Final Post

Over this semester my thinking on diverse and multicultural literature has changed a lot. At the beginning of the semester I wasn’t sure what qualified as multicultural literature. In addition, the main thing that I was ignorant about was how crucial it is to evaluate the piece of literature to see if it is quality and avoids stereotypes. I think that before I foolishly thought that the majority of literature was ok to use. Looking at a lot of literature now, I realize that I need to do my research as to if it is truly quality. I am now much more aware of what qualifies as a quality piece of multicultural literature. In addition, I have learned what characteristics to look for in texts. For example, I now consider the author and analysis what perspective they might be taking. When thinking about authorship I consider whether they are an insider or an outsider to the perspective that they are writing about. I have come to the conclusion that a lot of the times either being an insider or someone who has had close contact with that group, often leads to authentic literature. However, I still think that you have to be careful because there still could be inaccuracies in an insider’s literature.

Another aspect of trying to find quality literature that I have enjoyed is learning all the different ways to find multicultural literature. For our final project, I learned just how hard it is to find the literature that you are looking for sometimes. I have found that librarians can often be helpful. In addition, I have learned when using the library’s catalog it is the most useful to search under many different names and titles of whatever category you are looking for before you give up your search, because often times you will find what you are looking for. I also enjoyed learning about all the different awards. I feel that this is a great way to select multicultural books. Also, learning about Amazon and how to learn about and find different multicultural book has been very helpful. I also look at the books that Amazon recommends. Multicultural literature is often in short supply therefore, learning all these different way to select and find literature to evaluate was a great tool to learn this semester.

In the future, I look forward to continuing my search for quality multicultural literature. I will continue to try to find quality and recently published books that I can use in my classroom. I will continue to evaluate each piece of literature to check for its inaccuracies. In addition, I would like to use the tools that I have learned and teach them to my students so that they can also find quality multicultural literature. I think that teaching my own students would be a great tool for them to have to learn how to evaluate a piece of literature. I have had a great semester, and I am fortunate for all I have learned this semester.

Questions I still have:

-how many inaccuracies or stereotypes in a book make it non quality?

-If a book is offensive to some and not to others, how do you decide if it should go in your classroom?

Article Review on Harvesting Hope

Pavonetti, Linda. "Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez." Language Arts 82(2005).

"Truth, it is said, has a way of overcoming injustice far better than violence." (Pavonetti).

This quote, taken from the article, truly encompasses what Cesar Chavez stood for. Cesar lived his life in a way that demanded truth and justice for everyone just as Harvesting Hope shows. Pavonetti's quote and review of Harvesting Hope truly shows the importance of this text and how influential Chavez was. As Pavonetti points out this book highlights how, "he organized a revolt of migrant farm workers and led a 300-mile protest march of ten thousand people to the California state capital, culminating in the signing of the first contract for farm workers in the United States" which truly shows how his life fits the quote stated above. Chavez demanded justice but demanded it without violence but rather by spreading the truth. Therefore, it is evident why Chavez should be considered a hero for his work. The last part of this article that I thought was powerful was when Pavonetti stated "Cesar Chavez embraced nonviolence and used his imagination to find ways to overcome powerlessness." Pavonetti shows through her review why Chavez should be commended for his work. He shows how through speaking truth, joining a community together, and being creative a group can fight powerlessness and demand justice.

In His Own Words: Cesar Chavez

When reading Cesar: Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand there were quotes in the back of the book that truly touched me. I wanted to share one of the quotes with everyone and I would love to hear your responses of it.

"All around us were those who said that it could never be done. Everywhere people said that the growers were too strong for us, that the police would be against us, that the courts would beat us down, and that sooner or later we would fall back into the poverty of our forefathers. But we fooled them. We fooled them because our common suffering and our love for each other and our families kept us together sacrificing and fighting for the better tomorrow..." Speech in Coachella, 1973. Jensen and Hammerback, The words of Cesar Chavez, p. 78.

This quote really inspired me when reading. I feel that through life we are all told that we can't do certain things. Therefore, this quote was really hit me. The part that I really liked about this poem is the fact that part of what held them together was their love for each other and their families. This quote encouraged me to lean on my family more, and I am realizing now that if we get together and work together we can start to make a difference.

Reasons for Choosing Latino Literature

I am planning to move to an area where the Latino/Latina population is very high. Therefore, choosing this group was of interest to me. I was excited that I was able to find a good selection of texts to choose from. However, I was a little disappointed that many of them focused on Cesar Chavez which is wonderful however, there weren't as many pieces of Latino literature as I was hoping that focused on other Latinos besides Cesar Chavez. However, the books that I did find were terrific. I am looking forward to using these texts in the future in my classroom to use for a venue for my students. This is important for me because I am a firm believer that books are a great mirror for students to see themselves which will allow them to connect to literature. I thought that below I would post a list of all the literature that I found, and that I enjoyed so that if you would like any Latino/Latina literature you can look for these sources.

