This time I need to thank all my fellow media specialists here in Coweta County who sent me biographies of Frederick Douglass to look over. At this point, of course, most of them are not even close to being readable by third graders.

The best so far is A picture book of Frederick Douglass, by David A. Adler (Holiday House), but even so it omits some key elements of Douglass’s life that we would need to have included. I’m waiting for one final biography that I ordered online that claims to have a reading level of 2nd-3rd grade. We’ll see.

I’m also obliged to Loren Hawkins, my 3rd grade partner in crime, for loaning me basal readers and the accompanying workbooks. I want to get some clearer idea, having been a high school English teacher in my dark past, of what would be needed in a three-week period in a 3rd grade language arts scenario.

Besides the obvious reasons for doing so (e.g., I have no clear picture of elementary language arts, never having taught it), we need to make sure that what we’re proposing isa), not so different that it would scare teachers who are more comfortable with their worksheets, and b), would cover the same necessary skills, albeit in a more integrated manner than is currently the case.

Here’s a thought: what if we ditched our “language arts” textbook entirely and implemented our language arts performance standards through readings in our social studies and science curricula?

I’m going to use our Frederick Douglass example, with the essential question, What was the biggest obstacle Douglass had to overcome, and what in his life most helped him overcome it?

What if we had:

• a brief biography of Douglass
• Pink and Say, by Polacco
• Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt, by Hopkinson
• Follow the Drinking Gourd, by Winter
• a recent in-depth article on the impact of free schools in Africa from the New York Times [Pushed by world monetary forces, African governments are lifting school fees, which though low are still prohibitive for most citizens. The result is first-grade classes with 150 kids in them as children flock for the opportunity to learn to read and write.]
• perhaps an excerpt from Booker T. Washington’s autobiography in which he describes the day freedom was proclaimed on his plantation, when he was six years old.

But that’s too much to read! We’d never get through it!

We would if we didn’t have “weekly selections” and all those worksheets to do. Those would be our reading selections. We’d use our brief bio as the main selection, then branch off from there.

Go look at the third grade GPS language arts curriculum. Can we not cover (and by “we,” I mean classroom teachers, of course) almost all of these standards by reading the above items? And what we don’t cover with Douglass, we can cover with Revere, Anthony, Bethune, the Roosevelts, and Chavez. Or with materials for our science studies.

And we can also cover our social studies standards at the same time, using our readings as the basis for further research into Douglass’ life and times as we try to answer the essential questions.

Is part of the answer to our overall question of what media’s role is in all this, is that we can provide this kind of thinking/design/implementation in collaboration with teachers?

I did a complete grid with all our suspects (Revere through Chavez), along with all the standards and bits and pieces, and that was overwhelming, so I’m going to start out by focusing on just one of these people and see where it gets me.

I’ll start with Frederick Douglass.

So, for Douglass, we have to

• discuss his life, examining (I suppose) how he expanded people’s rights and freedoms in our democracy [SS3H2.a]
• explain social barriers, restrictions, and obstacles he had to overcome, and how he overcame them [SS3H2.b]
• identify locations significant to his life and times, on a political map [SS3G2.a]
• describe how place (physical and human characteristics) impacted his life [SS3G2.b]
• describe how he adapted to and was influenced by his environment [SS3G2.c]
• traces examples of his travel, and his ideas across time [SS3G2.d]
• describe how the region in which he lived affected his life and impacted his cultural identification [SS3G2.e]
• describe how he displayed positive character traits: cooperation, diligence, liberty, justice, tolerance, freedom of conscience and expression, and respect for and acceptance of authority [SS3CG2]

Easier to handle? Perhaps.

So how would the media center fit into a curriculum that asks third grade students to accomplish the above?

One of the classic writing strategies I’m sure we’re teaching the kids is definition by example. Even if you can’t define a concept in so many words, you can always give examples of the concept, and that way your reader gets the idea.

I think we can tackle our problem at hand (What is the role of the media center/specialist in the GPS curriculum?) in a kind of reverse order definition by example, an inductive reasoning process where we go from a particular performance standard to a set of generalized principles which we can apply to the entire curriculum.

Where to begin? Let’s take the 3rd grade social studies standards, a small cluster of them. If you don’t already have your own copy, download it at http://www.georgiastandards.org/socialstudies.asp. (In checking the link just now, I find that there’s now a side-by-side comparison of the social studies QCCs and GPSs, but soc studs are the only ones to have that at the moment. Good work, DOE!)

Here’s the second of the history standards (the first is the infamous ancient Greece one, not as bad as everyone fears):

SS3H2 The student will discuss the lives of Americans who expanded people’s rights and freedoms in a democracy.

a. Paul Revere (independence), Frederick Douglass (civil rights), Susan B. Anthony (women’s rights), Mary McLeod Bethune (education), Franklin D. Roosevelt (New Deal & World War II), Eleanor Roosevelt (United Nations & human rights),Thurgood Marshall (civil rights), Lyndon B. Johnson (Great Society & voting rights), and Cesar Chavez (worker’s rights)
b. explain social barriers, restrictions, and obstacles that thes overcome [sic], and describe how they overcame them

Here’s a geography standard:

SS3G2 The student will describe the cultural and geographic systems associated with the historical figures in SS3H2a.

a. identify specific locations significant to the life and times of these historic figures on a political map
b. describe how place (physical and human characteristics) impacted the lives of these historic figures
c. describe how each of these historic figures adapted to and was influenced by their environment
d. trace examples of travel and movement of these historic figures and their ideas across time
e. describe how the region in which these historic figures lived affected their lives and impacted their cultural identification

Here’s a civics/government standard:

SS3CG2 The student will describe how these historic figures display positive character traits of cooperation, diligence, liberty, justice, tolerance, freedom of conscience and expression, and respect for and acceptance of authority.

Leaving aside for the moment how we’re going to demonstrate respect for and acceptance of authority with the lives of Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt and César Chavez, let’s talk about what the media center could do for a third grade team that is facing this new set of standards.

Ideas, anyone?