Candice Walton

Collection Development Assignment

FRIT 7134-Spring 2011
March 09, 2011

Description of Site and Learners

Albany High School is located in Albany, GA as a part of the Dougherty County School

System. In fact, it is one of four high schools in the county. It is a progressive high school with

an emphasis on academic studies. Students are granted the opportunity to choose from a college

preparatory or career diploma program. The school is home to approximately 800 students. In

regards to ethnic background, 84% of the students are African-American, 10% Caucasian, 3%

Hispanic, and 2% other. There are 4 administrators, 3 support personnel, and 53 full time and 6

part-time teachers. The majority of the staff members have advanced degrees. Albany High

School is known as a Georgia School of Excellence, and it strives on promoting academic

success.

Unfortunately, the school has not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the last

three consecutive years. It is placed on the “Needs in Improvement” list. Two of the criteria

categories that caused the school to not make AYP are graduation rate and academic

performance. As the school work to make AYP, the media center has become a center of

resource and academic support. The library contains 9493 books. There are 11 books per student.

The average age of the books is 1987. There are 12 desktop computers in the media center that

are used for research and AR testing. There is a promethean board in the media center as well as

all classrooms.

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 In examining the city of Albany, GA, the population is 75,616. The racial makeup of the

city is 64.80% African-American, 33.21% Caucasian, and the remaining percent other. The

racial makeup of the city coincides with the racial makeup of Albany High School. The media

income of a household is $28, 639, and the median income for a family is $33, 843. About

21.5% of families and 27.1% of the population are below the poverty line. This definitely

coincides with the socioeconomic status of the students at Albany High School because 74% of

them are considered economically disadvantaged. Although many of the residents are living

below poverty, the city of Albany provides several opportunities for educational advancement. It

is home to the historically black college known as Albany State University, a two year

university, Darton College, and Albany Technical College. It is also home to the Marine Corps

Logistic Base (MCLB).

For this activity, the focus will be on a US history standard that is mainly taught in 10th

grade social science classes. There are 162 students that make up 10th grade, and five history

teachers. Albany High is different from other high schools in Dougherty County because it

houses the High Honors Magnet, which is a school within a school. This school focuses on

implementing instruction for the gifted students. As other high schools, Albany High has

programs designed for students with learning disabilities. There are three regular education

classes that teach history and one honors and gifted class. There is one self-contained class for

10th grade students with learning disabilities. There are not any ESOL students. In examining the

2009-2010 report card for Albany High School, 70% of the current tenth graders failed the

United States/History End-of-Course tests when they were in the ninth grade. Thus, it is apparent

that the 10th grade students need several resources to help them master concepts in American

History.

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Curriculum Review

I have chosen to focus on the legal, political, and social dimensions of Reconstruction.

Georgia, especially Albany, is rooted in history. There is an Albany Civil Rights Memorial, and

a well-known African-American, W.E.B. DuBois, discussed Albany in his book, The Souls of

Black Folks. It outlines Albany as a small town where local sharecroppers lived, and it discusses

how the Emancipation Proclamation drastically altered the demographics and economy of the

city. The standard listed below will aid the students in learning about the significance of the

Reconstruction period to America as well to the city of Albany.

SSUSH10 The student will identify legal, political and social dimensions of Reconstruction.
a. Compare and contrast Presidential Reconstruction with Radical Republican Reconstruction.
b. Explain efforts to redistribute land in the South among the former slaves and provide advanced
education (Morehouse College) and describe the role of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
c. Describe the significance of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.
d. Explain Black Codes, the Ku Klux Klan, and other forms of resistance to racial equality
during Reconstruction.
e. Explain the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in relationship to Reconstruction.
f. Analyze how the presidential election of 1876 and the subsequent compromise of 1877 marked
the end of Reconstruction.

In order to help students master the standard as well as its elements, the students will
complete several tasks as outlined by the Georgia Department of Education.

Task Assessment

Students will examine primary source Observation; Dialogue and Discussion

documents from the Reconstruction era such as
photographs, letters, and other visuals.

Students, in small groups, will break down the Constructed Response

historical background and events addressed in
the documents.

Students will compare and contrast Black Constructed Response

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 codes, Ku Klux Klan, and other forms of
resistance.

They will also compare and contrast

Presidential Reconstruction with Radical
Republican Reconstruction.

The students will analyze the Civil War Dialogue and Discussion
amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th).

The students will analyze the impeachment of

Andrew Johnson.

In regards to a performance task, the students will complete a PowerPoint presentation that

outlines the Reconstruction Era.

