How to Support Social Studies Content Reading in the School Library

School Librarians can increase student achievement in Social Studies by enhancing background knowledge with content area reading. Learn how to regroup your existing collection into Special Collections for 6g World Cultures, 7g State History, and 8g United States History. | No Sweat LibrarySchool Librarians work hard to promote reading, especially of fiction books (as in organizing fiction by Subjects), to support the English Language Arts curriculum.

However, we know that students learn and retain more when they have rich content-area background knowledge, so it makes sense that we work just as hard to encourage students to read curriculum-related books in support of other content areas.

When Kathy Cunningham, a fellow district librarian at Blalack Middle School in Carrollton Texas, showed me how she had grouped books to support the Social Studies curriculum, I was inspired to do the same. Our school library now has three Special Collections for Middle School Social Studies that contain fiction and non-fiction books:

  • Globetrekkers for 6th grade World Cultures
  • Totally Texas for 7th grade Texas State History
  • Read America for 8th grade U.S. History through Reconstruction.

To make it easy for students to find them and for library aides to shelve them, I added unique identifier labels below the spine labels, then located them so they were distinct from other books, yet still part of the main library collection. Follow along as I explain how I chose books and created our Special Social Studies Collections.

GLOBETREKKERS – 6g World Cultures

To identify fiction books I ran reports by Subject for each continent and its countries. For nonfiction, I pulled Dewey books off the 000-999 shelves that related to countries and cultures. I didn’t include any folktales because 6g ELA teachers do a multicultural folktale unit, nor did I include country “facts” books from the 900s, but I did pull any cultural and natural wonders titles found there.

Our students study countries by continent, so I created and attached a colorful continent label under the spine label. (My friend used Demco’s color-striped circles mounted horizontally to simulate a flag.) To make them even more distinct from the regular collection, I also added a Demco transparent color-tinted circle on the spine label—as a “globe”—using pink for fiction and teal for nonfiction.

Global Book Labels: Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, Australia & Oceania, and Antarctica.

The Continents book labels

I located the GlobeTrekker collection on recently installed shelving near the door to the 6g hallway. It was especially gratifying for me to see kids checking out newly labeled cultural books from the 300s, art books from the 700s, and natural wonders from the 900s that were “invisible” in their original locations. Kids told me how much they liked all the “new” books I’d gotten for them!Help Students Achieve in Social Studies with Special Library Collections - School Librarians know that increased content knowledge means higher achievement in that subject. Give students a boost in social studies by creating special grade-level collections of fiction & nonfiction social studies topical books! Here's how I did it. #NoSweatLibrary

With so many 900 cultural books moved to the GlobeTrekker section, I had room to place all the non-U.S. country books together in a single aisle, that is, I moved the 980s & 990s to the end of the 972s. I placed a colorful sign atop each segment of shelves to clearly identify the Continent and added shelf labels to identify the country numbers. The kids don’t notice the jump in numbers from 972 to 980 (I did put a sign there to indicate that all 973 U.S. books are in the next aisle.), but browsing for country books in a single aisle is so much easier that students are now reading them more.

TOTALLY TEXAS – 7g State History

To increase the 976.4 Texas Dewey section, I added Texas-related books from 000s-800s, including Texas folktales, as well as some short Texas biographies. (I did change books on Texas cultures, folklore, food, & music to Texas Dewey numbers.) As explained above, moving 980-999 books to the 900-972 aisle opened up extra shelves after 976.4 so there was plenty of room to add the additional 976.4 Texas History books.

Book Label "Totally Texas"Most of the Texas Dewey books had already gotten a Texas outline label under the spine label to differentiate them within the larger Dewey collection, and the Texas Fiction books—stories that take place in or deal with Texas—had gotten the outline label and a dark green color-tinted label protector on top of the spine label when the fiction area was reorganized into Subjects. So I just added a transparent green star—for the “Lone Star State”—on the Dewey book spine labels.

Our Fiction area begins right across the aisle from the Dewey 900s, so I moved Texas Fiction to shelves across the aisle from 976.4, thus bridging Texas Dewey & Texas Fiction to make the end of that aisle truly Totally Texas. Seventh graders quickly discovered the new section, and just like with 6g, the 7g kids were checking out books they’d never noticed before!

Middle schools in Texas don’t study individual states (except Texas) and there was little interest in them, so all non-Texas state books were donated to one of our elementary feeder schools. There are now no 974-976.3 nor 976.5-979. Since current states info can be found from an online subscription service, the loss is negligible. Removing those books opened up space for an expanded 973 U.S. History section.

READ AMERICA – 8g U.S. History

When I got rid of the individual state books, I did keep those that were topical to overall U.S. History and changed their call numbers to a 973 number. All the U.S. History books are now together by geography or by historical period.

