4+Content

  General notes:  Bishop’s questions:  This database does contain multicultural perspectives in the variety of results, but within the material there may be language or comments that reflect the prejudices and views of the time in which they were written.  Upside: This database contains actual newspaper articles dating back to the colonial period. __Some__ topics have a link to a page that breaks down the topic into more detailed subtopics (i.e. Battle of Gettysburg is subdivided into reports of the battle, reports of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, etc.)  Downsides: A common problem with early newspapers that are copied, not transcribed, is that the print is extremely difficult to read. This would make it very difficult for students, and especially those with language issues, vision problems, or those with low reading ability would have an even more challenging time trying to pull useful information from these articles. There’s also the issue of the language and typefaces used in the past – since the newspapers are copied directly and are reflective of the times in which they were written, modern kids are going to have a struggle getting past the “thou’s” and “thee’s” of the Colonial period, and with the s’s that look like f’s even into the Civil War Era.  In trying to use the search page “American History through the News” (which is the main page that opens from America’s Historical Newspapers), you see lists of several topics that cannot be directly accessed (i.e. Indentured Servitude). Students would have to be directed to use a keyword search if there was no link provided. Using “indentured servitude” to search by keyword on that page pulled up several colonial-era advertisements (useful?) and other articles, but the article I attempted to look at was cut off on the right and was difficult to re-align even using the margin tools provided, though if you click on the article, you can move it around more.  For most articles, you cannot tell by the preview sample whether or not the article contains information pertaining to your needs. Also, unless you know the newspaper name and the date of the article you are seeking, it would be difficult to sort through the multiple choices for “News/Opinion” or the other categories into which articles are divided. In some cases, you would have to read more than a couple of paragraphs just to find the words used in your search (i.e. indentured servant), and they may not be used together or used in the context you are seeking.  Finally, it appears that you cannot search any newspapers more recent than 1922. For kids now in middle school, the 1960’s are ancient history! I’m not certain why this is the cutoff date. It could be that more recent newspapers are more easily accessed elsewhere on the Web, but this is pure speculation.  Search attempts:  1. I attempted to search for information on the Salem witchcraft trials. A search of “Salem witchcraft” yields 2121 hits, but the earliest is 1741 and, while it contains a reference to the trials, the reference is uncertain and used as an illustration of the way the Massachusetts colony was embarrassed in the eyes of New Yorkers by the proceedings. Furthermore, an attempt to refine the search for “Legislative Acts or Legal Proceedings” in the “Early Colonial Era” and using “Salem witchcraft” in the keyword box yielded no results despite the fact that the topic is listed under the “Dates and Eras” entry for the “Early Colonial Era”. Even taking out the word “Salem” yielded no results for legal documents on the witch trials, though I know for a fact that such documents do exist.  2. I also searched the Emancipation Proclamation, seeing that it was one of the topics that had links provided, and wishing to try a more recent era.  Using a similar process to search “U.S. Civil War (1861-1865)”, “Legislative Acts or Legal Proceedings” and “Emancipation Proclamation” yielded 782 results. I accessed the first one listed using “full page” and got the complete newspaper page – not sure what use that would be! Using “full article”, I had to zoom the image as much as allowed and still had a difficult time reading the words. Also, the first article was actually a “proclamation” by a Southern Congressman arguing against the “emancipation” of the slaves. So, although the article did have both words, obviously, it isn’t the same as Lincoln’s famous document. I was surprised that the very first article was not the actual document referred to as “The Emancipation Proclamation” – I don’t know what a student would do at this point to find the actual document, which I could not actually find despite over 30 minutes of trying to adjust my search, including adding the date 1863, adding Lincoln’s name to the search, trying the various imbedded access points that I hoped would produce the desired results. I doubt a student would go through all the steps I tried – Wikipedia would’ve been far too tempting to resist!  Bishop’s questions:  This part of the database also reflects multicultural perspectives.  Search attempts: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 1. I attempted to search the Cuban Missile Crisis on this part of the site since the Historical Newspapers date only to 1922. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> There were 26,748 hits! Several articles contain reflections on the historical impact of the event and might contain information that would be useful, if students have the patience to read through the articles far enough. However, the oldest article is from 1977, hardly current to the time of the actual event. The articles include an obituary for a Navy veteran who served during the crisis. Serious narrowing would have to take place to be able to find specific information. