EDEL 300 Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Schools: Home

This will limit your search to the books found in our Children's Collection.

Also, search DAWCL or ALSC Awards Shelf for award winning children's book titles and then use our OneSearch to see if we have them:

You can use OneSearch's Newspapers Search to get access to millions of reputable newspaper articles.

Go to Advanced Search.

At the very top of the page click Newspapers Search.

Put your keywords in the search box. (e.g. "public schools income")

On the left side:

Limit your results to 2024

You can also select a specific newspaper (e.g. New York Times) under Journal Title

You will find a link to the full text in the articles' record.

There are many factors that determine the appropriate age to read a book, and it can be hard if you haven't read the book, or don't know the child. ​(Labeling books by age is a problem, since a child with lower reading skills having to select "little kid" books to find something they CAN read successfully can turn them off reading.)

Two major considerations:

• Reading DIFFICULTY

• CONTENT understanding

Recommendations from teachers or librarians who know the child and the books, are an excellent way to find appropriate books.

Publishers usually assign an age range to the books.  These are some of the designations you will see:

• Newborn to age 3 (Board Books)

• Ages 1 and up - Where the Wild Things Are

• Ages 3–8 (Picture Books)

• Ages 5–9 (Early or Leveled Readers)

• Ages 6–9 or 7–10 (First Chapter Books)

• Ages 8–12 (Middle-Grade Books)  -Harry Potter 1

• Ages 10 and up  - Hunger Games, Harry Potter 7, Thirteen Reasons Why 

• Ages 12 and up or 14 and up (Young Adult (YA) Books) Twilight

These publisher designations can not determine both content AND difficulty, only a suggested age range to sell the book.

Children’s Literature 
for Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Schools
Your Librarian: Cathy Outten | Cathy.Outten@csulb.edu
ACTIVITY 1 - Using OneSearch to find books and newspaper articles
For Books: Use Advanced Search and select Books & Media (CSULB)
•    Enter “CSULB Children’s Collection” on first line
•    Use keywords (e.g. bunnies) or library “subject terms”: (e.g. rabbits) on the second line
•    In results use limiters on the side to choose things like:
o    Location: Nonfiction, Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Novels, etc.
o    Date: More recent publications are more likely to be culturally positive
•    Find the LOCATION and CALL NUMBER for a book and write them here: 

For Newspapers: Click Newspapers Search in the top menu bar
•    Enter keywords, then search
•    Use Filter on left for Publication Date

ACTIVITY 2 – Children’s Lit Research Guide http://csulb.libguides.com/childrens
•    Link through Home Page/ Research Guides/ Children’s Literature 
•    DEIA - Diversity and Representation, find a book or award that reflects an identity you hold, or you think your students might hold. Write the book title or award name here:
•    Banned Books - Ignore this page, we will discuss later….
•    Awards - So Many Awards, write the name of one interesting award here:
•    Book Lists – Which list might you use?
•    Course Guides - EDEL 300 page- Also linked in Library Tools in your Canvas Course 

Activity 3 - Evaluating a Children’s Book
•    Age/ability appropriate?
•    Content Standards, extensions, how can this book promote learning? 
•    Multiethnic/cultural, are different cultures reflected in a positive way? Is it culturally responsive and affirming?
•    Accurate? Anti-bias? are stereotypes avoided? Reflective of your readers? Positive?
•    Illustrations, are they pleasing and appealing? What techniques and colors are used? content appropriate? do they connect to the text? 
Activity 4 - Banned and Challenged Books
•    Challenges are increasing exponentially
•    Top reasons for challenges are for LGBTQ+ and/or racial/ethnic content or authorship
•    Book removal harms children in that they won’t see themselves represented, and won’t learn about other people’s lives
Choose a challenged book.
1.    What might make someone challenge this book?
2.    What gaps in knowledge would a child/teen face if this book were removed, who would miss out?
Check yourself: 
1.    Do you see this book as “appropriate”?  
a.    For what age (does age matter)? 
2.    Would you spend resources on purchasing it (for your classroom, school library?)

3.    Where should it be accessible (everywhere, classroom, school library, public library, etc.)? 

4.    Can you think of a book you wish you hadn’t read at a young age? 

5.    A book you wish you HAD access to at a younger age? 

ACTIVITY 6 - Children’s Collections
 
Room 200
•    Picture Books (PZ8.)
•    Beginning readers (PZ6.)
•    Juvenile Fiction (PZ7.)
•    Young Adult Fiction (PZ7.5.)
•    Children’s Graphic Novels (all call numbers)

Room 204
•    Nonfiction (by subject LC call numbers)
•    K-12 Curriculum (by subject LC call numbers)
•    Videos, audiobooks (all call numbers)
•    Braille
•    Poetry (PZ5.) 
•    Oversized (all call numbers)
 
Using our Collection
•    Don’t put books back on shelf, use return bin or leave on tables
•    Check out books on the 1st floor by the front door of the library
•    Or via a locker system out front: request the book in OneSearch, you will get an email when it is ready, limit 5 book requests at one time
•    Check out for 16 weeks, up to 50 at a time    Head to the 2nd floor!
 

We all tend to live in our own bubbles these days, where our information sources echo back to us what we already know and agree with (think of your "For You" page). Information we agree with feels good.

Some resources are significantly more biased than others and can feed into skewed views of the world.

Reliability of sources is also very important.  Is the information presented true?

Here is a tool to help you find out about sources you may be accessing.

AI resources are quickly becoming a daily part of our lives.  A few things to think about when deciding to use AI for academic purposes.

Yes, it can be very easy to create things, but keep in mind:

• AI can "hallucinate" made up information by mashing stuff together.  For example, ChatGPT will create article citations, but they are not real things, just titles, journal titles, random page numbers and dates
• Specific facts and numbers tend to be incorrect in this same way.  Using AI to research facts does not (always) work.

You should consider that what it creates is realistic fiction (sounds real but might not be).

Using AI as a source of true information is problematic.  It can create falsities, and it cannot be refered back to (i.e. your readers/professors can't go back to see what you used as a source.) Using the same exact prompt will yield different results every time.

It can work fantastically as a starting point, for example, creating an outline.  It can also summarize large amounts of text fairly well (you are giving it a finite collection of data to summarize, so there isn't as much possiblity for incorrect mashups).

If you do use text generated by AI in your work, you must cite it as such.