  • Books about natural wonders, historical landmarks, and national or state parks were changed to 973.091, the DDC number for geographical treatment.
  • Books about the 13 original colonies became 973.2 Colonial America with their 2-letter State Postal Code instead of author letters.
  • Books about significant U.S. events, like westward expansion and September 11 were changed to their historical time period in 973.2-973.9.

Historical American fiction book sticker.Our Fiction books for the time periods studied in 8g U.S. History had already been labeled with an Historical America sticker, but I wanted to “bridge” them as I had with the Texas fiction and nonfiction. They were moved to shelves next to Texas Fiction and now the Historical America fiction books are across the aisle from the 973 U.S. History Dewey books.

To really promote the Read America and Totally Texas Social Studies Special Collections, I hung a huge U.S. map on the wall at the end of the aisle, and created signage and shelf labels to identify our new “American History & Historical Fiction” aisle. Students are checking out more of these books than ever before!

PROMOTING SPECIAL SOCIAL STUDIES COLLECTIONS

Entice students to read Social Studies Fiction and Nonfiction books and get better grades in their classes. Customized reading promotion for 3 common Middle School courses: World Cultures/Geography, State History, and U.S. History. | No Sweat LibraryTo promote the reading of GlobeTrekkers, Totally Texas, and Read America, I created special bookmarks for student comments while reading, along with Reading Records for students to paste into their Interactive Notebooks to record books read. When students reach their book reading goal—which varies by grade level—they receive a Social Studies coupon to add 5 points to any Social Studies quiz…a reward suggested by the Social Studies teachers.

I’ve packaged these up for you in No Sweat Library, my TeachersPayTeachers store.
Look them over!

The real pièce de résistance was when the Social Studies teachers asked to have a special “orientation” for the new Social Studies Special Collections! Here’s a synthesized slide presentation I gave to introduce each grade level’s Social Studies classes to their Special Collections.

MAKE IT EASY BY KEEPING IT SIMPLE

Because both fiction and nonfiction books for the GlobeTrekkers collection were pulled from so many different Dewey numbers and fiction subjects, I did change their Home Location in the automation system to Global, which my colleague had created for her special collection. Otherwise, except for the few Dewey number changes to Texas books and some 973s, the beauty of this process has been simply adding classification labels and transparent color-tinted label overlays—no call number or spine label changes!

As with my reorganization of the Fiction area into Subjects (genres), should the next librarian want to eliminate these special collections, removing the labels is pretty much all that’s needed.

So, School Librarians: surprise your Social Studies teachers and students with Special Collections to support their subject-area content. Students will increase their background knowledge and you will garner praise for contributing to increased student achievement!

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Updated from 2015.
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Helping School Librarians Understand Dewey 300 Social Science

Helping School Librarians Understand Dewey 300 Social Science - Many School Librarians are confused by the organization of 300 Social Science. This School Librarian & Social Sciences college major explains Dewey's disciplinary numbering based on the fields of study found in the 300s.If your school library collection is like mine, the 300 Social Sciences takes up large part of your Dewey area. What boggles the minds of students, teachers, and School Librarians alike is the mish-mash of disparate topics with an arrangement that doesn’t make much sense. Plus, the 300s seem to have many books that belong in other Dewey sections!

As a lover of the Dewey Decimal Classification system and a college major in the Social Sciences, I hope to help you understand this Dewey Class…and suggest some changes that might better serve your students and teachers.

THE METHOD OF ASSIGNING DEWEY NUMBERS

Remember that Dewey Decimal Numbers are assigned by discipline, that is, the field of study—the profession. How does that differ from subject?

  • Subject asks, “What is this about?” and is the topic of a book—the informational content inside.
  • Discipline asks, “Who is this for?”—who will use this—and assigns a Dewey number so those folks find their professional information in one place.

A particular subject, then, can be assigned more than one Dewey number depending on which profession uses the material for their own purposes. Here’s a DDC example of a simple water report that can apply to 5 different Dewey numbers:

Use 333.91 for monitoring to protect water quality, 553.7 for chemical & biological status, 363.6 for assuring compliance with standards, 628.1 for technical aspects of water treatment, and 628.93 for effectiveness of sewage treatment. (Abridged 15, p65.) [edited for brevity]

Also keep in mind that books for more than one discipline or subject are assigned the lowest Dewey Decimal number that includes all disciplines—using the rule of two or the rule of three. This explains why the 300 section is so large: its numbers are lower than 6 other Dewey Classes, so multiple subject/discipline books are placed in the 300s rather than where we might need them for our school curriculum.

Visit my blog posts on Dewey 590s Animals for more about disciplinary alignment, and Let’s Put Dewey Decimal Books Where Students Can Find Them for more on the rules of two & three.

