Southern Ontario Library Service

EXCEL: A certificate programme in managing a small public library

E19-Readers' Advisory Services

ASSIGNMENT 6

For this assignment, the student will create a reading map.  Each map starts with the most appealing elements of a title or subject and then leads to other books you may want to read.  Some of these reading destinations are straightforward - others take a more serendipitous route that include all forms of media - music, film, even websites. Because you never really know where reading will lead you.

For those who wish to follow the assignment exactly, the non-fiction example is provided. 

Here is a description of it.

Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
Ann Patchett
362.196 PAT
Novelist Ann Patchett met poet Lucy Grealy when both were students at the famed Iowa Writers Workshop, and they immediately became close friends. Their friendship would span almost 20 years, a variety of literary triumphs and disappointments, and a series of medical setbacks for Grealy.

Lucy Grealy wrote a memoir which is described in this way:

Autobiography of a Face
Lucy Grealy
362.196 GRE
Diagnosed at age 9 with a disfiguring cancer, Grealy spent the next 20 years undergoing a series of surgeries to reconstruct her jaw. This memoir chronicles “the great tragedy of [her] life,” feeling ugly and struggling for self acceptance.

 
With these two books in mind, the student has to follow the steps outlined by Neal Wyatt (who wrote the article on reading maps). 

Step 1 - Consider the book – for this section, write down any threads in the book which might be of interest to the reader.  Keep a written list and submit this as part of the assignment.  For example, in this consideration, you might think about (as examples):

• the Iowa Writers Workshop (are there any published works?)

• friendships between two people

• facial disfigurations

• memoirs about others who overcame adversity

Step 2 - Find some related books or materials

Step 3 - Create the reading map – with this background information, create the actual reading map.  It can be fancy or it can be a listing arranged in some interesting way.  It does not have to include the book covers unless they are readily available.  Don’t forget to include the association between the original two books and the other titles.  While many reading maps are interactive, this one should be printable and it must fill at least one page.
 
This reading map topic idea was “borrowed” from the Oak Park Public Library in Oak Park, Illinois.   Their website is www.oppl.org .  They actually have a whole series of reading maps in the “Books, movies and music’ section of their website.   This does not mean that the reading map described by the student has to match this one – but this is one example and it shows you some of the threads that they use.
 
The PDF for their reading map is posted at http://www.oppl.org/media/readingmap/06_truthbeauty.pdf
 
Here is a Screen Capture of the pdf (in case it is not available).
 

*End*
Revised: October 2008