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 2. I attempted to search the Australian Queensland sources for information about the recent fires. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Upside: I could begin by using a map to narrow my search (the site reportedly has 480 resources from around the world) by selecting: Australia/Oceania, then Australia, then Queensland. Additionally, you can search by “newest [article] first,” “best matches first” or “oldest first.” The sidebar contains a list of “Special Reports” topics, including “Natural Disasters”. Clicking on this link pulled up a page with “Australian Wildfires” near the top, and five articles dating from February and March 2009. Twenty additional articles appeared when I clicked on the “more” link for that section. I’m not sure a kid would think to follow that process to find those articles, but if the teacher knew, the students could be directed to that part of the site instead of wasting time with a more general search. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Downside: “Fires” way too broad! It yielded results about multiple topics including the economy and a rugby tournament. “Fires near Melbourne” yielded better results about the actual fires that had burned half the country. Then I found the “Natural Disasters” sidebar. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 3. I also attempted a search for Sir Isaac Newton’s Theory of Gravity in the form of “Newton, Isaac gravity.” I was curious to see if this site would be useful for search topics that weren’t current events and didn’t have a social studies focus. I suspected that this would be problematic at best since one doesn’t really find many scientific articles in regular newspapers. I scored 21,589 suggestions, but with “newest first,” the first ten listings contained three about sporting events and two obituaries. So, I changed my search to “best matches first” and came up with a page of articles in which Newton’s theory is mentioned in a variety of contexts, but only the last one on that page looked even worthy of a second glance. Most of the listings had information about other aspects of his life in addition to his mathematical and scientific pursuits. His theory is used as a counterpoint for the failing economy, and there’s a tree planted at St. John’s College which is descended from the tree from which Newton’s famous apple fell. Finally, I tried the third option, “oldest first”. I admit my first hint that this would not be helpful was the fact that the oldest article was a column from 1977. No luck. This list started with an article about the 100th anniversary of Edison’s phonograph (I scrolled down to find out what that had to do with Sir Isaac Newton and discovered a reference to Newton’s law of reaction and another to Isaac Asimov) I also attempted this search in the America’s Historical Newspapers part of the database to see what that would yield. The oldest newspaper article, dated October 17, 1769, was a report to the American Philosophical Society meeting in Philadelphia, but it actually focused on a recent comet sighting. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> I looked at the NewsBanks Maps that could be accessed from the sidebar below the “Special Reports” selections. Clicking on the link takes you to a world map where you can click on a general region (i.e. the Middle East) or you can access an alphabetical list of countries. I looked first at Oman’s map which provided the basic shape of the country, its major cities, rivers (not labeled) and the surrounding countries and bodies of water. To get access to a different map, there is no “back” button, so I had to return to the world map, and then I used the list to find Gabon. The map of Australia cannot be separated into individual states, but the United States do have individually accessible maps. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> I also looked at the “Teacher/Librarian Resources” that appeared in a box at the bottom of the sidebar. The “Big6 Resource Center” opens to a nifty one-page overview of the Big6 method and contains links to planners, organizers and other useful tools that would save teachers the hassle of having to create from scratch. There’s also a link to the official Big6 Website. Handy. The “Training and Support Center” contained links to a bunch of PowerPoint presentations, fact sheets, search lists and research teaching ideas, promotional ideas, and TCR connections to guide teacher/librarians. Finally, there is a link by which you can access AASL, national, or specific state educational standards. A peek at the listing for Colorado revealed a grade-level and CSAP specific “Assessment Framework” for mathematics, science, reading and writing, and “Model Content Standards” for those subjects and others like civics and geography. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> I did not search NewsBank KidsPage because it claims to be a resource for elementary students. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Bishop’s questions: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Search attempts: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 1. Salem witchcraft trials: search resulted in 6 options, including 2 “basic” and 4 “advanced” resources, two of which were biographies, one was a short story site, two were historical anthologies, and the last was an anthology called W//omen in America.// Furthermore, clicking on the first resource, <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Salem Witchcraft Trials, 1692-1693. DISCovering U.S. History. