AMERICAN GOVERNMENT:

CITIZNESHIP AND POWER

A Textbook Review Assessment

Tyler Tully
10/12/17

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American Government: Citizenship and Power Textbook Review Assessment

Introduction

Textbooks are a way for teachers to communicate material to their students in the form of

a book. Sometimes we, as teachers, will prefer the student read the material before being

formally instructed on the information. We use this to let the students already have some sort of

knowledge in the material, and will allow them to participate more in the classroom. Normally

this is a good way of introducing information to these students, especially if they should do

homework where they just must have the basics down. For example, a sixth-grade class could

start a new unit on explorers and for their homework, they would have to find out some of the

explorers names in the chapter. This serves as a starting point for many of the students because

they will already have the names in their short-term memory, but when the teacher talks about it

more the following class, the names are brought up once more. This repetition of the

names/material, could help push some of the basic material into long-term memory instead. But

what happens if the textbook that is assigned to them isnt up to par with their reading level? Or

even worse, what if the book has been edited so much that the information isnt coming across,

but rather makes the student not think about what their reading? This dumbing-down of

textbooks happens so that it is more accessible to students at lower reading levels. If we want to

challenge the students, and make them think critically about what they are reading, why are

textbook publishers pushing for higher readability?

Publishing Company

The textbook that I had the pleasure of assessing, had some of these problems. The

textbook, American Government: Citizenship and Power, was written by Christine Barbour and

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American Government: Citizenship and Power Textbook Review Assessment

Gerald C. Wright. These authors are both professors at Indiana University. Both professors are

authority figures in their Political Science department. Wright is currently head of the Political

Science department at the University. The textbook was published by EMC Publishing which is

an imprint of New Mountain Learning which is a private publishing company. The company is

based in St. Paul, Minnesota. The part of the company that focuses more on public education, is

known as EMC Publishing, hence why this book is under the EMC brand. EMC Publishing also

releases multimedia materials for teachers and students alike, ranging from videos and pictures,

to computer programs designed to the act of improving how teachers teach and students learn.

The company deals with many subjects, ranging from world languages, to literature and

language arts, to social studies. The larger company (New Mountain Learning), deals with many

other subjects that do not necessarily relate to the previous subjects.

The Textbook

This textbook was designed for twelfth graders

in Virginia. Presumably however, it could be used in

any government class throughout the United States. It

deals with more federal government rather than state

and local. The 848-page book is divided into four units

with multiple chapters per unit. Each chapter has at least

three sections (with only three exceptions) that divide

up the information even further. After the instructional

material in the book, there are examples of important

primary documents, which includes the Constitution of

Cover of Textbook
the United States and the Declaration of Independence.

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American Government: Citizenship and Power Textbook Review Assessment

Afterwards, comes the glossary, which also has a Spanish section, followed lastly by the index.

The book is divided up like most other textbooks that I have seen/used in my public-school

career. According to Amazon.com, this book only costs $4.95 for the hardcover version of the

book. This version however, does not come included with the activation code/CD that allows

access to the online eBook version of the text. The eBook version costs $26.59 for a 1-year

license to the text. The EMC store also sells a hardcover version of the book (that also does not

include an online book) for $115.90, which is over twenty-three times as expensive as the

Amazon version.

Top: Listing from

Amazon.com

Bottom: Listing from

EMC School Store.

Note: Both do not include

the online version of the

book with the hardcover

version

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Readability

I find the book easy to read. The splitting up of units/chapters into smaller sections,

chapters/sections respectively, helps keep similar information together. For example, the

branches of government are all within the Unit, rather than splitting them up. The book is

designed for government students, which in Virginia, is 12th grade. Some of the information and

vocabulary are suitable for these students, but lower grades could understand the concepts as

well. The sections are not too long, lasting only 10 pages, which the chapters being roughly 15-

30 pages long each. At the end of each section, there is a small portion of the map that is devoted

to having questions about the chapter, as well as questions that ask the students to think critically

about the newly learned information from the section. As with most of these high school, and

lower school, textbooks, most of these chapters start off with a basic summary of what the

chapter is going to be about, and then it proceeds to give a large amount of detail behind the idea.

