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.