• Quinito's Neighborhood El Vecindario de Quinito by Ina Cumpiano
• Wachale! Poetry and Prose about Growing Up Latino in America edited by Ilan Stavans
• Learning About Justice From the Life of Cesar Chavez by Jeanne Strazzabosco
• Jaime Escalante: Inspiring Educator by Maritza Romero
• Cesar: Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
• My Colors, My World Mis Colores, Mi Mundo by Maya Christina Gonzalez
• Cesar Chavez by Consuelo Rodriguez
  

I would encourage everyone to begin to stock their own personal libraries for their classroom. TE 448 has given me the resources and the knowledge to begin to look for quality pieces of literature that highlight multiculturalism, and I can't wait to begin to purchase some of these texts.

Learning About Justice From the Life of Cesar Chavez

Strazzabosco, Jeanne. Learning About Justice From the Life of Cesar Chavez. New York, PowerKids Press, 1996.

This text highlights the life story of Cesar Chavez with the focus on justice and fighting for what is right. The book highlights the main events in Chavez's life such as:

• Working on the farm
• Losing the Farm
• Life as a migrant Worker
• Farmers' Fears
• School
• Cesar as Teacher
• The CSO (Community Service Organization)
  
• The UFW (United Farm Workers)
  
• Striking for Justice
• Justice for Farmworkers
  

This text has real pictures that show and highlight these main events. There are many pictures of Chavez at different stages and times in his life. There are also highlighted words that can be found in the glossary that are main keywords of the text such as: boycott, cheat, migrant, national, prejudice, and union.

Cesar: Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can!

Bernier-Grand, Carmen. Cesar: Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Can! New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2004.

This text follows the life of Cesar Chavez through many quality pieces of poetry. This text is a great way of sharing and learning about Cesar Chavez while also introducing poetry. Some of the core values that the book highlights include:

• service to others
• sacrifice
• a preference to help the most needy
• determination
• non-violence
• acceptance of all people
• respect for life and environment
• community
• knowledge
• innovation

In addition, in the back of the book there is a chronology of all the important events in Cesar Chavez's life. The glossary helps the reader follow Chavez's life at a quick glance. Also, there are web sites that the reader can go to for more information. A glossary, also helps the reader learn words in Spanish.

There are some quotes in the back of the book directly from Chavez. Below I will share one inspiring quote with you...
"Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You can not uneducated the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore" UFW's seventh constitutional convention, sept. 1984

Jaime Escalante: Inspiring Educator

Romero, Maritza. Jamie Escalante: Inspiring Educator New York: PowerKids Press, 1997.

This text highlights the life of educator Jaime Escalante who is titled as one of the great Hispanics of our time. Jaime was a good student who loved to learn new things. This text tells the story how he earned money for his family by teaching. He taught high school math and physics. He moved from Bolivia to the United States for better pay. This man had many jobs, went to school, and was a hard worker.

There was a movie called Stand and Deliver made in 1988 based off of Jamie's life. It focused on the way that Jaime inspired students to learn calculus. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush have praised Jaime for his accomplishments and achievements. This book encourages students to gain ganas or "having desire".

This text has real pictures of Jamie Escalante throughout the text. There is even a picture of Edward James Olmos who played Jamie in the movie mentioned above, Stand and Deliver.

Harvesting Hope

Krull, Kathleen. Harvesting Hope. San Diego: Harcourt,
Inc., 2007.


Harvesting Hope is a Pura Belpre Honor Book celebrating the life a civil rights leader, Cesar Chavez. This text travels through Chavez's life starting from when he was a young boy. He grew up on a ranch having summer night fiestas however, hardship soon arose when they lost the ranch. His family then moved to a battered shed in California picking whatever fruits and vegetables were in season. The text shows how strong Chavez was and highlights him as a fierce worker. This text shows how Chavez started the movement to fight for a change, for justice. He led this group with non violent movements such as marches which ended in the the authority of the National Farm Workers Association promising a contract with a pay raise and better conditions for farm workers.
The book ends with an author's note highlighting all the major events of Cesar Chavez.
This book is an uplifting book and encourages others to speak up for what they believe is right and to demand for justice!

My Colors, My World/ Mis Colores, Mi Mundo

Gonzalez, Maya. My Colors, My World/ Mis Colores, Mi Mundo San Francisco: Children's Book Press, 2007.