Depending on the subject, some history will be put

behind the information to give some context on why it is

important/used in government. And finally, the book

makes attempts to connect with younger audiences by

showing them something they have either probably seen

before, or know something about. One example has a

picture of a famous comic strip known as Calvin and Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Pg. 70

Hobbes (Barbour & Wright, 2008).

I put the book through some readability tests. To achieve this, I picked three pages out of

random (using a random number generator, provided by Google) that exempted the reference

pages, glossary (both English and Spanish), and the index. Afterwards, I copied an entire pages

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worth of text to the end of the last sentence and tested all three pages together. The scores that I

retrieved from readabilityformulas.com showed information that I agreed with for the most part.

The consensus of all the tests that the texts were put through showed that was difficult to read,

for grade 10 and above, and lastly for readers aged 14 or 15 and above. Now I agree that the

readability level for this book is lower than 12th grade, but I doubt that this book is hard to read.

It could be a malfunction in the program, but there are hardly any words (that I saw) that could

be considered hard for a 12th grader, or even a 10th grader at that, to read, as they would have

already been exposed to many of these words through previous history and civics classes they

had taken in the past.

Content

The textbook is consistent in what the SOLs require in Virginia. The Virginia SOLs line

up nicely with the book. There are some SOLs that do not line up with book however, as a

mention of Karl Marx as SOL standard

GOVT.14b mentions. Every chapter has

new vocab words that are used efficiently.

They are first listed at the beginning of

the chapter in a list format. Once the word

Excerpt of a section preview from the textbook.
Pg. 141
is used in the material, it is then promptly

defined as to not confuse the student. This section at the beginning of the sections also have other

information that does not only pertain to the vocabulary as well. There is a main idea, in which

the chapter is first summarized in a short paragraph. And last, but not least, part of the section at

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American Government: Citizenship and Power Textbook Review Assessment

the beginning, includes guiding questions to help the student think about the material they are

about to learn.

The chapters all relate to one another. With the beginning chapters focusing a lot on

building foundation on what the US government is, and with later chapters building on that

information. For example, the beginning of the book has the foundations of the government, and

where the principals come from. The book gets into specifics as well, such as why certain

Amendments and Acts were passed. The book can give proper broad overviews of the

government, as well as effectively go into detail enough that a twelfth-grade student would

hopefully have no trouble understanding the material presented to them.

Format

As stated in previous paragraphs, the book is divided throughout based

on Units (which are the largest sections), which are then divided into smaller

chapters, which are then divided further into smaller sections. Each chapter

within the book is lined up very similarly, with a beginning summary is shown

at the beginning, basically explaining what will be shown in the chapter, which

then goes into detail further about the subject.

The pages themselves have hardly any wasted space. The publisher

seems like they wanted to get the most out of the paper they were using and

tried to fill up as much of the page as they could. Not to say that there is just

blocks of text everywhere, or that every corner of every page has a picture How units are
broken up. Pg. vi
though. There seems to be a nice balance of text to pages, as there is either a

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picture, or figure, on every page. The captions underneath the pictures are all generally good.

They describe the picture adequately enough to where the student could make out what it is

trying to convey. The only problem I have seen in the book however, is when the book, for

example, shows a random picture of Congress members, when talking about something else

entirely. Sometimes it seems like the publisher just put pictures in places, to fill up white space.

This doesnt happen often, but I noticed it once or twice.

Utility

The activities within the chapters are

mostly good. They are very consistent that at the

end of the chapters have questions first, and then a

set of questions that require the student to think

An excerpt of a section assessment.
critically. There are also questions within the
Pg 139
supplemental reading that is between chapters. For

example, on page 145, has an excerpt from the court case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris from 2002.

At the end of the excerpt and significance of it, there just a few extra questions about the material

that was just read.

Now unfortunately, my textbook did not come with a teachers manual, and it is not a

teachers version. There is however, an option to purchase the teachers manual in the EMC

Store website. The only form of assessment in the book is the short questions at the end of the

sections. There is other supplemental reading that is available to purchase from the EMC Store

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that has extra readings and practice however. There is also an online version that almost certainly

will have clickable links to learn more about any certain subject in the book.