WHAT DOES 300 SOCIAL SCIENCE REALLY INCLUDE?

Calling the 300s “social sciences” may be a slight misnomer: the social sciences include geography and history which Dewey places in the 900s, as well as psychology which Dewey places in the 100s. Thus, of the 7 social sciences, only sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics are in the 300s.

Since these four disciplines are about social relationships and the organization & function of human societies, I’ve chosen a more specific name for this Dewey number which students understand better than the generic “Social Sciences”:

Dewey 300 –  Society, Government, and Culture

Unfortunately, the materials for these 3 broad headings are not necessarily in contiguous divisions and sections, so here’s the 300 divisions each one encompasses:

  • Society: 300 Sociology & anthropology and 360 Social problems & services
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  • Government: 320 Political science, 330 Economics, 340 Law, and 350 Public administration & military science, and 380 Commerce, communications & transportation
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  • Culture: 370 Education & 390 Customs

NOTE: You probably won’t have any 310s in your school library because it’s just for statistical records.

SOCIETY

300 Sociology & anthropology
The 300s begin with society, specifically sociology & anthropology. If we consider psychology (the 100s) as the social science of the individual, then 300-307 is the social science of groups. It includes behaviors like bullying, gangs, prejudice & discrimination; interactions such as social change & civil disobedience; and relationships between individuals, groups, and communities. It does have one section important for School Librarians:

  • 305 Groups of people introduces those used throughout the rest of the 300s by age, gender, social class, race, ethnicity/ancestry, occupation, and illness/disability. School Librarians need to build this section with high-quality, equity-sensitive resources because it can so strongly influence the minds of our students.

360 Social problems & services
This division may be, I suspect, the one that gives School Librarians the most headaches. It’s categorized according to type of problem and how the service is provided:

  • for specific groups of people (according to the groups in 305),
  • as governmental services such as public safety, crime & punishment,
  • by public & private societies & clubs,
  • by commercial insurance services,
  • by associations.

Some books in this division are victims of the rules of two or three, such as substance abuse and mental & physical disorders. I relocated many of these to appropriate higher numbers for better student access.

363 Other social problems and services
If the 360s are problematic, this section is particularly exasperating for School Librarians. Like any “other” section of the 300s, it’s a dumping ground for disparate topics. To understand what’s covered in this section, think of it as the basic needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy: physical needs for human survival, and our need for safety & security.

  • 363 begins with Public safety from hazards, followed by police services with crime investigation & forensics, and ‘safety’ from moral ‘problems’, like alcohol, gambling, prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, drug trafficking, and abortion. The public safety portion ends with another dumping ground—363.3 Other aspects of public safety which has just about everything else, from censorship to terrorism to gun control to firefighting.
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    363.34 Disasters is actually disaster relief, and school libraries may have sizeable sections here on earthquakes & volcanos, floods & tsunamis, and other earth & weather-related disasters. I relocated many of these to 551 Earth science so they’d be together for science class assignments.
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  • 363 ends with physical needs and the services that provide for it. This section includes housing, public utilities like water treatment, food supply issues including malnutrition of the poor & famine, and population issues like family planning & birth control, sterilization, and over-population.
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    363.7 Environmental problems is another perplexing spot, because so many popular school topics about environmental protection are crammed in here. I added additional numbers (below) to better define the different topics:
Description Dewey number
Environmental problems 363.7
Sanitation – waste control, recycling .72
Pollution .73
By source – oil, toxic chemicals, acid rain .738
Of specific environments – air, water, soil
Global warming from CO2 (greenhouse effect) &
ozone layer depletion (You may find ozone books in .738 due to the rule of 2 regarding refrigerants, but I moved mine here because it’s a global issue of the atmosphere.
.739
Noise pollution .74

GOVERNMENT

It’s no surprise that 320 Political science, 340 Law, and 350 Public administration & military science align with the 3 branches of U.S. government. (Be aware that other countries may not have this structure, but most of those books are in the 900 section. )

  •  320 Political science includes civil & human rights, the political process & elections, relations between nations, and the legislative process, hence, books about the U.S. Congress.
  • 340 Law covers international, constitutional, regional/state, economic, criminal, and civil law, and includes the United Nations, the U.S. Constitution & Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • 350 Public administration covers the executive branch—the U.S. Presidency, the Cabinet, and management of departments or agencies such as national security, justice, foreign affairs, health & education, and those with economic or environmental oversight. 355-359 military science covers all branches of the military, which is administered by the head of state.

 

MAKING THE 300’S MORE STUDENT-FRIENDLYMaking the Dewey 300s More Student-Friendly - This Class name & several sections of 300s Social Science are exasperating for students and School Librarians, but a few changes can help. Calling it Society, Government & Culture helps students, as does actually adding decimal numbers to clarify different topics.

