Re: GEN: Dewey Decimal

[Penny Cunningham <pscunnin@EARTHLINK.NET>]

>
>To:Diane Durbin <dianed@TENET.EDU>
>From:pscunnin@earthlink.net (Penny Cunningham)
>Subject:Re: GEN: Dewey Decimal
>
>I agree! I teach in a K-8 school. I try to have every student master the
>skill of "Find a book if you know the call number" mastered by the end of
>grade three. In kindergarten and first grade I emphasize that fiction
>"made-up stories" is put in order by the author's last name because if you
>like one story by an author you will probably like the characters and plot
>in other stories by that author. In second grade we talk about how they
>don't care so much about the author when they are looking for facts and
>information. They usually ask for a book about XXXX. After showing how
>arranging subjects alphabetically isn't very satisfactory because animals
>would be scattered throughout the alphabet, I tell the story of Mr. Dewey
>inventing his number system, where each number stands for a subject, and
>numbers that are close together are about subjects that are similar. I
>impress this on them by having piles of books with the same Dewey number
>scattered around the tables. They work in groups to identify the subject
>represented by each number, rotating around the tables. I let them know
>right away that sometimes we have special kinds of books that aren't facts
>and information, but which we want gathered together instead of scattered
>by author, and we give those Dewey numbers, too. Poetry, Bible stories,
>and folklore are the examples I use.
>
>Expansion of their understanding of the system happens as they need
>location skills for curriculum units. For instance, a 4th grade class
>doing a unit on poetry learns why the tens digit changes from 1 to 2 in
>811 and 821. Second graders studying animals are introduced to the
>structure of the 59_ section, and why some animal books are in the 500s
>and some in the 600s. I don't worry about them knowing all the ten
>divisions, or even memorizing their favorite numbers, though I encourage
>it. That is the sort of thing they will remember for a test and forget ten
>minutes later.
>
>Most importantly, I always emphasize that when they have identified a
>useful number for a current project they can take that same number to any
>of the public libraries in our county and find books about the same
>subject.
>
>>.... I heard an interesting talk by a librarian who was a K-12 librarian.
>>She
>>said she *knew* she was giving kids Dewey lessons in elementary school, and
>>she was considered a master teacher, but those same kids could not apply
>>Dewey *in the same library* when  in the upper grades.  Does anybody
>>think it might be better to forget making kids learn the Dewey system...
>>If we were teaching location skills in
>>the context of a real classroom unit, the kids would remember where to
>>look a lot faster.
>>
>>Diane Durbin
>>dianed@tenet.edu
>