Style

The reading has a lot of information that would be fantastic for a student that is interested

in government. However, if a student was not interested in the subject, they would be turned off

quickly. There is a lot of information packed into the chapters that go on for a few pages. What is

worse, is that there are hardly any break ups in the information. There are plenty of graphics, but

most, if not all, are related to government. The book is also decently thick and moderately heavy.

If the students have other large textbooks, such as English textbooks, this could be a strain on the

students back.

The information within the book however, is very appropriate for the learning levels of

most twelfth-grade students. As stated in the readability section, the suggested reading level is

intended for tenth grade students. The reading is sometimes dense, but is comprehendible by

the seniors in high school. The authors keep their own political agenda outside of the book. Even

controversial presidents are fairly represented by the book, focusing on their achievements,

rather than their faults. I find this very important in a government textbook, because the way a

textbook handles information, could be used to sway people in their political spectrum.

Strengths

The biggest strength for the book, is the depth of the information. There are broad

overviews of the sections near the beginning, as well as the conclusion of the section. However,

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American Government: Citizenship and Power Textbook Review Assessment

within the sections themselves, they go into great detail about the information. For example, the

chapter that deals with the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, the chapter begins with the Bill of

Rights being the first 10 Amendments, the rest of the chapter goes into why each and every

amendment was added.

Another strength that this book has, is the extra reading that is between the chapters.

Normally after each section there is an excerpt of a famous court case, or something that was

happening recently in government. The given context for each excerpt mentions something from

the section/chapter that was just finished. This helps put the newly learned concept/explanation

of the Constitution into a more modern context, rather than just on some document from 150

years ago.

The last-mentioned strength of this book, is that it the critical thinking questions really

make the students think about the content. The questions are meant to get the student thinking

critically, and I think they accomplish this goal. While some are better than others, and some are

seemly to be fodder for taking up white space, I think a majority of them accomplish what they

set out to do, however.

Weaknesses

The biggest weakness that I see in the textbook, is the fact that every chapters ending

questions follow the same formula. Four or five questions, and then two questions that get the

students to think critically. Now while I generally like the questions that are listed (which is why

I listed them as a strength), I would have liked to have seen more variety to the types of

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questions asked. Im almost positive that the supplemented material would have had more

activities for the students, but I have no way to verify that as I do not have it available.

Another weakness this book has, is the size of the book. I said above, but I believe this

book to be a bit heavy and large. I feel this could be off putting to many students, as the size is

somewhat intimidating at a first glance. There is also a lot of text, which could potentially scare

off a reader that may be at a lower reading level, or have a mental condition, such as dyslexia.

The text spacing is decently close, but I feel that most students would be fine reading it on their

own, others may need some assistance from a teacher or peer.

The last weakness that I can see with this textbook, is the reference section. I find it a bit

small compared to what is in the book as whole. In the reference section, there are some

important documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but some

other documents that are important to the founding of the country, such as John Locke and

Thomas Paines writings. There are other important documents in Americas history, and it

would be interesting for the textbook to include more.

Pedagogical Choices

Normally I think this book would be a good choice for instructing a twelfth-grade

government class. The only part that I wouldnt use it for, would be following the SOLs. The

SOLs do not follow the book precisely. This could be because it was written for multiple states,

rather than just Virginia. Overall, I think the book is effective in teaching government however.

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 References:

Alvermann, D. E., Phelps, S. F., & Gillis, V. R. (2010). Content area reading and

literacy: Succeeding in todays diverse classrooms (6th ed.). New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Barbour, C., & Wright, G. C. (2008). American government: citizenship and power. St.

Paul, MN: EMC Publishing.

Fry, E. (2002). Readability versus leveling. The Reading Teacher, 56(3), 286-291.

Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205195

Klare, G. R. (1974). Assessing readability. Reading Research Quarterly, 10(1), 62-102.

doi:10.2307/747086

Marshall, N. (1979). Readability and comprehensibility. Journal of Reading, 22(6), 542-

544. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40031570

McConnell, C. (1983). Readability: Blind faith in numbers? The Journal of Economic

Education, 14(1), 65-71. doi:10.2307/1182676

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