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The efforts of a pair of curriculum developers to conduct "formative" and "summative" evaluation of an experimental civics course are described here, along with some of the consequences of their efforts, and a few of the pitfalls they encountered. Formative evaluation refers to those practices that produce data enabling developers to improve their products during the development stage. Summative evaluation refers to an over-all final evaluation of the product with the purpose of producing information useful to the ultimate consumers. Formative evaluation procedures described include pre- and posttesting of student political attitudes, objective testing of performance, open-ended teacher questionnaires, criticism of the course by outside readers, teacher de-briefing sessions, teaching one class by course developers, and site visits to pilot classes. Three instruments were constructed to provide a summative evaluation of the course: a political knowledge test, a political science skills test, and an attitude test. The report describes the plans for administering these tests as well as plans for evaluating the trained versus the untrained teachers and checking teacher and student response to the proposed instructional materials. (JY)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert