Competency 9 Website (CCBC)

In order to find a website that covered multicultural literature, I used Google.com and entered the search "mulitcultural literature websites". I had 4,420,000 hits. Many of them were not kept current. I wanted a site that kept current with multicultural literature. I found one site that had a list of links related to multicultural websites: http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/multicultural.htm
It was from this site that I found a site called the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
The CCBC is"a noncirculating examination, study and research library for public librarians, teachers, early childhood care providers, university students and others interested in children's and young adult literature".
I chose this site because it is part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Eduacation and felt that it would be a reputable and reliable source of children's literature resources.
The home page provides links to many different resources including multicultural literature. When you click on this link, it provides a list of websites that deal with literature from many cultures. A few examples are African Acess Review, Coretta Scott King award, Criticas and Multicultural Review.

Competency 8 Research Visual Multimedia

This table comes from the Texas Education Agency website.

http://www.tea.state.tx.us/

I wanted to show the enrollment of minority students in Texas public schools has increased over the years. This particular table comes from the document called Enrollment in Texas Public Schools, 2005-2006. It includes statewide enrollment statistics from the 1987-1988 to 2005-2006 school years. In order to find this information, I used the search bar on the TEA site and the word "enrollment" to find information. This document was hit #2. The document is in PDF format.

In order to get the image from the document to my blog, I used the copy image tool and stored the image in my photo file. I played around with the image to improve the quality.

I feel that this table is applicable to my blog topic. As you can see there has been a steady increase of African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic students enrolling in public schools. It is important for these students to be able to "see themselves" in the literature used in classrooms.

Competency 7: Image

I found this image through the Google Image database. I searched the phrase "multicultural literature". The search yielded 99,900 results. I found this image on the first page of hits. I paged through about 10 pages but felt that this represented my blog topic the best. "Reading the World" is a great slogan for my blog because I think that it is very important for students to be exposed to literature about different cultures. This exposure will help them understand people from different cultures, and develop compassion and tolerance.

I found this image on this site: http://literaturelinks.edublogs.org/2008/06/13/new-literature-class/. Interestingly, this link is a blog regarding a multicultural literature class at TWU. This website states that the orginial graphic originated from this link: http://www.soe.usfca.edu/departments/ime/rtwconf/story.html . However, I have been unable to get this link to work. I felt that I needed to search for the original image. After searching for the "Reading the World" on Google, I noticed that there was a Reading the World Conference. http://www.soe.usfca.edu/institutes/reading_world/index.html This was where the image was orignially found.

Competency 6d: Citation Pearl

My topic is teaching multiculturalism and multicultural literature in elementary school classrooms.

Database: Library Lit.

I started with a hit from my successive fractions search in Academic Search Complete.

Using Children's Folktale to Explore Multiculturalism by Linda B. Alexander and Maria Sanez

I was able to find this article in Library Lit. and then clicked on full display to see the subject headings. These headings were: school libraries/activity projects for Social Studies, multiculturalism/teaching and school libraries/Florida. Since my topic is multiculturalism and multicultural literature I then chose to explore the multiculturalism/teaching subject term.

This resulted in 17 articles. Here are two examples.

DeVoogd, G. Question Authority. School Library Journal v. 52 no. 4 (April 2006) p. 48-52
Accession Number:
200609100763029

Abilock, D. Educating Students for Cross-Cultural Proficiency. Knowledge Quest v. 35 no. 2 (November/December 2006) p. 10-13
Accession Number:
200630507032002

Reflection:

I enjoyed this search and feel it was very helpful. I think that when you find a good article it is important to look over the citations offered there. It can lead to very good information. The DeVoogd article is very interesting because it discusses getting students to think critically. I often look at a bibliography at the end of an article in order to find other information that might be relevant to my research. I did not realize that this type of searchig was called a citation pearl. I am glad to be able to label this approach that I have used in the past. I also enjoyed using the subject headings. I had never used these before and was so surprised at what I found. I feel that this type of search can be very helpful-especially if you are researching to learn-not researching to come up with a new idea. In my particular case, I am researching to learn about multicultural literature and how to use it in my classroom.

