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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How to Coordinate the School Library Collection & Lessons with Subject Curricula

How to Coordinate the School Library Collection & Lessons with Subject Curricula - As School Librarians we must develop a library collection that supports grade level curricula, not some generic 'balance'. More than that, we must also use those materials to create meaningful Library Lessons that coordinate with specific classroom activities. | No Sweat LibrarySchool Librarians develop a school library collection based on the curriculum needs of teachers and students, not a ‘balanced’ collection based on arbitrary numbers of some purported authority. We know that we are the authority for our school library and better able to determine our print and digital needs than anyone else. We must be bold enough to trust our own judgment—to ignore ‘balance’ and support as much of our school’s curriculum as possible.

But it’s not enough to just add materials based on topics of study in the classroom. We must think deeply about how we can integrate resources into classroom experiences so they are actively used by students and teachers. That means anticipating Library Lessons, especially those that bring authenticity and higher-order thinking to assessment products. Let’s follow the development of one such example.

BEGIN WITH CURRICULUM ALIGNMENT

Early on I began to apply subject sticker-labels on fiction books to aid student choices. I noticed a large number of historical fiction books cover the time period our 8th graders study in U.S. History—discovery of the Americas through Reconstruction. Instead of an Historical Fiction label, I put a Historical America sticker on those books, already thinking I can promote them to 8th graders during their library orientation.

I know that each semester 8g English Language Arts does a novel study using a classic historical fiction novel with a tie-in to Social Studies. It occurs to me that a novel study might be more engaging for students if they could choose their own individual Historical America book to read, and I keep this in mind as a possible Library Lesson.

DEVELOP THE TOPICAL COLLECTION

Though we have a considerable number of suitable historical books, there aren’t quite enough for the whole grade level. Determined to increase the Historical America collection, I run a report for relevant books owned by other district middle school libraries, but not ours (we’re only a couple years old), and find a good number to purchase right away.

Periodically combing through book reviews for good books of the time period adds titles to my acquisition book list. About this time one of our major book vendor representatives shows me how to do various searches in the online book vendor catalog. I perform one for “Popular” (which is as it sounds, the most popular titles purchased by other librarians) and filter for “Historical Fiction” and “U.S. History” which adds more titles to the book list.

Each year, as I begin my collection development, I search for newly published titles. As our school population increases, so does our special Historical America collection.

SEIZE A LESSON OPPORTUNITY

One day a new 8g Social Studies teacher approaches me: he wants students to “hear another voice of history” beyond the textbook by reading an historical fiction book. Because I coordinate our collection with our school curricula, I could show him our, by now, substantial collection of Historical America titles.

Curriculum to Collection to Library Lesson: An Inter-Disciplinary Project - Learn how creating an Historical America special collection in our school library made possible this U.S. History & ELA inter-disciplinary Library Lesson with unique assessment products! #NoSweatLibraryWe plan the Library Lesson for shortly after the start of the 2nd semester. We’ll co-present the lesson to students, then allow them to move around the library to choose from the Historical America books I’ve arranged on tables by time period. The U.S. History project criteria focus on the historical events of the story and how they align to what students study in class:

  • historical time period and location of the story
  • character’s conditions and lifestyle in historical context
  • political, economic, religious, environmental, or sociocultural issues of the historical event
  • historical accuracy of circumstances that lead to the character’s decisions

We decide students will have multiple product choices:

  • Academic – research paper or slideshow
  • Artistic – mural or foldable flipbook
  • Speaking – talk show interview or debate

REALIZE THE VISION

Returning from winter break, I discover the 8g English Language Arts teachers plan to assign a book report instead of doing the novel study. I see my initial plan coalesce into my true vision for building our topical Historical America collection. I approach ELA about the upcoming Social Studies Historical America project, and they agree that students can use the same book for both projects! I assure them we have enough books for the entire grade, with a few additions through Inter-Library Loan.

image of biocube-small sampleAlways alert for unique and meaningful assessments that fit with my lesson ideas, I’d found a Bio-Cube on ReadWriteThink that, with a few modifications for content, will be perfect for this assignment. I show the ELA teachers and they are delighted to use it. On each side of the cube students write “biographical” information about a chosen character from their historical story:

  1. character’s name and personality traits
  2. personal background
  3. time period and location of story
  4. significance in U.S. History
  5. biggest obstacle to overcome and pivotal choices (grading period theme) character makes
  6. important quotation from story

Copied to colorful paper, then cut & pasted together, finished cubes are suspended from the ceiling in the ELA classrooms. They are a real conversation starter for classroom visitors. Students also write a one-page summary of bio-cube information that contains a reflection segment.

LOOK AHEAD FOR POSSIBILITIES

We’ve done this cross-discipline project off and on over the years…all because I could envision a curricular Library Lesson and build a collection to implement it. I’ve used this same process to build other mini-collections, such as careers books, print/audio book kits for ELL, Spanish language books for grade level Spanish classes, science fair project books, earth science books & environmental books for science classes, and multicultural craft books for art classes.

As school librarians, it’s our responsibility to develop a library collection that doesn’t rely on generic ‘balance,’ but one that supports our grade level curricula. More than that, we must also create Library Lessons that use those materials for meaningful classroom activities and worthwhile assessments.

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