In his excellent post, Pokemon 101 for Teachers & Librarians, JP of 8bitlibrary.com answers the question, “What does Pokemon have to do with schools/libraries?”  I’d like to take that a bit further and, based on his points, articulate what it has to do with school libraries.

I believe that gaming is an excellent way for students to develop the skills, dispositions, responsibilities, and self-assessment strategies which will carry them into the future.  We can see exactly how this works for Pokemon by aligning it with AASL’s Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.  [Note: I have only played Pokemon Red and I never actually finished it; I have played the Pokemon Trading Card Game quite a bit.]

First, let’s address a couple of the foundational beliefs.

Reading is a window to the world.  If a student can’t read, she’ll have a hard time playing Pokemon, either the video game or the card game.  In both the video game and the card game, students are required to read descriptions of the individual Pokemon and their powers to determine which Pokemon to use as they battle their opponent.  In the video game, they also have to read as they engage in conversation with characters in the game.

Learning has a social context. In some versions of Pokemon, players can engage in multiplayer battles.  Players must trade Pokemon if they wish to complete their Pokedex, an in-game database which contains information about the individual Pokemon.  There is, to my knowledge, no solitaire version of the Pokemon card game; it must be played opposite an opponent.

Now, let’s move on to specific standards and indicators.

Learners use skills, resources, and & tools to:

1. Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge.

• 1.1.2 Use prior and background knowledge as context for new learning. As students play Pokemon, they build their knowledge about the game's system and rules.  They can transfer this knowledge to new situations within the game and to other games in the series.

2. Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to knew situations, and create new knowledge.

• 2.1.4 Use technology and other information tools to analyze and organize information. As mentioned before, players must use the Pokedex as they play the video game to make decisions.  As JP mentions in his post, the community-driven encyclopedia Bulbapedia involves a significant flow of information which students might use to enhance their playing or contribute to from their own knowledge.
• 2.1.5 Collaborate with others to exchange ideas, develop new understandings, make decisions, and solve problems. The social nature of Pokemon encourages this kind of behavior.
• 2.1.6 Use the writing process, media and visual literacy, and technology skills to create products that express new understandings.  Bulbapedia provides players with the opportunity to do just this.  It also has a style manual, which will help students learn to write within certain constraints.

3.  Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society.

• 3.1.3 Use writing and speaking skills to communicate new understandings effectively. Once again, the social aspects of Pokemon and opportunity to contribute to a community-driven encyclopedia come into play.
• 3.1.4 Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use, and assess. I'm beginning to sound like a scratched CD here, but this is yet another example of a time when communication about the game, rather than the game itself, is relevant.
• 3.3.5 Contribute to the exchange of ideas within and beyond the learning community. See above.

4. Pursue personal and aesthetic growth.

• 4.1.1 Read, view, and listen for pleasure and personal growth. I think "Play" should be added to this indicator, but even if it is not, the other three actions are situated within the game.  There is a wealth of relevant non-game material as well, including both fiction and non-fiction books, a cartoon series, and movies.
• 4.1.7 Use social networks and information tools to gather and share information. Look, another opportunity for social interaction surrounding the game to come into play!  (Forgive the pun, please.)
• 4.3.1 Participate in the social exchange of ideas, both electronically and in person. See above.

There are many other ways in which Nintendo's vast Pokemon empire can be used to enhance students' learning.  How can you take advantage of this opportunity in your school library?

My participation in the Kidlitosphere is on again-off again, mostly off, and right now while I’m not actually physically stressed out by the subscriptions in my Google Reader or the messages in my inbox, it has become only so much digital clutter.  So I am declaring myself on hiatus until further notice, which I hope will be sooner (March or April?) rather than later.  I have a lot going on and I need to pare things down.  So where can you find me in the meanwhile?

I’ll still be posting my booklists here.

I won’t be using the @lectitans Twitter account during this hiatus. I’m planning to use @kimberlyhirsh, though. You can search for me on Facebook.

What’s going on in my life?

1. I’m in library school. It’s excellent but it’s a lot of reading.
2. I’m in the Durham Savoyards’ production on The Mikado.
3. I’m working on my own happiness project. If that’s something you’d care to follow, I’ve created a livejournal for it at ping_jing. Adding the Kidlitosphere back to my life will be part of the happiness project but it’s a later phase. Right now, I’m focusing on my health.

