My Final Research Question

I just submitted this to my professor and I hope that I am on the right track.... here we go.

Effective school libraries are student-centered establishments.  One of the many problems school libraries face is attracting students to use the school library for academic and recreational needs.  What criteria is used by media specialist in collection development?  How are young people's interest  and needs are assessed and incorporated into the collection development of a school library?

Lit Reviews... Where Art Thou?

Okay, so I had this bright idea of looking into school libraries collections but when going to look for lit reviews.... very little.  I found some things here and there but no actual "study" or research conducted.  What am I going to do now?  Do I keep my topic?  I know that my research question is due this week and I'm beginning to panic.  I did have another idea but I guess I will continue looking for articles before completely giving up on this research idea.  I know that a part of researching is to dig and dig but I'm not sure if I am using the write buzz words.  I tried multicultralism, school libraries and race, book collection and culture, culturally relevant books in libraries.... I guess I will keep chugging away.

New Direction

While I was in a content area meeting today, it hit me.  I think I know what will sustain my interest and be applicable to real world research.  I want to see if school libraries take into account their student body when selecting books for the book collection.  I am very interested in mulitculturalism in schools.  I think that it is very important for educators to not only be aware of the different cultures found in the school but how do we celebrate, recognize and teach students of different cultural background.  Over the summer I was able to take two Materials classes in which we read and analyzed several books.  In the Young Adult Materials class, it was centered around reading 7 books from 7 different cultural backgrounds.  We read articles about incorporating cultures that I didn't even think of such as the GLBT group.  When I was in school it was stressed to be aware of and learn how to teach students of different cultural backgrounds.  I then began to wonder about the books that libraries supplies to these students.  If the student is our customer are we (educators) providing the correct resources for their needs?  I also remember in the class I took over the summer that majority of the Newberry Award winners had white males or females as the protagonist.  I never would have put the two together but I found that intriguing in that with all the advancements we've made as an American society, there are some areas were improvement is greatly needed.  Anyway, I guess this was my way of explaining how I got to this topic of multiculturalism and school library book collection.  I've already had a classmate to suggest and note that librarians can do a quick inventory of books they have so I am already brainstorming how to collect data.  I hope I can still with this topic.  I don't have a lot of time to change it again. ;-)

Stumped

After reading some of the dialogue produced in the discussion board, I feel that I may be on the wrong track with my research.  I thought that surveying reluctant readers or pre-teen male readers would be a good start but now I'm unsure.  I teach in a predominately black school but I personally teach the gifted kids in a magnet program so there is mix of kids.  This year the boys could not wait to get to the Media Center to read.  It made me think "Wow, what a difference.  What is motivating these boys to read? Most boys by sixth grade stop reading and get into other extracurricular activities."  It was a nice change but different.  When I went to the media center the past two days, I saw two different teachers with their students.  Granted I teach 6th grade and these were 8th grade students.  They were polite but I looked at each and every one of them and they had this I'm ready to go.  I don't read, don't wanna read just talk to my friends looks on their faces.  Some checked out books while others conveniently roamed around the books as if they were going to pick something up.  I think I will go to talk to my media specialist and see what problems does she see or her opinion on the lack of interest in books at our school.  I hope that I can get a real good proposal topic before next week but that is probably stretching it.  As I was reading some one's post of their insecurities of being creative, I felt the same way.  I am so accustomed to someone telling what to do and to have free reign is a little overwhelming.  I guess I will ponder  my topics a little longer to see if I can really narrow down an idea.

In the beginning...

Okay, I'm supposed to develop some research topics.  I've got a couple of ideas... Captivating the Reluctant Reader or Boys Reading Materials and Accessibility.

After reading chapter 15, I think that I will probably use the fixed design.  It is something that I have done before and makes a little more sense to me.  I'm not sure how to go about my research with the topics I currently have now.