Heather Tucker Collection Evaluation and Development FRIT 7134- Spring 2011

Description of Site/ Environmental Scan

The library that I used for this collection evaluation is at Richmond Hill Elementary School. Richmond Hill Elementary is located in Richmond Hill, GA which is a small city about twenty miles south of Savannah. Richmond Hill is sandwiched in between Hunter Air Force Base and Fort Stewart military base. Richmond Hill Elementary is located in the Bryan County school district. This district is split into a south end, Richmond Hill, and a north end, Pembroke. There are three elementary schools in Richmond Hill that houses our kindergarten through fifth grade students. Our school only contains second and third grades. There are 20 regular education second grade teachers and 20 regular education third grade teachers. There is also an EIP teacher for each grade level and 2 self contained classrooms. There are 911 students currently enrolled at RHES. We have 91 students enrolled in our Gifted Education program where they receive enrichment one hour out of every day. There are 99 students that qualify for and receive EIP services. These students participate in a small group for math, reading, or both for forty five minutes a day. There are also 91 students who receive special education services. These services range from pull-out resource intervention to fully self contained classrooms. Our students reading levels range vastly from a kindergarten level to above seventh grade. Fifteen percent of the 911 students enrolled are from military families. There are 246 students, which is about 30% of our total population, that receive free or reduced lunch. The ethnic breakdown of the students is as follows. % Male 55% %Female 45% % White 74% % Black 13% % MultiRacial 6% % Hispanic 5% % Asian 3% % American
Indian

<1%

The school was completed in the summer of 2009. The library is around 10,000 square feet and contains 14,115 books. This averages out to 15.5 books per student. This number does not include the vast amount of resource materials, periodicals, videos, and CD-ROMs included in our library collection. Our collection consists of 568 video cassettes, 188 DVDs, and 15 CDROMS. There is a computer lab connected to the media center which includes 29 computers, a projector, a Mimio board, and an Elmo. We currently have one media specialist and a paraprofesional that work full time in the media center. We also have a number of volunteers that help in the library each week.

Curriculum Review

I have chosen to focus on the second and third grade standards for United States government. These standards focus on the national, state, and local governments and the leaders of each government. They focus on the three branches of the United States government and the separation of power. They also have students outline the need for government and the purpose of rules and laws. I have also decided to include a third grade history standard. This standard has students focus on America s political roots and how our government has been influenced by the democracy in Athens, Greece. This standard requires students to critically analyze the two different types of government and make comparisons between the two. These are the following standards that this development is based on: SS2CG1 The student will define the concept of government and the need for rules and laws. SS2CG2 The student will identify the roles of the following elected officials: a. President (leader of our nation) b. Governor (leader of our state) c. Mayor (leader of a city) SS2CG4 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the state and national capitol buildings by identifying them from pictures and capitals of the United States of America (Washington D.C.) and the state of Georgia (Atlanta) by locating them on appropriate maps. SSC3G1 The student will explain the importance of the basic principles that provide the foundation of a republican form of government. a. Explain why in the United States there is a separation of power between branches of government and levels of government. b. Name the three levels of government (national, state, local) and the three branches in each (executive, legislative, judicial), including the names of the legislative branch (Congress, General Assembly, city commission or city council). c. State an example of the responsibilities of each level and branch of government. SS3H1 The student will explain the political roots of our modern democracy in the United States of America. c. Compare and contrast Athens a direct democracy with the United States as a representative democracy

Standard: Concept: SS2CG1 Rules/ Laws

y y

y y

SS2CG2

Elected Officials: -president -governor -mayor

SS2CG4

State & National capitols

SS3CG1

Branches of government:
Executive legislative judicial

Tasks: Discuss and list classroom rules. Create a classroom book of rules. Have each student create a page with their rules and at least three reasons that the rule is in place. Discuss and list several national laws. Compare and contrast rules and laws using a Venn Diagram. Research and discuss the roles and responsibilities of the three elected officials. Give students a bulls eye (3 circles inside of each other). Inside of the smallest circle have students glue a picture of their mayor and list at least three of their responsibilities. In the next circle have students glue a picture of Georgia s governor and list three of their responsibilities. Finally have students glue a picture of the president in the largest circle and list three responsibilities of the president. Have students locate and label both the state and national capital on a map. Have students create a diorama of either their state or national capital. Have students include the capital buildings and the surrounding city. Explore the website Ben's Guide to the U.S government. Create a mobile. The three branches will be separated and the responsibilities will be listed under each branch.