Where can you not find me? Here for anything other than my booklists, probably. On mailing lists - I’ve set them to Web only, except for yalsa-bk.

I’ll see you all later. I’m not gone forever. I just thought it would be rude to keep up this absenteeism without letting you know where I was.

How are you doing?  Here’s my count:

Jan 8 - 5 comments Jan 9 - 5 comments Jan 10 - 0 comments Jan 11 - 2 comments Jan 12 - 0 comments Jan 13 - 0 comments

As you can see, I started strong and then fizzled out.  I’m going to adjust my goal to 2 comments per day.  (It’s 2 more than I was doing before!)  That’s for a total of 42, which is always a good number to be aiming for.

I had my first rehearsal for The Mikado last night and in honor of that I'm using some lyrics from the show for today's Poetry Friday post.  These are the lyrics to the song when I, as a member of the ladies' stage chorus, first appear.

Comes a train of little ladies From scholastic trammels free, Each a little bit afraid is, Wondering what the world can be!

Is it but a world of trouble — Sadness set to song? Is its beauty but a bubble Bound to break ere long?

Are its palaces and pleasures Fantasies that fade? And the glory of its treasures Shadow of a shade? And the glory of its treasures Shadow of a shade? Shadow of a shade?

Schoolgirls we, eighteen and under, From scholastic trammels free, And we wonder — how we wonder! — We wonder — how we wonder! — What on earth the world can be! What on earth the world can be!

21 days x 5 comments per day = 105 comments.  Do you think I’ll make it to 100?  Those who do are entered for prizes.  I just want to up my participation in the kidlit community.

If you want to join, sign up at MotherReader’s blog.

So I have some goals in addition to reading 40 books this year that I’d like to share with you.

1. Read no more than one nonfiction, one fiction, and one graphic novel at a time.
2. Inspired by Colleen’s excellent post and this year’s YALSA YA Lit Symposium theme, I’m going to think more, read more, and write more about diversity in publishing.

I’m sure I’ll find more as I move through the year.

Currently Reading: Nonfiction - Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morganstern Fiction - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I’m not currently reading a graphic novel but I’m planning to pick up the Angel: After the Fall compilations (they’re hardcover!) from the shelf today.  The shelf in my house.  The comic book shelf.  (It is supplemented by the comic book box.  And then of course, there’s Will’s hundreds and hundres of issues in the attic.)

Next Up: Nonfiction - The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin or Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons Fiction - Dragon’s Keep by Janet Lee Carey or Dreams of the Dead by Thomas Randall

Which of these I read next will just depend on my mood, but it’s always nice to have a plan.

With all the writing I’ve been doing in library school, blogging in depth has fallen by the wayside a bit, but I have been keeping up my “Books Read” list.  I read 54 books and graphic novels in 2009.  Eighteen of those were related to my young adult literature class in some way.  It’s amazing how much you can read when you’ve got a deadline. 

I don’t believe I set a definite goal for 2009, but 36 books was probably about right, and it’s what we’re left with if we take away the books I read for class.  I read 35 in 2007 and 34 in 2008, so 54 is quite a jump.  I’ll be taking a children’s literature class in the summer or fall, so that will push the numbers up a good bit I expect, but I’d like to set a goal for reading entirely out of class.  I feel like I should come up with an elaborate formula but I think we’ll just aim for 40.  Since I do count graphic novels, and trade paperbacks of comic series, it’s not hard to push the number up quickly.  I think 40 is a good number because it’s a bit of a stretch but it’s not at all out of reach.

So here I record it for all of you to see: I will finish 40 books or graphic novels (including TPBs) in 2010.

I say “finish” instead of read because I started reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 2009 but I’ve not finished it yet.

My favorite of the 2009 list by far is Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon, Dean, and Nathan Hale.  It’s a graphic novel with a Western twist on the traditional Rapunzel tale.  I’d strongly recommend it to fans of the fractured fairy tale genre and people looking for cool girl main characters.

What was your one favorite thing you read in 2009?

