How To Best Utilize the Book Database

Each book entry includes the following:

  1. Short Summary

  2. Recommended Questions

  3. NCSS Themes

  4. Social Justice Standards

  5. Washington State Social Studies Standards

  6. Tags

Short Summary

A 2-3 sentence overview to of the storyline to help you decide if the book the right fit for you and your learners.

Recommended Questions

The questions provided focus on higher-order thinking, encouraging readers to think beyond the storyline and consider how the story helps us understand ourselves and our world. Everyone is encouraged to adapt and modify the recommended questions to meet the needs of their learners and lessons.

NCSS Themes

The National Council for the Social Studies describes 10 themes that define the broad scope of social studies education. These themes guide educators in creating content that helps students understand how people live respectfully together, make decisions, and positively impact the world around them. Click here to learn more about these themes.

The primary NCSS Theme for each book has been identified. A short description of how this storyline connects to that key theme is also provided.

Social Justice Standards

Learning for Justice created a set of 20 anchor standards to guide to guide educators in anti-bias and multicultural education. Click here to learn more about these standards

A key Social Justice Standard has been identified for each book along with a short explanation of how the storyline addresses the standard.

Washington Social Studies Standards

Washington State organizes social studies into five domains. Each domain is further organized into performance standards, and within each performance standard there are grade-level standards.

Domains → Performance Standards → Grade-Level Standards

Because many books can be adapted for a wide range of grade levels, a grade-specific standard has not been selected for individual texts. Instead, each book entry highlights a key performance standard along with a brief description explaining how the book’s storyline aligns with that standard.

Listed below are the five domains and their associated performance standards. You can learn more about Washington State Social Studies Standards here.

  • Social Studies Skills

    • SSS1: Uses critical reasoning skills to analyze and evaluate claims.

    • SSS2: Uses inquiry-based research.

    • SSS3: Deliberates public issues.

    • SSS4: Creates a product that uses social studies content to support a claim and presents the product in a manner that meaningfully communicates with a key audience.

  • Civics

    • C1: Understands key ideals and principles of the United States, including those in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and other foundational documents.

    • C2: Understands the purposes, organization, and function of governments, laws, and political systems.

    • C3: Understands the purposes and organization of tribal and international relationships and U.S. foreign policy.

    • C4: Understands civic involvement.

  • Economics

    • E1: Understands that people have to make choices between wants and needs and evaluate the outcomes of those choices.

    • E2: Understands the components of an economic system.

    • E3:  Understands the government’s role in the economy.

    • E4: Understands the economic issues and problems that all societies face.

  • Geography

    • G1: Understands the physical characteristics, cultural characteristics, and location of places, regions, and spatial patterns on the Earth’s surface.

    • G2: Understands human interaction with the environment.

    • G3: Understands the geographic context of global issues and events.

  • History

    • H1: Understands historical chronology.

    • H2: Understands and analyzes causal factors that have shaped major events in history.

    • H3: Understands that there are multiple perspectives and interpretations of historical events.

    • H4: Understands how historical events inform analysis of contemporary issues and events.

Tags

At the bottom of each book page, you’ll find tags that link books with shared attributes. Click on these tags to explore similar titles. For example, books may be tagged by language, main character ethnicity, setting, or genre