My Colors, My World/ Mis Colores, Mi Mundo is the story of a girl named Maya in her search to find colors in the world around her. Maya takes you through her world as she searches and finds colors everywhere. For example, she finds a green cactus that is next to her house and went swinging on her red swing. Through Maya the reader is taken on a search of vibrant colors and challenges the reader to see what colors surround them.
The main themes of this book focus on learning bilingual colors and appreciating the world around you. This book encourages readers to look around and see what beautiful colors you can find. The author in the back of the book encourages read to look inside as well as outside for beauty and vibrant colors. Maya wrote and illustrated this text displaying her use of colors to display the beautiful world as she sees it.

Maya Gonzalez set this book up using half Spanish and half English. The text is written in English on one page and the following page is in Spanish. The focus of this text is on the colors. The colors are highlighted and colored in the text for both English and Spanish. This allows the reader to easily see the English word for a color and the Spanish word. In addition, there is a bilingual color glossary in the back of the text.

Confessions of a Closet Catholic

Reading Confessions of a Closet Catholic by Sarah Darer Littman was a breath of fresh air for me. I have never read a book about religion that follows a young adults religious exploration. I thought that this book did a great job of showing the religious exploration while at the same time highlighting two different religions. I wanted to search more on this book so I researched some interviews with Sarah Littman. Littman credits her work as a columnist for why her comedic writing is so strong, because it forced her to hone in on her writing skills and helped her self editing processes.
I really enjoyed reading her advice for writers. Her first piece of advice was for them to read, read, and read. She said they should surround themselves with all different forums and kinds of writing. She also things that you should constantly write. Littman's thinking is that you should write even if you aren't inspired, because the more you write the better you will become. In addition, Littman talks about the importance of revising. Littman says that she speaks at schools and shows them part of the revising practices that she went through when writing Confessions of a Closet Catholic. I think its great that Littman is so committed to reaching out to students by not only providing them with quality literature, but in addition she shares with them the knowledge that she has gained on what it takes to become a quality writer.
The website below is great for anyone interested in learning more about Sarah Littman or thinking about using this book in a classroom. This website gives a list of ideas for a discussion about this book. The discussion questions would be great for starting a discussion on the many themes of this book such as faith or friendship. Have fun looking at this website, and using it as a resource in the future. Enjoy!
http://www.tracievaughnzimmer.com/Confessions%20of%20a%20Closet%20catholic.htm

Personal Philosophy

I am a Special Education/English Major. Therefore, quality literature is very important to me and vital to my teaching. Part of what makes quality literature is having pieces that each child can personally connect to in some way. Therefore, having diverse literature is a necessity in order for children to feel comfortable and find a place where they belong. Multicultural literature also supports diversity and allows children of other ethnicities, social classes, or sexual orientations to gain insight and appreciation for those who are different than them. Therefore, this class is an amazing venue in order for me to find pieces of literature that are quality and multicultural, and teaches me the tools to find and evaluate the books myself.

Issues of diversity play a huge role in literacy teaching and learning. To begin with most classrooms are composed of a very diverse group of students. Therefore, to not address and discuss these differences would be doing the students in the classroom a disservice. When thinking of literacy, using literature is a wonderful venture for students to learn and discuss diversity.

My personal philosophy about multicultural education is that it allows for all groups of students to achieve equal education and to learn to work together as a whole. Multiculturalism is equality among racial, ethnic, social-class, sexual, and cultural groups. It teaches students acceptance of all students. Literature allows students to learn about these groups and connect with groups that are different.

When thinking about how to include this into my classroom what interests me is to learn what other ways besides literature I could teach and encourage this philosophy. In addition, I would like to learn what things that I could do or teach to combat the negative images and thoughts that students might have against groups that are different from themselves.

Connections

I am currently taking Eng. 349 which is an African American Literature class. Last Wednesday both my Eng. 349 class and my TE 448 classes tied in well together. Martins article titled "Ain't I fine" referenced one of the books that I am reading for my Eng. 349 class. This topic that I have been studying, looking at, and reading about is how black writers had to include a white persons written "statement of authentication" at the beginning of their writing in order to appeal to more people and have a broader audience. The book that Martin refers to is Incidents in the Like of a Slave Girl where Harriet Jacobs included a "statement of authentication" at the beginning of her book so that her Northern white audience would read and take her work seriously. Therefore, black writers had to censor their work, because they didn't want to offend their white reader, however still wanting to preserve black culture. After learning this from our reading and our lectures in Eng. 349 I was amazed to read that this same thing is happening in some black children's picture books.
Martin explains how "the same dual audience awareness exists in some black children's picture books, and I believe this to be true only of those books written by black children's authors." I think its crazy how even in more recent times black authors had to face this idea of dual audience awareness. One way that black authors speak directly to their black readers is through using black modes of discourse within children's narratives (Martin). By using this tactic black author are able to sometimes go over the heads of white and children readers.
If anyone has anything to add or comments to make about this subject I would love to hear more!

