At the start of the 2021-22 school year, the teachers in this panel came to the librarians with the idea of collaborating on the skills-based standards of the newly revised Virginia Standards of Learning for US history. As we looked at the skills and discussed what this collaboration might look like, we realized that skills like news literacy and evaluating digital resources could be taught in conjunction with more traditional lessons on the significant time periods covered in US history classes. We decided to build a lesson once each quarter that would allow students to become familiar with the library, gain transferable skills, and engage with the content being taught.

During the first year of this collaboration, we have taught a news literacy lesson by comparing British and Colonial writings during the American Revolution, taught pre-searching skills while introducing students to the reform movements of the 1800s, and taught students research skills while having them investigate the Gilded Age.

As the year has gone on, we’ve been glad to see several positive outcomes of this collaboration:

1. Students are gaining transferable skills while also developing an understanding of the content of their history classes.
2. Students are building positive relationships with the librarians and learning to use the library and see the library staff as helpful resources.
3. Teachers and librarians are improving their understanding of how our skills and resources overlap and can best support students.

This session will cover each of the lessons we have collaborated on, cover the lessons we have learned as we’ve developed this partnership, and give attendees an opportunity to think about how they might be able to adapt this model to their teaching situations.