y y y

Resources United Streaming Videos Venn diagrams Social Studies Books

y y y y

Current books in the library United Streaming videos Social Studies Books Websites introducing the president, the governor, and the mayor:
http://my.barackobama.c om/page/content/kidsho me/ http://gov.georgia.gov/02 /governor/home/0,2822, 165937316,00.html http://www.richmondhillga.gov/MayorandCouncil/ RichmondHillMayor/tabid /146/Default.aspx

y y

U.S maps Social studies textbook

y y
-

United Streaming videos Website:

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/

SS3H1

Athens government Vs. The U.S government

Split class into three groups. Have each group create a PowerPoint presentation that focuses on their branch of government. Complete a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two governments. Complete the following WebQuest on the Ancient Greek government and how it relates to the U.S government. http://www.coedu.usf.edu/ main/departments/seced/w ebq/Social%20Studies/Gover nment/ryandrakedefault/def ault.htm

y y y

Venn Diagram Social Studies text books WebQuest

Collection Evaluation

I was afraid that I was going to be extremely overwhelmed when I went to search through our 14,000 books for books pertaining to my specific standards , but surprisingly I was not. I went through the media center and visually searched through fiction and non-fiction titles looking for items that popped out as relating to government. I also browsed through our educational videos and our teacher resource section. This is the type of search that I would do as a classroom teacher if I needed to find a few resources quickly, but I knew that doing only a visual search would be inadequate. By just doing a visual search it seemed as though we did not have many fiction or non-fiction books that relate to government. I then went onto the computer and searched for all titles that had any links to government, president, mayor, governor, Athens, branches of government, capitols, or rules and laws. I found less than 40 books and resources that pertained to the above searches. There were 24 non-fiction books, 9 resource books, 12 videos, and only one non-fiction book. I found this number very small considering the library houses over 14,000 books. I wanted to compare the titles from the books with the standards that are found in our curriculum. Unfortunately, I found that the majority of the titles that we have in the media center do no align with the standards. The majority of the books in this category focus on

individual presidents. There are several books on Abraham Lincoln, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, J. F. Kennedy, and several others. Although I think it is wonderful to have these books, it is leaving a very large gap in our standards. I only found one book that focuses on the three branches of the United States government. One of our second grade standards focuses on the three levels of our United States government. I found a couple of books about the president, but there are only three books about the governor, and only one book about the job of a mayor. Books on the purpose of rules and laws are also very limited. There are no books that related to the government in Athens, Greece. The third way I wanted to critique our current collection was by age of the materials. Since most of the books in this collection are non-fiction books it is critical that they are current. The average copyright date of government titles in our collection is 2003. Although this doesn t seem horrible I still wanted to focus on including books into the collection that were much newer. Finally, I wanted to evaluate our collection from a multicultural aspect. When evaluating our collection regarding this aspect I was very disappointed. I know that this could be a difficult subject to find multi-cultural titles on, but it is a necessity. Five percent of our student population is Hispanic, but we don t have any government resources in any other language. There were no multi-cultural books in this collection and there are only 24 in our entire media center. After evaluating our library s collection of books on or relating to the U.S government I have decided to focus on finding the following items to enhance the collection. y Non-fiction books on the three levels of the U.S government y Non-fiction books on the three branches of government y Non-fiction books on the state and national capitals y Non-fiction books on Greece and their government y Informational story books on the U.S government y Spanish titles Summary: I have tried to create a very diverse collection that closely aligns with Georgia s curriculum on the second and third grade government standards. I have included non-fiction books, informational story books, resource books, teacher activity guides, and computer software. My main focus was to build my collection around the second and third grade Georgia performance standards. Although I did want a very large range of non-fiction books I also wanted books that students would choose completely on their own and learn information that aligns with the standards without really knowing that they are learning. I believe that the informational story books that I included in the collection really do that. I was determined to

get resources to aid teachers in instruction. I included videos, audio books, a CD ROM, and activity idea books. I spent $3,998.98. Website: I decided to create a glog to organize a few online resources that I found that pertains to second and third grade standards on the U.S government. I wanted to use this format because it is much more appealing to young students than just a list of websites. It is also easy for students to explore at their own pace. http://heather2727.glogster.com/glog-us-government/