I have recently finished my first semester of library school.  Some of my assignments demonstrate the work I can do in the field.  I have compiled these on the Library Services page.  Please take a look!

I’m about to bare my soul here, so if you decide to criticize, please do so gently.

I first read Twilight in December of 2007, when it was just on the upswing, but before it became a proper phenomenon.  I was 26, in Florida for Christmas to visit family, away from my then-boyfriend now-husband (who was my boyfriend of 9 years at the time), and for the past several years Christmas-time had been when I was at my most emotionally vulnerable.  My husband would disappear to visit his family, where the internet is slow (meaning infrequent emails from him) and he would stay up until all hours playing video games with his brother, having what sounded like a right magical time to me, while I was with my family, whom I love very much and can stand individually for long periods of time but all together, three days is about my max.  I was in Florida which now counts as far from home, I had a sinus infection (which was actually an infected wisdom tooth but I didn’t find that out until January), my sister had just gotten engaged (to her then-fiance now-husband, whom she had been dating for only a little over two years before they got engaged, which seemed like not a very long time to me) in August, so this was the first time all of our family was seeing her since then, and I was feeling supremely lonely and overlooked.

I picked Twilight up at Target just before we left for Florida.  I started reading it on the way down.  (I think I flew but I’m not 100% on that.  All of my trips to Florida kind of turn into a swirly mess in my head, Christmases combined with summers, a few Easters thrown in, because the weather is about the same most of the year.)  I was sucked in pretty much right away.  Bella Swan and I were practically twins.  She had dark hair.  I have dark hair.  She was clumsy.  I was clumsy.  She had moved in with her dad and started attending a high school in a very small town.  I had moved away from my family and boyfriend and taught at a high school in a very small town.  She had a boyfriend who was a vampire.  I had a boyfriend who wanted to be a vampire.

I can’t remember how I felt about the sparkling at the time.  I want to say I thought it was stupid but it’s entirely possible I thought it sounded very pretty.  (I was supremely disappointed with the execution of that in the film, by the way.)

I ate it up.  I’m pretty sure I sang its praises to my husband.  I think I was all, “There’s this book, and the vampire says such pretty things, and it makes me think of you…"  (Let’s not leave aside the fact that Bella had never had a boyfriend before Edward.  Because the fact that she was having her first real relationship at 17 also parallels my life.  And probably the lives of many more people than would actually admit it.)

I finished the book while I was still in Florida, I think.  It was a vacation read.  I came back to the real world (i. e., not Christmas in Florida) and forgot about Twilight, mostly.  Then it started really becoming a thing and my students started talking about it.  I had two that were very critical of it, and the more I listened to them, the more I realized that all of their criticisms were spot on.  I started to feel ashamed for having enjoyed it so thoroughly.

I recently re-read Twilight for my Young Adult Literature class.  This time I went in looking to examine exactly why I’d had so much fun with it the first time.  For a while, I couldn’t figure it out.  The prose didn’t impress me.  I’m thoroughly tired of teenagers in books taking care of their incompetent divorced/widowed parents.  The last time I found that charming was when I was watching Blossom.  Edward’s behavior was mostly irritating.

But then I got to the sex-scenes-that-are-not.  If you’ve read it, you know what I mean.  The ones where lots of pretty words are said, but no touching happens.  And I realized  that those scenes were the ones that really got me the first time through, and that they have exactly the same power, even now.  Sad.  Embarrassing.  I realized during this reading of it, though, that Edward is not only creepy, but also extremely patronizing.  And that if I had a boyfriend who treated me the way he treats Bella (i. e., like a child) I would dump him posthaste.  I think even if he were really pretty and made me feel very special.  Because there are few things that bother me more than being patronized.

All of my problems with Twilight in terms of plausibility can be summed up by saying it reads like a fanfic - a fanfic I wrote in the Buffy universe, and one lots of other people have written, too.  The Cullens accept Bella so readily, which I thought was ridiculous.  (In fact, I think Rosalie is the most reasonable of them.)  Vampires should not go to high school; I don’t care if it means they can stay in one place longer that way.  As they’re undead, I’m pretty sure truancy officers aren’t going to come after them.  Why anyone would go to high school more than once I can’t imagine.  (And I actually had a pretty good time in high school.)  And then, there’s some parts of vampire lore that are really sacred to me which Stephanie Meyer completely threw out the window, and others she fails to mention entirely.

