Banks, Beyer, Conteras, Craven, Parker. Communities: Adventures in time and place. MacMillian/
       McGraw-Hill
Boehm, Hoone, McGowan, McKinney-Browning, Miramontes.  Living In Our World.  Harcourt Brace and Company,
       1997.
 

        In order to effectively approach this project, Keith and Jennifer each examined a separate text book primarily.  Class handouts were used as guidelines in order to measure the appropriateness of the two texts.  First, we will look at the book Keith worked with, Communities: Adventures in time and place.  Second, we will discuss Living In Our World, the text Jennifer researched.  Third, we will draw conclusions based on the findings concerning the afore mentioned text books.

Communities: Adventures in time and place:
        This text is written on a third grade level and focuses on communities.  I do not believe I would use this text in my classroom because it is two broad, the text sites different major cities from New York to Chicago and almost every state including Wyoming and Montana.  I believe in order for students to grasp the meaning of many of the chapters they need to have a good understanding of US geography.  United States history is also a must since there is a whole section on the colony at Jamestown and mention of other items in history such as the migration on the Oregon Trail. United States history is not taught until the fifth grade, I know some overlap is needed, but I feel like students would miss a lot of the meaning of the text by not having information on US history.
The text is broken down into sections and has helpful hints for teachers as they teach each lesson. Suggested questions are at the front of every section to help focus the students, for example in the section about zoos the question is, “what can we learn by listening to different viewpoints about zoos”. The text then suggests you talk about the positive and negative aspects of zoos.
        I do like the review questions at the end of each section . There is one general question that you can look up in the text, but the there is a focus question and a thinking skills question, for example, in the section about geography, the thinking skills question is, “If you lived near the water, what do you predict you would do for fun?”.  I believe the questions make the students think.
        The text seems about third grade average, but for the slower students in your class I believe it would be difficult to understand. In the first 250 word section there were 9 technical vocabulary words and in the second 250 word section there were only 3.
         The book uses many modern examples including the tunnel linking England and France, but the book does not mention electric cars in the transportation section. I think this is important because pollution from car exhaust could have been addressed.

Living In Our World:
        Living In Our World appears to be an effective text book for third grade students.  The content was specific while units were placed more generally.  Units dealt with communities, the people within a community, community history, to name a few.  Texts set up in this fashion allow students to get a broad understanding of a community and all that it entails.  This allows the classroom teacher to make student learning more directed to their own community while helping students explore patterns in all communities.
        Organization  within the text flowed smoothly from one topic to the next.  Accompanying each section were skills laid in between the lessons.  These skills pertained directly to the material and were dealt with in a helpful manner.  Ideas for integration of social studies with reading, math, language arts, art, and music are found within each unit.  Along with these integration ideas came an outline of a school day in which these ideas were employed.
 Sections concluded with thought provoking questions for students.  Additional summary ques were placed in the teacher text in order to assist students in taking the most possible away from the lessons.  Assessments of all kinds concluded the units.  Examples include formal, informal, self, and portfolio assessments.  The variety of assessments available is a great asset to any teacher, especially with the growing demands in our schools.
The authors developed main ideas very well.  The main ideas were stated, defined, restated, and often accompanied by visual aids.  Details related to the topic were placed appropriately throughout each paragraph.  One downfall remains that sentences often ran longer than necessary.  Being a fourth grade text, longer sentences are helpful in reading progression and understanding, however, there seemed to be quite too large a number of longer sentences.  Referring back to visual aids, the authors included an excellent amount with a great deal of variety in regards to type and multi-cultural aspects, yet, they were not always referred to specifically within the text.  A young reader might turn the page and not pay attention to the illustration sitting above the paragraph they have just finished reading.
         The vocabulary density was terrific.  Only three vocabulary words which may have been unfamiliar to students were found within the two sections examined.  Of these three words, all were defined, developed, restated, and adjoined with examples.
        Current material included aids in the texts qualities.  Several up-to-date topics included were bicycle safety helmets and the helmet law, Hurricane Andrew, and a passage on the presidents which included Bill Clinton.

Conclusions:
        Each of the two texts have their benefits as well as drawbacks.  It appears that what is positive about one is also positive about the other in general terms.  This regarding topics such as higher-order thinking questions, helpful hints for teachers, vocabulary, and relatively current issues.
We found negative aspects of each text, an unavoidable situation.  Living In Our World was better for content, while Communities: Adventures in time and place better addressed current events.  Either text will assist students in learning about communities.  The main difference is which type of teacher’s style would the two books compliment.  All in all, the decision falls on the teacher as to which is the most appropriate.