Blogging

There are many things that I find valuable about blogging. The first is that I am able to share my thoughts about class with my classmates in an informal way. Being able to post a response rather than turning in a paper is nice. Another positive thing is that it doesn't limit your responses and things that you write about. The venue is more open so that as a student I can write about what comes to mind.
In the future I would possibly like to use this venue in my classroom. I think that the openness of it will allow students the freedom to write about what they would like. I also like the thought of using technology in the classroom that the students are probably already familiar and comfortable with. Another idea that I had was to use blogs as a classroom newsletter. If you were teaching in a area where parents had computers you could blog about a student or your classrooms progress. This would allow the parents to easily see what is happening in the classroom.
I am also moving to California and getting married soon. I could use a blog as a way to communicate with my family and friends. It would allow me to update with numerous people at once instead of individual emails. I have enjoyed getting to use and learn about blogging and look forward to using it more in the future.

Insider/Outsider Debate

When thinking about the insider/outsider debate, I do not believe that it is an either/or debate. I do agree with Bishop when he said that "you have to know a culture intimately if you're going to reflect it accurately in your fictions." This quote simply sums up how I feel about this issue. I believe that quality and authentic children's literature should not be limited to only authors who are considered insiders, and by insiders I mean someone who is of the same ethnicity, race, sex, or gender. Therefore, the one quality that I think should be the determining factor should be if the author has spent quality time researching, spending time, and accurately represents the group that they are writing about.
Bishop says "to exclude the literature of any group from the body of multicultural literature is to distort the literal meaning of the term". Therefore, I believe that the same holds true for the authors of this literature. I don't believe that its accurate to say that only genuine and authentic literature comes from an insider. As I stated earlier the only true determining factor for authors of genuine multicultural literature is that they know a culture intimately. However, in closing I will add that, I do think its fair to say that often times people who often know a culture intimately are often people who are an insider.

Mascot Movie

Watching the movie in class was extremely touching and some of the images have stuck in my mind over the past 4 days since class. The images that I keep seeing were in the part of the movie where the guy danced around the gym in the headdress and when the woman was crying recalling her memories of when she took her children to a game. Seeing how hurt this lady and her children are over the this mascot was heartbreaking to me. The most heartbreaking and eyeopening part for me is that I have been ignorant to even know that this could have been offensive to Native Americans. The part that was the most upsetting to me was the part when the Native American woman was protesting/yelling at the mascot outside. The mascot got right in her face and was yelling. The upsetting part is that these people refused to changed their mascot even after knowing that it was offensive and hurtful to a certain group of people. I can understand that the initial creation of the mascot might not have been made with the intent to hurt others, however no matter what their intent was, the bottom line is that it is still harming others.

I had an experience in my Eng. 310E class which I could easily relate to this movie. We are talking and focusing on African Americans and media. Last class we watched a movie called Bamboozled, by Spike Lee. In this movie the main character is black and his boss is white. His boss was freely using the "N" word around him, and he politely asked his boss to never use that word in his presence. His boss proceeded to tell him that it was ok for him to use this word because he is "just as black as him maybe even more black" because he had a black wife and black athletes posters around his office. The point that struck me at this point in the movie is that fact that instead of the boss apologizing to his employee and telling him he didn't mean to offend him, he justifies his reasoning for saying the "N" word and continues to use it.

The lesson that I learned from both of these experiences is that as teachers and even as human beings we need to not only be very cautious about the things that we say and do, but also we need to be aware of how other people are perceiving the things that we do or say. Just because we are doing something that we don't intend to be hurtful, doesn't give us the right to continue to do something if we know that the outcome is not taken in the same way that we intended them to perceive it.

Let me introduce myself

My name is Kelly Mason. I am currently a senior at Michigan State University and I am studying Special Education, Leaning Disabilities. I love working with students and their energy for life that they often show. I currently work at a daycare, babysit, and volunteer.

Diverse Literature is important to me for many reasons. However, the most important reason for me is because it gives students from all different cultures and backgrounds a chance to see a reflection of themselves. It allows all students to be able to connect on a personal level with literature.
Some questions that I have and would like to explore this semester include:

1. What are exceptional books to include in my diverse library?
2. What books (or what qualities in books) if any should I not include in my diverse library?
3. What are politically correct terms that should be used? Which shouldn't be used?