Beckman - Week 2

As I was reading From Borders to Bridges: Making Cross Cultural Connections through Multicultural Literature, by Ruth McKoy Lowery and Donna Sabis-Burns, I found myself agreeing with a lot that was said. When I was in my teacher preparation program, we heard a lot about how diverse schools are becoming while the profession of teaching itself is not so diverse. As stated in the text, “While the student population is dramatically changing, the racial makeup of teachers remains overwhelming White, female, and middle and upper middle class (Chevalier & Houser, 1997; Johnson, 2002). With this astounding projection, it is important that schools’ curricula reflect this changing culturally diverse student body” (Lowery & Sabis-Burns, 2007, 50). This quote to me just shows why multicultural literacy is important in the classroom.

When I think of ways I can use this in my classroom, I am thinking about how this could align with the new curriculum my school has picked. I said in another blog post that our first unit for the year is about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and reading Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang. Starting the year off with a book that is about a culture that isn’t the dominant culture at my school is a good learning opportunity for students to understand different perspectives people have. This aligns with what Lowery an Sabis-Burns wrote, “Multicultural literature is a powerful medium that can help students to construct varying perspectives about their cultures and roles in society, as well as provide opportunities for understanding other cultural surroundings, insights, traditions and beliefs of others (Hefflin & BarksdaleLadd, 2001; Yokota, 1993).” (Lowery & Sabis-Burns, 2007, 50). As far as an activity that would go with this, I think it might be interesting for students to think about what they would do in the situations that Ji-li dealt with as a child. It would be interesting to talk about how their perspectives are different, and why they think they would do something similar or different to what Ji-li did. I also think it is important for students to understand the history behind the cultural revolution and how things that happen in parts of the world that seem far away still have an impact on the global community. 

The article also discussed using literature circles to learn about your own culture or a culture different from your own. I think this is a great idea. I think it would be interesting for students to pick a culture different from their own, and read some children’s books and maybe a chapter book about that culture and talk about it in groups with people who read the same stories, but even discuss with groups who read about a different culture. I also liked the idea from the article about bringing in guest speakers, showing pictures, or doing webquests.

I think the biggest takeaway for teachers should be that multicultural literacy is not a month to month or one and done thing. You shouldn’t only talk about Black or African American writers during February. Thanksgiving is not the only time to talk about indigenous peoples. Don’t subject a culture or ethnicity group to a month and then be done and say you did your job teaching students about different cultures.

Lowrey, R. M., & Sabis-Burns, D. (n.d.). From borders to bridges: Making cross-cultural connections through multicultural literature. In Multicultural Education.