A comparative analysis of two third grade level texts:

  Silver Burdett Ginn Social Studies- Communities Around Us . 1997
Juan R. Garcia, Daniel J. Gelo, Linda L. Greenow, James B. Kracht, Deborah Gray White.  Silver Burdett Ginn, NJ

Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Social Studies-Communities: Adventures in Time and Space. 1997.  James A. Banks, Barry K. Beyer, Gloria Contreras, Jean Craven, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Mary A. McFarland, Walter C. Parker.  Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, NY.
 

Bias

The Macmillan/McGraw-Hill text, Communities: Adventures in Time and Place and the Silver Burdett Ginn, text, Communities Around Us, rarely cover social issues openly, however they do both present many pictures that show diverse ethnic groups.   The writers of these texts obviously went to great lengths to include pictures of all ethnic backgrounds.  For example in the Macmillan text, on page 273, a person of Asian decent, a Caucasian boy, and a black man, are all shown.  However, it is difficult to ignore that many of the pictures in this text are often stereotypical of the ethnic background to which the person belongs.  For example, pictures of a black basketball player, a Japanese woman in face paint and kimono, and a white business man all fit the stereotype for their respective races. The pictures also depict males and females in several different jobs roles, showing little gender bias throughout the book.
In comparison, Communities Around Us also has pictures of racially diverse people and of both genders.   The material presented is also objective.   In chapter 7 the material reflects on some unique Native American tribes.  It does a good job telling about their cultures and contributions, but not about the hardships they have endured because of settlers.
While reading through both the Macmillan/Mcgraw-Hill text and the Silver Burdett Ginn book, it is hard not to notice that the Macmillan includes several global communities such as Senegal and Peru; while the Silver Burdett Ginn focuses on American communities only, like New York City and Houston, Texas. However, throughout both texts many of the pictures deal with the common theme of patriotism.  The pictures and articles are layered with the colors of red, white, and blue and filled with children waving American flags.

Social Issues

Neither Macmillan/Mcgraw nor Silver Burdett Ginn present many social issues that are relevant in today’s socially conscience society.  Both texts place their importance in learning about communities; however both fail to mention issues such as poverty, racism, overpopulation, or drug abuse.  Each of these issues are important problems that American face everyday within their own communities, and unfortunately the authors of these texts choose to ignore them. It is only a third grade text, so many of these complex issues should not be studied deeply, but should be touched on.
At a third grade level students should be aware of environmental issues and taught how to conserve and be responsible for keeping their environment safe and clean.  Communities Around Us does not touch on such an important issue, however Macmillan/Mcgraw does attempt to.  In Macmillan, several environmental issues such as protecting our water resources, learning about Mexico’s air pollution problems, and endangered animals are mentioned briefly in chapter extras.
 
 
 

Interdisciplinary, Conceptual Organization

 
Throughout the Silver Burdett Ginn text, concepts from each social discipline are presented varyingly throughout the text.  The different concepts of geography are introduced in every lesson.  In every lesson there is an engagement for the students, entitled “Geography Literacy”.  There are many maps for the students to broaden their knowledge.  There is also a “Geography Plus” section in the teacher’s edition, which gives a guideline to an ongoing geography project for the students.  The text gives a general outlook on the economics of different communities.  For example, in the section “Rural Communities” there are descriptions of occupations with in the community and the goods and services they produce.  Chapter 10 is entirely dedicated to presenting political science.  The objectives met are learning about the difference between fact and opinion, the levels of government, and the roles in local government.  In chapter 11 students begin to learn about our national government.  The text does an overall pretty good job of introducing some concepts and generalizations form different disciplines.
Likewise,  Macmillan/McGraw deals with conceptually organized knowledge from many disciplines and fields of study.  For example, this text teaches about communities by using many different disciplines such as geography, communities throughout history, and various jobs and ways to spend money in communities.  Each community that is introduced in the text has a corresponding map to show students where the community is located.  For example, Galveston, Texas is shown in a map on page 10.  This map also shows the bodies of water surrounding the community and the state park located in the community.   This is important because students must learn about different curriculums to prepare them for their school careers, and the lower elementary grades prepare them to do so.  There are many different maps, character sketches, and short stories about different people and places throughout history in this book.

Analytical Mode/Question Levels:

In both texts, there are many pictures depicting historical times throughout the text.  There are also many maps, timelines, and graphs that enable students to understand the data presented.  The texts are filled with good questions that allow the students to think at a higher level.  In the “pilgrim” section of Silver Burdett Gin, (chapter 8) the students are asked, “What do you think might have happened if the Wampanoagas hadn’t helped the pilgrims?”  Another example (pg. 218) of a critical thinking question given in the teacher’s text is “How did the Indians in Mexico help Spanish settlers adjust to North America?”  In the teacher’s edition of Silver Burdett Ginn, there are many higher level-thinking questions that a teacher can use to ignite a discussion.  The McMillian/Mcgraw text also has many different learning aids.  The textbook offers teachers transparencies of a map of the United States and of a Venn diagram.  These transparencies can be used as teaching tools in the classroom.  Also, there are several maps in the text of different communities and countries.  Each map has the specific parts such as the prime meridian and longitude and latitude lines.  The pictures and photographs in this book are very helpful because they show children the concepts that they are learning about in a visual form rather than just giving them written information.  The book has pictures on almost every page, so it is very interesting for students to read.  At the end of each chapter there are also discussion questions and assessments for students to do to help them recall the information learned in each section.  At the end of each  chapter there are sets of questions called “Sum it Up” and “Think about it”, both which are very helpful when reviewing what one has learned.

Direct Relationship with the Learner

Communities Around Us has many activities for the students to compare the past and present, while the opposing text does not.  The Communities Around Us text does a good job of trying to relate history to the reader’s personal life.  In the “Pilgrims” lesson the student’s work in pairs to come up with activities done by Pilgrim children and by modern American children.  Another engagement that is used are questions like, “If you could travel back in time, what time period would you choose and why?”  These types of questions keep the students interested in social studies because it relates to them.  Another question asked in the text is “If you could visit Plimoth Plantation, what’s one question you would ask the people there?”  Questions and activities like these are important because it demonstrates the relationship between the learner and the knowledge presented.
 Communities: Adventures in Time and Place does not present a relationship with the learner through time and space as the Communities Around Us does.  We teach our children history because we want them to learn from their past.  Despite the fact that Adventures in Time and Place does present historical topics, it fails to show children how this information relates to them in their personal lives.

Readability

According to the Fry Readability Chart, both of our text books were written on the third grade level.  There are few hard words; however the books do a good job of following all new vocabulary words with definitions.  These words are typed in bold to show importance.  At the end of each chapter there is also a list of words for students to look up in the glossary so that they can find out the meanings.

Evaluation

Both of the textbooks have some accompanying materials, but no assessment devises.  There are no tests given for the teacher to use in his/her class, though, there are many questions given throughout the text to promote discussion.  There are worksheets in the teacher’s manual to be given to the students to review the knowledge.  In The Communities Around Us, there is a helpful section entitled “Scope and Sequence”, which gives social studies objectives for grades first through sixth.  Along with the Macmillan/McGraw texts, there are assessment books that teachers can use to help them with testing students.