330 Economics
Economics is probably nestled between 320 and 340, because legislatures (320) set taxes and budgets. This division also includes careers, money, banking, credit cards, the stock market, and taxes. (You may also see books on socialism & communism because they are economic-based systems, but I prefer all books on types of government together, so I relocated mine to 321.)

School Librarians need to know that 330 also covers economic development and management including that of natural resources, so that’s why we find a sizable group of books in 333.7-333.9. I actually added decimals to my books to differentiate between the different topics, according to the table below:

Description Dewey number
Economics of land & energy 333
Land, recreational & wilderness areas, energy 333.7
Conservation & protection .72
Land .73
Grasslands .74
Forest lands .75
Rural lands .76
Urban lands .77
Recreational & wilderness areas .78
Energy – alternative, renewable .79
Primary forms of energy – solar, nuclear .792
Secondary forms of energy – renewable .793
Photovoltaic energy .796
Subsurface resources – nonrenewable 333.8
Fossil fuels .82
Geothermal .88
Other natural resources 333.9
Water energy – hydroelectric .91
Wind energy .92
Biofuels, biodiversity, wildlife refuges .95

380 COMMERCE, COMMUNICATIONS, TRANSPORTATION
This division may seem redundant with topics in 330 Economics; however, this division is for regulatory aspects (law & public administration) and public consumption—the socio-cultural perspective of ‘products’ & ‘people’, that is, services that sustain or benefit our way of life. Here we find:

  • domestic & international trade
  • the infrastructure for communications—postal, telegraph, computer, wireless (radio, television, satellite), and telephone
  • the infrastructure for transportation, including railroads, waterways, air traffic, roads, local mass transit, and pipeline transport of utilities.

You may see here books that are topical with those in the 600s, and they may get increased circulation by relocating them there.

CULTURE

Near the end of the 300s we find the two divisions relating to culture and it’s institutions.

370 Education
Education is how our culture and traditions are passed down from adults to children. Most books with this division number will be about teaching, so will be shelved in our Professional collection. You may, however, want to do as I did, and build a circulating group of books on schools for the historical time periods our students study in their social studies classes, and books on study skills topics.

390 Customs, etiquette, folklore
This is the division we probably think of when we refer to “culture”. It differs from 300 Sociology & anthropology in that 300 is about groups & institutions, whereas this division is about our personal or informal way of life. We find here sections on personal adornment such as clothing & accessories, cosmetics, jewelry, and body alteration like tattoos and body piercing.

We also find sections on customs for home & family life, death, and special occasions, like marriage, festivals, birthdays, and holidays. Interestingly, it’s also where we find such arcane topics as cannibalism and taboos. The topics may seem similar to 306 Culture and institutions, but 306 is about behaviors and interactions, whereas these sections are for specific celebratory rituals.

  • 398 Folklore, especially 398.2 Folk literature can be a sizable section in school libraries, and if yours is not well organized, you might want to read my post Let’s Put Dewey Decimal Books Where Students Can Find Them. I offer alternate numbers to group these books according to how our students study folklore.
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    At 398.8 Rhymes and rhyming games we find Mother Goose and other nursery rhymes, as well as lullabies and jump rope rhymes. If your school library serves PreK, you may want to build this section and relocate related books from other areas to make it easier for you and your teachers to find them all together.

WHEN THE 300’s ISN’T THE RIGHT PLACE

School Librarians Can Change Dewey to Improve Student Access -Many School Librarians get frustrated with the Dewey Decimal Classification system and want to “genrify” it like we do our fiction literature. I believe this is because they don’t understand the purpose of DDC:

works that are used together to be found together.

It’s that purpose of DDC which gives us the freedom to change a Dewey number. Since our disciplinary use is different than career professionals, we can locate books where they will better serve the needs of our school curriculum.

For example, one DDC rule of two/three victim is U.S. slavery before the Civil War. Books on this subject can be found at 2 places in the 300s:

  • 306.3 Culture/economic institutions if the content is slavery as an established socio-economic culture of the time.
  • 326 Slavery and emancipation if the content is about abolitionism and antislavery movements, the political issues of that time period.

I didn’t like either location, so I changed all these books to a little-used but legitimate DDC number where students would find the books within the historical time period:

973.71 Civil War – Social, political, economic history

This number already includes the Underground Railroad and the Emancipation Proclamation, so now all U.S. slavery books are together. After relocating the books, students easily discovered them there and even thought I’d bought new ones!

So, School Librarians don’t have to give up Dewey for radical organizational changes to make their school library more student-friendly. For additional creative ways to use DDC, get my new E-book How to Make Dewey Decimals Student-Friendly found at No Sweat Library, my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

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