As you may know, each participant in the project will receive their own dictionary. I went to the bookstore (our local independent of course) and the neighborhood library today to review the offerings. I looked at the American Heritage Children's Dictionary and their Student's Dictionary and found both to be good. I also looked at the 3 other brands. I was working quickly so I only checked two definitions: black and moon.
I checked Black because I wanted to see if they included people of African descent in addition to the definition of the color. Surprisingly one brand did not. Of the American Heritage, the early edition (1986) included reference to "Negroid" whereas the 1994 version instead described the term as referring to people of dark skin tone of African descent.
I checked the definition of moon because one brand had a useful picture of the moon's orbit and I thought that was cool (but that one had a weak definition of black). Some brands described the moon as a "heavenly body" and the American Heritage Student's described it as a "satellite" (and gave the moons of Jupiter as an example). I find the definition as a "satellite" more illustrative. The American Heritage Children's, though described "moon" as a heavenly body; can't win 'em all I guess.
The American Heritage brand seemed superior to the other brands in that the words were chosen as a result of a survey of student textbooks, literature and magazines. The illustrations were decent although not as cool as some of the other brands. So I'm planning to order the Children's edition for students Grades 2-6 and the Student's version for Grades 6-9 and the adult edition for grades 10-12. When I have time, I'll see what I can find for the youngest students.
Unless the Advisory Council members have other ideas, I'll order the first set of 16 dictionaries next week. Once we see the first group of students in action, we'll have a better sense of what they are looking for in a dictionary and we can revise our choices for the next group. With the time that we have, it's not realistic to do super thorough research up front on this, so we'll stay open to change as we go.
In general, I say do not dumb down things for younger people; give them real dictionaries, a real challenge.
But your checking n how sensible they are (definitions of "black" and "moon") is important too.
Posted by: Bob Babione | February 12, 2004 at 06:08 PM
I remember that my 9th grade English teacher encouraged me to explore the definition of "black". It was important for me to understand how words like black are used by people to communicate, as well as the correlation between the negative meanings and race.
I agree with Bob Babione that real dictionaries can be a challenge and discussing words that have double or offensive meanings is important.
Posted by: Nettrice Gaskins | February 12, 2004 at 06:28 PM