Why Become a Mentor
Are you a person who’d like to see 7th-12th graders come together 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 newly 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.
Team Mentor Roles and responsibilities
Each book team will have an adult mentor to help them be successful in staying on schedule and having reflective conversations about recently published books. Mentors have been school or public librarians, interested volunteers, other school professionals such as counselors, or even adult friends that the judges have asked to be their mentors. Each team will be required to read and discuss (at least) three eligible books, make one book talk and attend two remote meetings to decide on the winner of the Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award. If mentors are able to hand over the organization to their judges, their time commitment, in addition to reading their team’s chosen books, should be limited to book group meetings. The winning book will be announced at the Colorado Teen Lit Conference in Denver.
The CBSA is a really a very open framework. In 2021-2023, we had teams with two to thirty-five students. Some teams have gotten into reading shape by starting with reading individual books both eligible and ineligible to the CBSA, then honing in on CBSA books. For the most part, the smaller teams could all decide on one book to read at one time. The larger teams broke into smaller book groups according to their interests. The end result for both years of the Reimagined CBSA, was that kids read, discussed and cared passionately about lots of books that they never would have been exposed to if they had not joined the CBSA.
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 will reply quickly. In our reply email, we will let you know how many teams we have and where they are. We will share with you the link for the Google sheet where all the mentors will keep the information about their teams throughout the year. We will also find a time when we can call you and answer any questions that you might have.
Timeline and goals for meetings
The following dates are to be used as a guideline. You and your team’s positive experience of this time together as a book team is always the priority. We have outlined the minimum number of meetings required. Feel encouraged to meet additional times to do whatever feeds your group such as read out loud, discuss or choose books. If you would like to get to know another book group in the state, allow us to help you make those connections.
Late August/September/Early October, Getting Started Conversations. If you have questions send us an email, we would love to talk with you. PIL2011@partnersinliteracy.org. If you know you want to join us, please fill out the Mentor Registration Form.
September/Early October, Local Book Team Meeting: The purpose of this meeting is set expectations for the year and choose at least the first book or books your team plans to read. To help have conversations about setting expectations, see the PDF at the bottom of this page. If you have a book team that is new to book groups, you may want to begin by reading books individually. That way kids can decide which books are worth reading before investing the whole group’s energy. If you have a larger book team, the kids might want to split into smaller groups and read several books at the same times. (Any CBSA eligible book title your group plans to read must be on or added to the Eligible Books Padlet. Let us know if you need help with this.)
October, Local Book Team Meeting: The goal of your October meeting is to discuss the first book or books. We encourage you to try out the CBSA Book Discussion and Scoring Guide (see below). Then if you have not already done so, choose the next book or books your team will be reading.
November and December Local Book Team Meetings: Discuss the second book or books. Work on deciding which of the two books will be your team’s CBSA nominee. Allow the CBSA Book Discussion and Scoring Guide to focus and deepen your conversation.
January, Local Book Team Meeting: If you have not already decided what book will be your team’s nomination, do that now. Students will write, record, or film a book team book talk to be sent to pil2011@partnersinliteracy.org. These book talks will be due before the end of January. (Exact date for 2025 is yet to be determined.) All book talks will be available to the other book teams and posted on this website. (If you are a school librarian and your book team sends photos or videos of your students, please make sure that you have permission from your students which comply with your school’s regulations. If you are a public librarian, please make sure you have a photo release signed by your judges’ guardians.) Students will use this book talk to be ready to promote their book nominee at the statewide meeting in early February.
Early February, Local Teams Will Gather Together and Meet the Other Teams by Zoom: At this meeting, each team, using their book talk prepared at an earlier meeting, will give a short presentation of (depending on the number of book teams) about 5 minutes on their nominated book. Each team can then decide which of the nominated books will be their third book or books. Statewide meetings are held during an extended lunch hour. (For the last two years, Wednesdays and Thursdays have worked well.) The exact times depends on the book teams’ schedules.
February and March Local Book Team Meeting: Discuss and compare your third book to the other books you have read. Evaluate where your team is in the award process. Are you ready to vote on the books you have read or do you want to peruse the book talks of the other nominated CBSA books? Does anyone want to read more individually, in subgroups or as a whole group? Does anyone want to skim through a book to see how it compares with the others you have read? Mentors, If you have eager readers, encourage them.
Early April, Local Book Teams Will Gather and Meet the Other Teams by Zoom to discuss and decide on the winning book. (The exact day will depend on the timing for spring break and CMAS. For the last two years, a Wednesday or Thursday extended lunch hour has worked well.) Partners in Literacy will schedule the statewide meeting.
April: The winning book of the Colorado Blue Spruce YA Book Award will be announced at the Colorado Teen Lit Conference. The Colorado Teen Lit Conference is an event where students and mentors can meet YA authors and other teens that love to read. In 2023, seven CBSA judges announced the winning CBSA and Readers’ Choice book. We are counting on teen judges to announce the winners in 2024!
Book Discussion and Scoring Guide
Sometimes mentors and teams can be at a loss on how to decide which books to nominate. While use of this guide is not required, it can help teams consider the many layers of fiction and narrative nonfiction.
Team Mentor Support:
- Email PiL@2011@partersinliteracy at any time. We will write back as soon as we can.
- Information about each book team including all the mentor’s contact information will be shared with all mentors on a Google sheet. All mentors will get the link when they complete the mentor form.
Finally, BElow are Three suggested Handouts for Mentors and an 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. 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.
