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by Narda Lacey FargotsteinGive Teachers What They Need: Write for the Curriculum
Teachers know what they need to cover, according to their state's adopted curriculum for the grade they are teaching. Educational children's publishers know those guidelines and select manuscripts accordingly or develop books to fulfill those niches. Even children's trade publishers keep an eye on the adopted curriculums to help give their books an added market.
Judith Ross Enderle and Stephanie Jacob Gordon addressed this topic at the Professional Forum at Writer's Day using their book Hide and Seek Turkeys.
The California State content standards adopted for K-12 can be found at www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/index.asp. At the same site are curriculum frameworks that give actual examples and lessons for reading and language arts, mathematics, science, history and social science, visual and performing arts, foreign language, physical education and health.
Children's publishers also look to the curriculum standards of Florida and Texas. Florida's standards can be found at www.firn.edu/doe/dpe/publications/contentstandards03.pdf. Texas' standards can be found at www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/.
A number of sites give professional advice on how to use books in the classroom. The website for Teaching K-8 at www.teachingk-8.com/ contains an archive of articles since 1994. There is a small charge for viewing the complete text.
The American Library Association provides a site for their magazine, Book Links, at www.ala.org/ala/products/periodicals/booklinks/booklinks.htm. It focuses on core curriculum areas, including science, social studies, language arts, history, geography, and multicultural literature. A few of the articles are available for online viewing.
If you are having trouble finding a niche to get your manuscript published, you can use these sites to focus your manuscript on the school curriculum. Using these sites may make all the difference in you making that sale!
Narda Lacey Fargotstein is working on making the leap from non-fiction to children's books. She is author of The Whole Computer Catalog and Articles on Women Writers, Vol I and II. Her article on the Dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland was recently cited in The More Annotated Alice. Narda is always looking for new internet sites and suggestions for future columns.
E-mail p.bf@gte.net.
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