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003, yields a list of eleven “Principal Personages” and eight “Further Reading” citations, several with a brief synopsis of the contents. Clicking on “Related Media Files” at the bottom of the page resulted in a photograph of a painting depicting a young accused witch being led to the gallows. All resources include citation information and access to a tool which will help students produce an MLA citation. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 2. Emancipation Proclamation: search resulted in 17 resources, six are called “topic overviews,” five are “essays,” three are “event overviews,” and the remaining three are “landmark overviews.” The eighth resource on the list contains quoted material from the document, though is not quoted in its entirety, and a couple have graphics in them. Only 2 of the resources were “basic” level, but several were multicultural and conveyed the African-American perspective of the implications of the document. Most of the resources listed additional sites for “Further Reading.” <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 3. Sir Isaac Newton’s Theory of Gravity: Less successful searches. Using “Newton, Isaac gravity,” as I did in the NewsBank search, I yielded three results, but two actually pertained to the same document about James Clerk Maxwell, and not to the theory at all; the third was a biography about Johannes Kepler. When I removed Newton’s name, I got Einstein’s theory! When I kept “Newton, Isaac” and removed “gravity,” I got 22 resources that were much more focused on Newton and his theories, though it was difficult to know which ones would include his Theory of Gravity specifically. Finally, I noticed that a sidebar recommended a different approach, “Newton, Isaac English Physicist” which yielded 71 hits. Just from scanning the titles, I could see numerous duplicates from my last effort, and I could tell that would be more productive for finding out about his theory of gravity, and everything else about which he formulated theories! <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 4. Cuban Missile Crisis: For this search, I decided to try the “Cold War” link on the search page, then typed “Cuban missile crisis” in the quick search. This yielded 20 results, all having significant relevance to the topic. There were seven essays, seven narrative biographies, four overviews, and two documents. Only three of the sources are rated as “basic,” the rest are “intermediate.” Several of the selections are about Cuban leader Fidel Castro or present the effect of the crisis on the Cuban people. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 5. Australian Wildfires 2008-09: This search was a bit tricky, but by using “Australia fires” as the keywords and limiting the search to “News”, I was able to get 19 news articles, the first five from February 2009, and others from 2006, 2003 and 2002 (which give the recent fires some historical perspective) <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> My sample search in the Literature database near the bottom of the page was for information on Nathaniel Hawthorne and the results were quite extensive, listing 52 sources. Students can see critical reviews, biographical info, and plot summaries of works by the author. The only unfortunate aspect of this search is that the vast majority of the listings are “intermediate” and I think many of the critical essays would probably be more sophisticated than most middle school students’ reading abilities or intellectual capacity. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> My sample search in the Cultures database also near the bottom of the page was for “Serbs” and yielded 6 options including three different biographies on controversial leader Radovan Karadzic. The sidebar suggests an additional search for Yugoslavia. The first result, a topic overview, has wide-ranging information including the history of the Serbs, the events leading up to the 1999 war, and a timeline of important events from 1914 to 2000. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Additional databases appear at the bottom of the page for Science, U.S. History, World History and Geography, and there is a link to Discovery’s Education Streaming for additional multimedia resources. To say that this database has wide-ranging applications would be an understatement! <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Bishop’s questions: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> This database does provide a multicultural view of topics searched. See notes below for details. <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> Search attempts: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> 1. Salem witchcraft trials: As I typed in the keywords, the database offered possible searches, so I clicked on “Salem witch trial”. I was a bit confused by the result header that said, “ <span style="color: rgb(14, 14, 14);">Showing **1-25** of **399** results (831 in total)”; I don’t know what the difference is between the 399 results and the 851? I was impressed to find that the tenth result was, “Salem Witch Trials: Original Court Records.” My thrill was dampened by the fact that this result took me to a link to: [] which featured six other links to various archives with the documents. I’m not sure a middle school student would follow the trail to the trial papers! Oh, and since these are the original documents, the handwriting is very tough to read, but the homepage for the Virginia Salem Witch Trials does also have a link to transcripts of the documents. The original search did have a variety of newspaper articles, images, magazines and scholarly journals, books, Websites, and transcripts from which to choose. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: rgb(14, 14, 14); font-family: Times New Roman;">2. Emancipation Proclamation: The search resulted in 398 results (2026 in total). I tried to refine the search by adding the keyword “document” (reducing the total to 695) and was rewarded when # 16 ended up being a transcription of the complete document with a brief introduction. The Lexile score is 2230, which may be too high for some middle school students. As above, there are results in multiple formats and the multicultural aspects of the time are well represented. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: rgb(14, 14, 14); font-family: Times New Roman;">3. Sir Isaac Newton’s Theory of Gravity: Of 743 results, the first is a brief biography that includes mention of his theory of gravity. I was intrigued by the title of result # 7: //Chapter 7: “A Book Nobody Understands”// and decided to check that one out. It was part of Gale E. Christianson’s 1996 book //Isaac Newton and the Scientific Revolution// and contained a vast wealth of information on Newton and his theories, though I did have to scroll down a distance to find a mention of gravity and the explanation of that theory. The Lexile on that result is 1300, only 40 less than that of the article in the scholarly journal from the subsequent result. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: rgb(14, 14, 14); font-family: Times New Roman;">4.Cuban missile crisis: There were 2377 results, so I decided to see how I could find the results that were closer in date to the actual event. I used a sidebar access to change the date range to “before Jan 1, 1964” and yielded 18 results, mostly photographs and MPI videos from January 1960 through February 1963. I did find it interesting that there were no newspaper articles, even when I modified the search to allow for newspaper articles older than 90 days. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> <span style="color: rgb(14, 14, 14); font-family: Times New Roman;">5. Australian wildfires 2008-09: Although there were 669 results, when arranged by date with most recent first, the fourth result is the first on the list to specifically relate to the wildfires of 2008-09. There are a variety of types of resources including newspapers, transcripts, magazines, books and photographs. The transcripts of news programs contain other news stories besides the fires. And some of the photos are from public fundraising events and a visit from Princes William and Harry to sign an //Australian Wildfires Book of Condolence.// Students would have to scroll through the results list carefully to find articles worth accessing. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> There are “Special Collections” for Literature and History <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> My sample search in the Literature database was for information on Nathaniel Hawthorne and the 173 results were quite extensive. Students can search the literature-specific section of the database by author name or find the author in an alphabetical listing by first initial of last name. You then can see biographical info, reference material, critical reviews, works by the author, and multimedia including images and Web links. There was __lots__ of great information that a student could use to produce a variety of reports: biographical, thematic analysis, comparisons of his works to each other or to other works. A word of caution, however, some name searches also pull up references to that name in information about others literary figures, which may be misleading to students who are not knowledgeable about their author. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> My sample search in the History database was for the Magna Carta and yielded 22 results, mostly from different collections or anthologies of historical documents. Selections 17 and 18 were the 1215 and 1225 versions of the document, respectively. There were also several references from //The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches// in which more recent political leaders comment on the document. Within this database, there is also sidebar access to other features such as maps, references like biographical dictionaries, encyclopedias, research guides, journals, study guides and multimedia. <span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * The “winner” is Gale – easy to use, large variety of applications, helpful search recommendations, and a large variety of sub-databases. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * ProQuest eLibrary – Lexiles and dates appearing on the results page is helpful, the literature and history sub-databases are also nice, but many of the results have high Lexiles (1200 or more), many lead the searcher to another link and possible further links beyond that, and it can be difficult to tell exactly which results are more relevant to the topic. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * NewsBank – original newspaper documents are very cool to look at, but they are hard to read and the language would be very difficult for many middle school kids. The number of results is often so big that substantial narrowing would be required to get to the information that you actually want. There seems to be a gap between 1922 and 1977 in which there are no available results – this may be a misconception, but I could not get results between those dates that were current to the event. Limited applicability since the information is provided by newspapers, but would be most useful to social studies. