Welcome to Week One

Image by Simon Cocks

Hello Everyone,

I am very excited to meet you and get this class going! My name is Carri Genovese, and I will be teaching this course. I taught it in person last year and was Andrea Copeland’s TA for it the year before – but those were in person. This will be a new experience for all of us so please let me know if things aren’t working or if you have any issues.

This class is fun. We read fun things and generally have great discussions. However it has a lot of reading. If you are interested in doing Readers’ Advisory you likely enjoy reading anyway, but I want to make sure at the beginning that all of you are aware that you will be responsible for readings in the textbook, relevant articles, and reading five novels in different genres throughout the class. If you do not think you will be able to handle this much reading you may want to drop this course. I will expect you to allude to the readings in your weekly prompts. I am sure that will not be a problem for most of you; after reading the early introduction posts it sounds like there are a lot of readers in this group!

This week I want you to concentrate on learning a bit about the history of readers’ advisory, meeting each
other in the Oncourse forum, reviewing the syllabus and forum, and thinking about what genres you will be interested in learning more about. By the end of Week Two, you will need to tell me what five genres you are interested in reading and annotating for this class. I strongly recommend that you choose at least one genre that you never read, for your own benefit and learning experience, and one genre you are an expert in or that is your favorite, for our benefit and learning experience.

Also by the end of Week Two, you will need to create a blog. Most of our communication in this class will be via blog. I feel this is a more organic way to communicate than Oncourse forums, plus you can keep it after you graduate. I have posted a Youtube tutorial on creating a blog on Blogger in Week Two Resources. Once you give me your blog URL, I will post it in the blog roll on this blog. That way you can see all of your classmates’ blogs and easily comment on them, follow them, however you want to keep track – it’s up to you. It has proven a great way to start or add to your social network of librarians. Feel free to use your current blog if you have one – just please label any assignments clearly.

I will expect you to comment on each others’ blogs. Reading about what other people are reading helps A LOT in readers’ advisory. I know this probably goes unsaid but just in case, there is one ground rule – this is a safe place. No teasing each other – if someone says the only book they have ever loved is a sparkly vampire romance they are to be treated with respect, just as a patron would. The definition of a good book, for the purpose of RA, is always one that is enjoyed by the reader.

I have posted more detailed assignment descriptions in Oncourse resources. Please review them this week and let me know if you have any questions.  I will post a general discussion forum on Oncourse for any questions or observations about the readings and assignments, and I will monitor it but you will not be graded on anything you post there. Please check this blog periodically.

You may ask me questions anyway is easy for you – comment on this blog, the Oncourse forum, you can text or email me. Thanks, and I really look forward to getting to know all of you!