Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan

Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan FRIT 7134 Spring 2011 March 1, 2011

Description of Site and Learners I currently work at Len Lastinger Primary School, located just off of Interstate 75 in Tifton, GA. We are one of five elementary schools in Tift County which consists of one high school, one ninth grade academy, one middle school serving seventh through eighth grades and another middle school serving only sixth grade, three elementary schools and one alternative school. Len Lastinger currently has a total of 447 students enrolled. Len Lastinger is named for a twenty four year veteran band director that served Tift County Schools. Tift County is a rural county, with 47% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Len Lastinger has two administrators, forty-five certified staff and twenty-two classified staff. The school is a Literacy Collaborative School and was recently recognized as a Title I Distinguished School. The current media center was added on in 1992 and has a collection of almost 10000 books giving an average of twenty two books per student. The media center also includes an audiovisual collection of almost 250 titles. It also includes five computers that are used primarily for Accelerated Reader and occasional research, a Media Production Room where our morning news is produced and a workroom that currently serves as the physical therapy room.

Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan

Tifton, GA is located in Tift County, in South Georgia. Tift County has a total population of 42,434. The land that is now Tift County was once the hunting grounds of the Lower Creek Indians. The County was created on August 17, 1905, and is named for Nelson Tift, founder of the Georgia city of Albany and a United States Representative. Tift Countys demographic make-up consists of:
1.10% 0% 0.60%

6.60% Hispanic 29.10% White Black Native American Asian 62.50% Multi

The percentage of people that do not speak English is difficult to figure due to the fact that such a large number of Hispanics are farm workers and do not spend the entire year in the county. School enrollment increases during certain harvest times. The median household income is $32,687. The county has seen a rapid increase in the unemployment rate due to the closing of several factories that were top employers. Len Lastinger currently has six 1st grade classrooms with a total of 107 students. There is one Inclusion classroom, one self-contained EIP, one Augmented EIP and one GATE (gifted) classroom. The thirteen ESOL students are pulled for one hour each day to the resource room. First grades current ethnic breakdown:

Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan

1 2 10 2 32 African American Caucasian Multi-Racial Hispanic Asian American Indian 60

Tift County utilizes Literacy Collaborative, which uses the letters of the alphabet to categorize student reading levels. Students in first grade range from Level C (end of Kindergarten) to Level O (Fourth Grade) leaving a wide range of materials needed. A pull-out EIP model is used in first grade as well as Reading Recovery that serves the struggling students one-on-one for twenty weeks.

Curriculum Review I have chosen to focus on Historical Figures in American Society. The standards that are addressed in this unit are: SS1H1 The student will read about and describe the life of historical figures in American history. a. Identify the contributions made by these figures: Benjamin Franklin (inventor/author/ statesman), Thomas Jefferson (Declaration of Independence), Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with Sacagawea (exploration), Harriet Tubman (Underground Railroad), Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks and the environment), George Washington Carver (science). b. Describe how everyday life of these historical figures is similar to and different from everyday life in the present (food, clothing, homes, transportation, communication, recreation).

Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan

SS1H2 The student will read or listen to American folktales and explain how they characterize our national heritage. The study will include John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, and Annie Oakley.
Standard SS1H1 Tasks and Activites Identify the contributions made by these figures: Benjamin Franklin (inventor/author/ statesman), Thomas Jefferson (Declaration of Independence), Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with Sacagawea (exploration), Harriet Tubman (Underground Railroad), Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks and the environment), George Washington Carver (science). Resources 1. Biographies located in the media center. 2. United Video Streaming 3. Videos located in media center. 4. Websites about historical figures. 5. Big Books located in each first grade classroom. 6. Leveled readers located in bookroom.

SS1H2

The student will read or listen to American folktales and explain how they characterize our national heritage.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Books about folktales in media center. Videos located in media center. Websites about folktales. Big Books located in each first grade classroom. Leveled readers located in bookroom.

Collection Review A visual assessment of the media centers collection was the first step in the review of materials for my topic. The media center is very small and organization is difficult. Non-fiction books are on the right side of the media center and fiction are on the right. The shelves are not clearly marked with Dewey Decimal numbers of the books located on that particular shelf making it difficult to find a book that you are looking for. Books are marked with yellow tape if they are Accelerated Reader but to view the level and how many points it is worth, you must take the book off of the shelf and look inside. Students rarely put books back where they got them from leaving shelves cluttered and disheveled. Reference books are against a far wall at the back of the media center, a place where students rarely go. Students have to go between a

Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan

bookshelf and a table to get to them and no designated space is available for research. I browsed through the media center for all of the titles that related to my standards. The books on folktales are in the 300s, which is located in the far corner of the media center. Students must walk through story time to get to this shelf. Our media center is on a fixed schedule and there is only a short window during the day that students would not interrupt story time by walking to this shelf. The folktale books that I looked at were very outdated and dusty, leading me to believe that they had not been checked out in quite awhile. After checking the circulation statistics on them, most had only been checked out once in the past year. Copyright dates ranged from the mid-1980s to 1999. Two of the folktale books contained multiple people in them. The historical people are located in the biographies. Biographies are in the center of the non-fiction side of the media center. Students frequent this isle simply because it is something different than the fiction side. There are several Rookie Biographies on the standards that I chose that are falling apart which show that they get checked out regularly. These titles are also ones that the teachers frequently check out to use in classrooms. These particular books are in a spot by themselves and are not mixed in with the other biographies. The biographies that are shelved in their appropriate places are not checked out often. Several of them had no circulation record from my search criteria. The books are outdated, even though the information has not changed and are not appealing to younger students. They are mostly chapter books with no pictures. There are currently no fiction or research materials on any of the standards, which will be something that I address in my budget plan. A large amount of audio-visual materials are already in the media centers collection. Movies on almost all of the historical people and folktale characters are available as well as a few books on tape. Some of the movies are too long and go into too much detail for students this young. This is another area that I will address in my budget plan. Because the standards are so specific as to what historical people and folktale characters

Emily Fincher Collection and Development Plan

should be taught, there is no multi-cultural literature available. Some books are available in Spanish, which will be addressed in my budget plan. Summary of collection needs: I. II. III. IV. Selecting resources that have been published within the last seven to ten years. The stories have not changed, but book formats have. Selecting books that have a Spanish version for our large number of Hispanic students. While making most choices non-fiction and resource, expanding with some fiction and historical fiction. Selecting videos that are age-appropriate.

Budget Summary After an exhaustive search that had a very beneficial beginning, the search for about my topics on the grade level that I needed grew slim. I spent a total of $3245.79 on updated books for the media center and videos to update the collection using three different book vendors. Please see the Excel spreadsheet for a list of titles selected.