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * <span style="font-size: 17pt; color: red; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Newsbank: **<span style="font-size: 17pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * America’s Historical Newspapers – **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 1) 1 The overall schema/intellectual level is appropriate to average or higher achieving middle school students. I think younger middle school students or those with learning disabilities would struggle with some of the language. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 2) 2 The reading level is compromised by the quality of the copied newspaper articles, the typefaces used, and the language used (see “Downsides” below). <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 3) 9 Since the information provided is from primary newspaper sources, it is as accurate as those original articles, which may contain biases or inaccuracies from the time in which they were written. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 4) 10 There are articles from the Colonial Era through 1922. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 5) 16 This section of the site contains no newspaper articles more current than 1922 (that I could find). <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * NewsBank: Access World News – Student Edition – **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 1) 1 The overall schema/intellectual level is appropriate to average or higher achieving middle school students. I think younger middle school students or those with learning disabilities would struggle with some of the language. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 2) 2 The reading level is equal to that used by contemporary newspapers. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 3) 9 Since the information provided is from primary newspaper sources, it is as accurate as those original articles, which may contain biases or inaccuracies from the time in which they were written. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 4) 10 There are articles from 1977 to the present. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 5) 16 This section of the site contains newspaper articles as recent as February of this year. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * Additional Resources on the NewsBank site: **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * <span style="font-size: 17pt; color: red; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Gale: **<span style="font-size: 17pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 1) 1 The overall schema/intellectual level is appropriate to average middle school students. There is an alphabetical list of “popular topics” that could be useful to start a search on any of those topics. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 2) 2 The reading level is indicated as “basic,” “intermediate,” or “advanced,” but there is some difficult language in even the “basic” level. I think generally, it’s more suitable to average or advanced students, or older middle school students (8-9 graders as opposed to 6-7 graders). <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 3) 9 The information appears to be accurate, from authoritative resources and often with additional sources listed for further searching. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 4) 10 It’s difficult to see how far back in time the content dates – I saw links to Leonardo da Vinci, Egypt, and Native America all the way to the present. Obviously articles can be written now that cover topics that are ancient, but the scope of the content in this site is very wide. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 5) 16 A note on the bottom of the site’s search page states, “ <span style="font-size: 9pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The databases selected for searching offer a combined 8,558,088 articles and were last updated as recently as March 17, 2009.” <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * Additional Resources on the Gale Site: **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * <span style="font-size: 17pt; color: red; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">ProQuest e-Library: **<span style="font-size: 17pt; color: black; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 1) 1 The overall schema/intellectual level is appropriate to average middle school students. The search page is very clear and easy to use, with access to the “Special Collections” for Literature and History also clearly labeled. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 2) 2 The reading level is indicated as a Lexile score for each result, so students can be directed toward materials that are more suitable. Many results have Lexiles over 1200. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 3) 9 The information appears to be accurate and comes from a variety of authoritative resources. In some results, additional sources are listed for further searching. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 4) 10 A date range appears in a sidebar on the left side of the result page, and each result has its date also listed on the results page. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * 5) 16 I could not find a specific indication of how frequently the information is updated, but the dates for each search appear on the results page. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">
 * Additional Resources: **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">