Competency 6c: Specific Facet Search

Topic: I want to find a book about using multicultural literature with elementary students in the classroom.

Database: Books in Print

I used these three facets: multicultural literature, elementary students and classroom
S1 multicultural literature =1,815 hits
S2 elementary students = 3,897 hits
S3 classroom= 29, 372 hits

In this specific facet search none of my facets were small or specific enough. At this point I went into a building block search to finish my search.
S1+S2+S3 = 44 results. I then looked over these 44 hits and found a great book:

Teaching Reading with Multicultural Books Kids Love by Carol J. Fuhler
ISBN: 0-613-86069-1
Synopsis:
Enhance students' reading skills and multicultural awareness with solid reading instruction and motivational activities.
Reflection:
When doing this specific facet search I was not successful. My key terms, multicultural literature, elementary students and classroom are very broad and can lead to information that is not related to my blog topic. In order to narrow down the results and find the specific information I needed , I used my key terms and launched a building block search. This search was more successful. I think that to find a book in this database, it is important to use a different search strategy other than a specific facet search. The book that I chose, Teaching Reading with Multicultural Books Kids Love, really fits my information need.

Competency 6b: Successive Fractions Search

Academic Search Complete
Successive Fractions Search: adding one facet at a time.

Topic: Using multicultural literature to teach reading in the elementary classroom.
S1(literacy or reading or reading methods) =164,340 hits
S2(elementary or primary classrooms)= 820 hits
S3(multicultural literature)=250 hits

Since my largest facet was (literacy or reading or reading methods) I started with this facet.

My next step was to start with S1 and add S2 . When adding these two together the number of hits was 7,449 results. This is much lower that the 164,340 hits but still I needed an additional fraction : multicultural literature.

At this point I added S3 to S1 and S2. This search yielded only 5 hits.
I felt that this set was too small. Dr. A. suggested that I use an additional term, multiculturalism, with my S3.

My last search looked like this:
S1: (literacy or reading or reading methods) and (elementary or primary classrooms) and (multicultural literature or multiculturalism).

This gave me 19 hits.
#18: Teaching multicultural literature in the reading curriculum. (AN 11080489)

#7: The potential of multicultural literature: changing understanding of self and others. (AN 9448315)


Reflection:
I feel that this search was very successful. I was frustrated when I only located 5 hits after adding S1 + S2 and S3. Instead of getting more relevant hits, it just narrowed me down to too few.
Adding an additional synonym, multiculturalism , in my s3 as Dr. Aikin suggested really helped. It is important to consider all synonyms-both general and specific in order to get a better list of hits.

Competency 6A :Building Block Search

ERIC-FirstSearch TWU Database
Search strategy:
S1 = (multicultural literature) or (diverse literature)
S2 = (elementary students) or (primary students)
S3 = (reading methods) or (reading)
S1+S2+S3= 194 hits
I then limited the search to: (yr: 1995-2008) and to TWU subscriptions only. This yielded 40 hits.

Hit #2 Using Storybooks to Promote Multicultural Sensitivity in Elementary School Children
(EJ750104)

Hit #7 Investigating Two Approaches to Fostering Children's Comprehension of Literature
(EJ722047)

Hit #9 Creating Learning Environments that Invite All Students to Learn through Multicultural Literature and Information Technology: The Intermingling of Cultures, Religions, and Languages across the United States Enriches Classrooms, while Presenting New Challenges to Teaching and Learning. (EJ 709099)

Of the first 10 hits, 9 were perfect. I feel that this is a good list of possible sources.

Reflection: I feel that this search was really helpful because my goal is to use multicultural literature to increase reading comprehension. All three of these hits will be helpful to me in learning more about how to used multicultural literature in my classroom. I found the building block search to be very helpful. It was fairly easy to understand, however trying to narrow search results down was not as easy as it sounds.