Literature Across Cultures: Minkler Week 5

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Minkler Week 5

This article showed me how you, as an educator, can affect students’ perspectives and make them more well-rounded individuals by reading and introducing multicultural texts in the classroom (Ezell & Daly, 2022). By reading these books and starting discussions based on the window, mirror, sliding glass door method, students have a chance to share their voice and connect with other people who are different from them. Everyone wants to feel like they’re being heard, and it is important that students are given the platform to do so. If they practice using their voice and celebrating diversity at a young age, they will only grow to do so when they are adults. Our students are the future of our country, and it is beneficial, as educators, to prepare them for that. We want them to lead our society in the best way possible, and this starts in the classroom.

While we practice this in the classroom, it is important to know that voices should also be heard in individual families, in the community, etc. Children should also be taught to use their voice, because what they say matters! Everyone has a need to be heard, and it is the parents’ and teachers’ responsibility to show children that they can stand up for themselves and others. Teaching children how to properly stand up for themselves and use their voices can bring these needs, expectations, and responsibilities together.

Ezell, S. & Daly, A. (2022). Honoring multiple identities using multicultural literature. Texas

Association for Literacy Education Yearbook, 9(2).

https://moodle.morningside.edu/pluginfile.php/1431504/mod_resource/content/1/Ezell

%20and%20Daly%20Honoring%20Multiple%20Identities%20Using%20Multicultural%20Li

terature.pdf

2 comments:

Brenna LJuly 1, 2024 at 12:05 PM
Kaetlyn,
I like that you mentioned celebrating diversity at a young age. Children are moldable and are better able to learn from a young age. Therefore, this is why I also believe teaching students to celebrate diversity at a young age will help us identify and rid of stereotypes as children grow and have the desire to learn about other cultures and races than their own. As a third grade teacher, this really speaks to me, since I am teaching young children, typically around eight and nine years old. I also like how you mentioned that there is a proper way students need to be taught to stand up for themselves, otherwise it can come off harsh and rude.
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Camryn CoryJuly 1, 2024 at 12:42 PM
Hi Kaetlyn!

I love what you said about teaching students that speaking up is not just for the classroom, but everywhere they go! Helping our students apply what we learn in the classroom to other areas is the exact reason we do what we do. The more students can do this, the better!
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Post Week 4: Pre- and Post-Conceptual Perspectives

Some thoughts to help you brainstorm your post: Nineteenth-century travel writing caused those who read about other cultures to formulate their ideas about those cultures directly from the writing, so much so that if a person chose to travel to a country he or she had read about prior to travel, the traveller was often disappointed in the actual country and culture. In our current technological existence, our ideas of what places and people are like can certainly be informed by how they are depicted in text and on the multitude of screens we use to interface with the world. What informs your perspective? How might the ways in which we experience people, ideas, issues, cultures, and so on, be impacted by how we learn of them? Are the benefits and drawbacks to the use of the technology available to us? What might some of those be, and why?

Your post is due Thursday at 8 pm.

Responses should be posted by Sunday at 10 pm.

Post Week 2: The Way to Rainy Mountain

The critical text which accompanies your primary reading for the week explores ways in which we as teachers might use other cultures' literatures in our classrooms to move students from superficial, stereotyped perspectives to a fuller understanding of not only individuals from other cultures, but themselves, too. In your blog post, share with your colleagues how you might incorporate ideas from the article in your own teaching.

Your post is due Thursday at 8 pm.

Your responses are due Sunday at 10 pm.

Post Week 1: Questions on Reading

You've been asked to post a question on the readings as your blog post. Here are some ideas to help you get started: You may have noted the publication dates of the readings and wondered why you're reading articles written in 2005. The reason is that the issues raised and discussion in each of the articles are applicable 16 years later. Do you agree? Disagree? Both? Explain why and pose a question to help your reader understand what you find to be the same or different. Or, if one of the two of the readings stands out to you, explain why that’s the case, but also post a question based on what stands out. Or, if something is confusing or problematic for you, what do you find confusing or problematic? With what do you agree or disagree? Be sure your question is open ended so that your colleagues can use it as a basis for discussion.

As you frame your question, be sure to summarize the article, then provide context for your question. Cite the text appropriately.

Questions to be posted by Thursday.

Responses (to at least two colleagues) to be posted Sunday.

Week 5: Toward a Social Justice Ethic: What is an American, Anyway?

How do the issues examined in the article affect you as a teacher and as a person living in today’s world? What is the importance of having a voice? Of being heard? Are there differences in your response based on the role(s) you inhabit? Teacher, parent, individual community member, brother, sister, child, global citizen, and more—we inhabit many subject positions. Are there ways to bring those needs/expectations/responsibilities together?

Posts are due by 8 pm Thursday.

There is no set number of required colleague responses this week, but you are expected to read all posts and to respond as class discussion.

Post Week 6: Article Summaries and Commentary

In this week's reading, you met a narrator who draws the reading into a short story with a decidedly hushed, slower tone. The couple introduced to us has experienced an unimaginable loss. How might that loss be affected by their cultural dislocation? Draw on the supplemental readings as you consider the question.

Your post is due Thursday at 8 pm. As was the case last week, there is not a set number of responses, but you are expected to demonstrate through responding that you have read and engaged with all class posts.