTURE SEPTEMBER THROUGH JANUARY: Read and talk, read and talk, read and talk. Read books (published in 2023 or 2024), choose the favorite, make a book talk to submit to Partners in Literacy by mid-January. At the first remote statewide meeting (at the cusp of January and February) your book team will get to present that book talk and see the other teams’ book talks. (We hope that most kids will read at least two books during this time.)
MORE DETAILS SEPTEMBER THROUGH JANUARY:
- Check out the CBSA Eligible Books Padlet. Encourage students to bring book titles that would be eligible and that they might want to read. If your students have an eligible book that they want to read but it is not on the Padlet, just add it. (At the bottom of this page, there is an optional Judges Registration and Expectation page. It is for you to collect and keep. If your judges fill it out, it will help you to nudge your judges to taking some helpful role in the book group.)
- Deciding what you want to read is the most important decision of the CBSA year. Share book reviews. Have each student commit to sampling a least one book with a goal of either recommending it or not.
- Depending on the size and the cohesion of the book team, students will be able to sort themselves into one or more groups by the books that they will read.
- After a first round of books are read, students will consider which of the other books they want to commit to reading for the second round of books. Once again, they will sort themselves into one or more groups.
- Discuss all the books that have been read. Decide the favorite. Check out the discussion and judging guide.
- Make a short book talk. It can be text, audio, video, or graphic. The purpose of the book talk is to give the gist of the book and highlight what makes it unique and extraordinary. (Many students and mentors report that making the book talk is their favorite part of the year. It should not be a burden.) Submit it to Partners in Literacy by mid-January. Here are previous book talks.
- Present your book talk at the first statewide meeting. Plan for your complete presentation to be 5 minutes or less. Statewide meetings are held on Wednesday and/or Thursday lunch hours.
THE BIG PICTURE FEBRUARY TO APRIL: Read and talk, read and talk. The second semester repeats the first semester, except the field of books is limited to the nominated books and no book talks are made. Students come to the all-state meeting with a team choice. Student judges are ready to talk about the successes and failures of the nominated books. For the final vote for the winning book, students will vote individually.
The CO TEEN LIT CONFERENCE: It happens in Denver on an early April Saturday. Any judge who can attend the conference and wants to help announce the wining book may. In 2024, thirteen student judges helped announce the award.
GETTING BOOKS IN YOUR TEAM’S HANDS
Mentors and students have gotten hold of enough books or eBooks in so many ways: SORA, PUBLIC LIBRARIES, THRIFT BOOKS, BOOK DEPOT, PARENT DONATIONS, SCHOOL OR LIBRARY FUNDS, GRANTS.
Presently we are trying to connect with publishers. Some publicists are posting their new books on the CBSA eligible Padlet. Most have agreed to offer physical copies of these books if kids commit to reading them. Look at the Padlet and let me know if you have any kids who want to read those books. We will email the publisher representative and see if we can get free books delivered to your library quickly.
Book Discussion and Scoring Guide
Sometimes mentors and teams can be at a loss on how to discuss about which book to nominate. While use of this guide is not required, it can help teams consider the many layers of fiction and narrative nonfiction.
Ready to start? Submit the Form Below!
Just fill out the Mentor Registration Form below and submit it! (Our capacity is 12 teams, and we have not yet gotten 12. So, chances are you are already in!) So, start recruiting kids. (We give preference to rural teams.) We will reply quickly. In our reply email, we will let you know:
- how many teams there are and where they are from.
- the link to the Google sheet where all the teams’ mentors share information about their teams throughout the year.
Our whole goal is to support you. We respond to email questions (pil2011@partnersinliteracy.org) as fast as lightening. We will also set up a time to visit or call, so that we can answer all your questions and get to know you and your student judges.
Finally, BElow are Three suggested Handouts for Mentors, CBSA labels and Optional Form to submit TEam Photos.
Communicating with your colleagues and school leadership: Ok, let’s get real. If you were launching a basketball or football team, would your leadership team and colleagues want to know about it? These CBSA books teams are super impactful to the kids who participate. If you are excited, your colleagues and leadership team are going to be excited for you and your students. Fill out these forms and put them in the mailboxes of any of your colleagues who might want to know. Shout it out!
Permission slips: If the students in your book team, need permission to get out of class of for a statewide meeting. A PDF of a request for permission to get out of class is below.
Get to know your judges and how they can work with each other to make a better team. This third form is optional for the judges to fill out and the mentors to keep in their records. Judges can fill it out before your first meeting or at your first meeting. Do what works for you.
Labels for your CBSA winners in your library: These labels print on Avery 8293 stickers. You may use them for just the winning books or the winning and nominated books. Your choice.