Welcome to the Maine Sampler, Part III. If you are familiar with the earlier two volumes, you will find many similarities, and several differences which are noted below. The Maine Sampler was originally designed so that classroom teachers and librarians can:

• incorporate information skills within classroom curriculum. Language arts curriculum tie-ins are still strong in Part III, of course. But science, social studies, and math activities are emphasized where appropriate.
• implement resource based teaching.
• use activities which relate directly to the Information Skills Guide for Maine Educators..
• support student inquiry requiring critical thinking skills on a consistent basis. [However, the committee decided not to include the labeling of these skills in this Sampler.]
• try partnering. [All samples lend themselves to joint implementation by teachers and library practitioners.]
• invite public children's librarians to use these ideas.

In addition, Sampler III incorporates a new focus:

• Assessment issues. To that end, we have included a special introduction, a glossary, sample assessment tools, and a closer look at Beliefs in Education, Implications for Libraries and Assessment in the Library.

This issue is comprised of the Maine Student Book Award (MSBA) nominees which overlap with Vermont's Student Book list. In general, Book Award nominees are chosen for their literary merits by committees of teachers, librarians, and other valued readers. The Information Skills Committee decided to construct the Sampler's activities for them because no teacher's guides exist for new books and because the Book Award process engenders so much excitment. A number of schools are now including the nominees with their Language Arts curriculum. Activities for three of the nominees have appeared in past issues of Maine Entry (The state wide quarterly for librarians.) For more information: Maine Student Book Awards

For copies of Maine Sampler Part I and II, please contact the State Library: 207-289-5620.

WARNING: This guide is intended as a model, not photocopy-ready material to be handed out verbatim. These suggestions are not fill-in-the-blank or recipe type activities but rather ideas and responses that will enrich the student's reading of the book and will encourage and challenge the thought process.

Most likely, activities will need to adapted in one or more of the following ways:

• Consider your students: their learning styles and their capabilities will vary.
• Some activities are addressed to teachers, some to students because a number of people have collaborated on this issue.
• The contents are arranged alphabetically by title. Although interest and reading levels are indicated, the concepts used in designing these activities are not age-dependent. For example, Almost Famous has a level of grades 4-6 but some of the activities could be appropriate for high school students and could even be molded to suit another book.
• Some activities lend themselves to individuals, some to small groups, others to class discussion or participation. You may wish to rewrite and ask students to select two for completion. This gives students choice which is a powerful educational tool. It also serves to individualize assignments for poor readers as well as for gifted and talented students.
• Several of the guides require the location and use of information from outside the four walls of the school library. One activity for The Moon and I suggests that students find out the requirements for obtaining a pilot's license. So students may be telephoning airports or piloting schools for this information. In The Book of the Banshee students are asked to compare and contrast characters in other one of Anne Fine's books. Don't reject the idea if it isn't in your library's collection: use interlibrary loan or help students write, call or fax a communication to outside resources. Some of the activities require students to generate their own information through questionaires, observations or other means.
• Another method for broadening use of these activities is to read challenging (MSBA) nominees aloud to a class or to request that students listen to PBS' "Read to Me" program weekday nights at 7:30.

NOTES ON ASSESSMENT ISSUES

Evaluating student work used to be simple: teach a unit, give a test, scale the grades, and write a single letter on report cards. Educators are now looking hard at this limiting system. As schools examine their priorities in these tight times, accountability comes to the forefront. Do tests accurately reflect what we're teaching? Should assessment drive the curriculum? Should "quality" work be an option? Where do standards fit in? Woven throughout this sampler, we have tried to clarify and explore the current emphasis on assessment and how librarians can begin to incorporate aspects of assessment within their programs that relate to accountability, to student motivation and growth and to planning a sound curriculum. You will find that good assessment is a wonderful communication tool: administrators and teaching staff will understand what you are doing and will see the concrete evidence that "Library" is comprised of staff and a program and not merely a place. Students will find that good assessment helps them grow. Curriculum goals and objectives, which in the past were known only to teachers, are now squarely in front of students. Good assessment highlights student involvement in the curriculum process. Students and teachers use the assessment results to further build and enhance research strategies.

For years three of us on this committee have been muttering, "We really must look at assessment in the library!" Yet why didn't we ever seem to get around to it? Now we know. Not much is in evidence in the literature or examples of library skills activities. And, we found out that it's challenging work. After attending workshops and conferences, purchasing books and photocopying articles we finally faced the fact that collecting all the "road maps" in the world was no substitute for taking the journey. The assessment component of Sampler III reflects our journey. We urge you to take the journey, too. Take a colleague; it's so much better if you have someone to collaborate with. Choose one item from the bibliography or your own materials that's related to something that has piqued your curiosity about assessment. How does that relate to what we've written? To your school? What can you do to make it work for you and your teachers? We'd like to hear from you; send the committee any suggestions, feedback, and ideas either philosophical or concrete.

Abigail Garthwait Asa Adams School Library Orono, Me. 04473

Pronouns "He" and "She" are used interchangeably.

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