Collection Review
In order to effectively review the school’s collection, I made a visit to the school’s media

center. The overall design of the media center is extremely conducive to learning. The non-

fiction books are arranged around the media center. The Dewey Decimal numbers are placed on

top of the shelves. In the middle of the media center, there are several shelves of fiction books

that are arranged by last names. Reference books are against the far right wall. The space

between the fiction books and reference books is the study area. There are eight tables that each

sits four people. In front of the tables, there is the promethean board. The computer stations are

located behind the tables. The astonishing aspect of the school’s media center is its sofa area. In

this area, students are allowed to sit on the sofa with friends to study or to read books. The

overall atmosphere of the media center is welcoming.

Next, I decided to search for books that were related to the curriculum standard. The

media center uses a program known as Destiny to allow teachers and students to search for books

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and equipment within the media center. I typed in several keywords such as Reconstruction,

Andrew Johnson, sharecropping, and Ku Klux Klan. To my surprise, only 41 items appeared.

There were 3 videos and 38 books. Many of the books were not related to the standard, and the

majority of them were non-fiction. There were not any audio books or books on CD-ROM. I

went to locate the books within the media center. Many of the non-fiction books were very old.

Some of the books copyright dates were as old as 1987. The few fiction books were relatively

new, but they did not coincide with the standard. It is apparent that 38 books and 3 videos are not

enough to fully aid students in learning about the Reconstruction era.

After reviewing the books, I decided to meet with the media specialist. I informed her of

the number of books that appeared when entering key terms from the Reconstruction period. She

explained to me that within the last two years 2,000 books had been weeded from her collection.

Also, many of the books are extremely old. A few of them have been archived. She further

explained that the students rarely check out non-fiction books or even fiction books that pertain

to the Reconstruction era. Then, she printed me a copy of the media center’s TitleWave

collection analysis. When examining non-fiction books that relates to any form of history, they

are found in the 900 section. From her collection analysis, only 10.07% of the books in the media

center are found in that specific category. In regards to biographies, it makes up only 10.66% of

the collection. General fiction books comprise 21.48% of the media center’s collection; however,

there are very few historical fiction books. I was shocked to learn that there was not a sufficient

amount of books in the media center that focused on the many aspects of Reconstruction.

An additional consideration I made as I reviewed the collection was to determine if the

current books in the media center were aligned with the standard. There were books about

Reconstruction, Ku Klux Klan, and Andrew Johnson. They did give detailed accounts of the

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events such as the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. However, there was a lack of books to

cover other elements of the standard. For example, there were not many books to discuss the

Compromise of 1877 or the Freedmen’s Bureau. During the Reconstruction era, sharecropping

was a system used to help farmers distribute land. There was a sufficient lack of resources on

sharecropping. None of the books focused on Black Codes or Jim Crow Laws. The videos were

sufficient, but there was not enough to give the students a visual picture of this time period. If an

exceptional teacher wanted to choose resources from the media center to utilize, there was not

much available to aid her in teaching the students with learning disabilities. Also, many of the

books were not geared toward gifted students. The lack of books on particular topics, the lack of

materials for exceptional students and gifted students will guide me as I look for resources.

In the final stage of reviewing the collection, I focused on multicultural literature. The

few books that focused on the Reconstruction era did represent multicultural literature. They

were written from both African-Americans as well as Caucasians’ experiences of that time

period. However, there were more books that dispel the Caucasian experience of the era than the

African-American experience. This is probably due to the age of the books, and the fact that

there were few African-American writers that focused on the Reconstruction era. There were not

any books written in any other languages. The main downfall was the lack of historical fiction

books. They tend to allow students to examine the era from an actual person that they can

understand. The lack of an abundance of multicultural books and historical fiction books will be

used to help me in determining which resources to add to the media center’s collection.

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Summary of collection needs:

 1. I plan to choose more recent resources that have been published within the last ten

years. Although some books that were written prior to 2001 are still valid, new authors

allow students to gain a second overall opinion on the topic.

 2. I plan to choose books on a lower reading level and audio books to aid exceptional

students. They also need the opportunity to learn, but at their individual levels.

 3. I plan to choose books and other resources geared toward gifted students such as texts

with higher reading levels than 10th grade or young adult.

 4. I plan to choose mostly non-fiction books since the media center lacks them.

 5. I plan to choose multicultural resources in nature. In this category, there will be several

historical fiction books that depict characters from both the African-American and

Caucasian experience of the time period.

 6. I plan to choose several videos to help students receive a visual understanding of the

era.

Budget Summary:

After researching the standard and reviewing the collection, I was able to determine the

exact resources that were needed to enhance the school’s collection. I have found a diverse

and complete list of books, videos, CDs, and other resources. In order to complete this task, it

took $3,981.86 to find the most relevant titles to fully represent the standard. Please view the

Excel spreadsheet to examine the exact titles of books, videos, and reference materials

needed to effectively teach the standard.

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