Recently, I also started to object to the fact that Edward is just creepy, and it frightens me that this is the ideal man in the minds of many girls and women.  But yesterday I had to start re-examining this objection, because my perfect man imprint in fiction is The Phantom of the Opera, and he’s really way creepier than Edward.  He kills people a lot, he sings at Christine from behind a mirror - which means he’s probably been watching her dress and undress, he kidnaps her, he sends threatening notes to all sorts of people.  So.  What makes the Phantom different than Edward?  Well, he’s smarter.  Edward didn’t design an elaborate system of traps and such under an opera house.  Also he’s not actually pretty.  Which I think really is part of his appeal.  Edward feels like he’s a monster because he kind of wants to eat people; Erik, however, looks like a monster but, in the strictest and least psychological of terms, is not one.  Why am I not scared that people will actually hope deformed men will start watching them in mirrors and stealing them away in the same way I’m afraid women will think the ideal boyfriend is a patronizing stalker who looks like he’s going to throw up every time he talks to you?  I think the distance in time is what does it for me.  Erik doesn’t look seventeen.  He doesn’t go to high school.  He doesn’t feel like a person you might really run into who’s just, you know, a vampire, but otherwise “normal.”

So I’ve kind of figured out why I’m okay with the Phantom and not Edward, although I still feel like I’m not really justified in criticizing other people for loving Edward anymore.  (I’ve never been on Team Edward or Team Jacob, but I move closer to being on Team Jacob every day.)  I kept pursuing this line of thought, examining what I think is or is not okay to idealize in a relationship, and I came to the best in vampire/teen girl loves: Buffy and Angel.  I am one of these  Buffy/Angel OTPers.  I mean, I hated Riley simply because he was Not Angel.  And don’t get me started on Spuffy.  (It always ends bad when I talk about it.  Let me say that one of my other prime OTPs is Spike and Dru.  So anytime they’re separated I’m unhappy.)

I was like, “Oh, but Angel’s different.  He didn’t stalk - “  Oops.  Edward sat inside Bella’s bedroom at night for two months.  Angel watched Buffy hang out at school for a year.  Angel followed her from LA to Sunnydale.  “Oh, well, Angel’s different, because he -"  And I just have very little, except that he’s not really patronizing.  But, would you be, if your girlfriend had superpowers?  Now, the fact that it’s Buffy’s job to kill vampires lends a lot more interest to the story, I think, than the fact that Edward kinda wants to have Bella for lunch.  Sacred duty is more interesting than being a snack.  Buffy as a story has many things to recommend it over Twilight, I think; complexity, mainly.  (And I’m pretending here that nothing after Seasons One through Three exists, because it’s really the Buffy/Angel relationship that is of interest here.)  Also Joyce is an adult who can cook her own food and do her own laundry, so that’s nice, and Angel points out how ridiculous it is for Darla to be pretending to be a school girl.  So those issues of mine with Twilight are not a problem on Buffy.

But in the end, I’m pretty much a hypocrite.  I do wish I’d gone on and read New Moon and Eclipse before the phenomenon really started.  (Stupid not being in paperback at the time.)  Because now, I will feel weird reading them.  But the truth is, I’ll probably have fun reading them (not so sure about Breaking Dawn but I couldn’t have read it pre-phenomenon anyway since it wasn’t out until mid-phenomenon). 

No matter how much fun they are, though, you’ll never find me being a Twilight tourist.  I’m not about to journey up to Forks or Port Orange to try and recreate scenes from the book or the movie.  Also, I don’t care how much you like the name Renesmee, it sounds silly.

There.  Now this is the personal response to reading journal I always meant for it to be.

It’s time for interviews again!  I’m not participating due to having lots of school work, but here are yesterday’s interviews.  Many thanks to slayground for the code.

Jim Ottaviani at Chasing Ray Courtney Sheinmel at Bildungsroman Derek Landy at Finding Wonderland Mary E. Pearson at Miss Erin Megan Whalen Turner at HipWriterMama Frances Hardinge at Fuse #8