Monster

Ok, so now that I am really interested in YA lit, I am reading Monster which I am half done with thus far. It is interesting how the author has chosen to tell the story. Using the conventions of a screenplay not only shows the reader how this meduim can be used effectively to convey a story outside of movie making and stage show production but also gives us further insight into the main character who is "writting" his story in this fashion. Could a boy who can write a screenplay about the events in his his life really be a "monster?" We shall see...

Non conclusive Conclusion

Overall I found this exercise and intro into blogging and using RSS Feeds very useful for my own study and research and I see the validity in using this medium in my own classrooms in the future. I know that complaining about the number of feeds and info. about my topic will not solve anything so I am going to keep this blog alive long after the requirements of this class in order to give other teachers and parents and more especially students a place to come to find good and useful information on mulitcultural literature and its uses in the cannons of English and Language Arts classrooms.
Therefore, this is not a conclusion for me at all. I will continue to update this blog to help as many as I can and as I find useful info I will pass it on to whomever wants or needs it.

One word of advice. Do not look to the news media in America to spend much time talking about educating minorities in America. This will be a waste of time. As I have found the mainstream media does not concern itself with assisting teachers with information about educating those that need it most in our country. This is very sad but it is our reality at this moment and everyone that is interested in teaching ALL of their students will need this information so that they don't, in their own classrooms, Leave Any Child Behind.

I shall continue. Thank you for the opportunity and the exposure, see ya on the flip side.

Blogging as a Teaching Tool

While today children are using lots of spaces to talk about anything that comes to mind I think that the sort of blogging that is being done in schools is different and highly beneficial. Let's call this second type "Educational Blogging" since the subject matter is usually focused on the lessons being discussed in the classroom. This type allows students to get away from just writing "boring" papers and really allows them to engage with the material that is being studied and an immediate reaction can be given.
In English classes the added use of RSS News feeds can be a valuable research tool that can broaden the perspective of the young Secondary school learners. This way of researching the web can eliminate some of the problems we have in deciphering the good info from the bad and can be a source of "new" info. on all subjects and can be used in all classrooms. This can be a way also to tackle some of the more controversial issues. With harder evidence and up to the minute news and other comments when using Blog Searches.
There are three hurdles here that I have found so far. One is that when a blog has a topic that may be too specific that the news media is not covering it at the moment and can leave the researcher wanting in good, and new information. Secondly, for the teacher attempting to use this technology the concern should be is adequate time being given to students to who may have none, or limited access to the web at home and may need time during school hours to adaquately search and react to the results. Lastly, I don't think that there should be a "number" of blogs required. This should be eliminated or so low that no matter how specific or general the topic that the student can meet the required posts and that the content should be what is important. Not meeting a minimum number to BS through.
All in all, this should become a highly used tool and can be yet another way for students to react and to interact with the information being taught in their secondary classrooms.

Native American (Indian) Lit.

MEET JOSEPH BRUCHAC
Q: What do you suggest teachers look for when selecting Native American literature?
A: Seek out books that depict characters from a well-defined individual native nation-as opposed to generic Indians. I say this because there are popular books that were written without understanding these specific differences. For example, in Annie and the Old One by Miska Miles — which is a story of a little girl dealing with the death of her grandmother — descriptions and illustrations are totally incorrect for the Navajo culture. And no one in any Native American culture would call his or her grandmother "old one." Books like this are insensitive due to ignorance, not through intention –– but it hurts just as much.
(http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/multicultural.htm#bruchac)


Ok, here is part 2 from the Scholastic website now we can take a look at Native American Lit. Joseph Bruchac is a writer of children's lit and his insights on the subject may be helpful to understanding what we should and should not look for in literature relating to Native Americans. Joseph Bruchac gives the following tips:


Make available books that reveal today's Native American cultures.
Be prepared to talk about the ways in which Native American cultures have influenced world culture.
Talk about values Native American cultures share, such as respect, sharing, and reverence for living things.
Avoid books that suffer from what Joseph Bruchac refers to as "The Dances with Wolves Syndrome" –– books in which all Indians are noble and all white people are bad. Any children's book that builds up one culture at the expense of another ultimately keeps racial tension alive.

I find that everything Mr. Bruchac states, should be common sense except the last statement. The idea that presenting information in and honest light should be first and foremost on any educator's mind. This idea that multicultural equals lying about one's past to show it in the best light is not helpful at all. While I do agree that this should b ethe domain of the history depts, we know that we as Language Arts teachers will be faced with dealing with history as well and we have to be as complete as we can in our depictions of all ethnic groups and nationalities. In this way we can use the multicultural lit. to foster more open discussions in our classrooms.

Most would say that showing only the positive side of Native Americans lives would be better for our youth so that the negative prejudices promulgated by the media and history books will have a counter. But, here I agree with Mr. Bruchac and I say as well that honesty in talking about people in history is a much better practice.

Attempting to buy Lit for or by Minorities

This post is about trying to find YA Lit for or by Minorities in Schuler's Bookstore. Most times finding books of interest large chain bookstores can be a daunting task but if you are looking for Literature for or by Minorities in the Young Adult section you better know titles and authors because you may not be able to find them. While looking for multicultural texts in relation to young minority adults even after spending over an hour looking though the shelves I grabbed someone to help in my search. Now, I know that the people working in the large chains may not be all that knowledgeable about the books that they are stocking but on this day they weren't any help at all. Except for the cashier that commented, "Yeah, I have a hard time finding them here too." This from an employee!

What I was trying to do is simulate a young person looking for something good to read. I didn't find anything. It could have been that there weren't any multicultural titles that made the cut and were facing the potential buyer with anything but the spine of the book. It could be that Schuler's Books doesn't carry titles pertaining to or relevant to minority readers. It could be that the shelves contain these titles but we as readers need to develope special powers to find them.

Now why is it so hard for a young person to find something to read? Most people would say that they look at the book's front cover, flip it over and read the back cover and decide whether they want to read the unknown book or not. I tried this with a few books and outside of the lucky chance that I might find an author with a Spanish last name, finding books in the YA section for minorities was painful at best.

So what do we do? Do we have to depend on the Anthologies, or the pre-made lists of Multi-cultural lit. in books and websites? Do we have to rely on what the librarians find "good" for our diverse societies' needs?

Finding Lit for Black Folks. (part 1)

Here are some things to:

KEEP IN MIND
African-American experiences are diverse and unique. The black experiences of the South do not necessarily reflect those of the North, nor do inner-city situations parallel rural settings. Make sure your classroom library reflects this diversity, as well as that of blacks living in places such as the Caribbean, Africa, and Great Britain.
Reject books with offensive expressions, negative attitudes, or stereotypes. You'll know them when you see them-trust your instincts.
Don't ignore these books because there are no children of color in your class. Books depicting African-American experiences are valuable for all children.

(from How To Choose The Best Multicultural Books http://classiclit.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=classiclit&cdn=education&tm=750&gps=118_246_786_419&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=0&zu=http%3A//teacher.scholastic.com/lessonrepro/lessonplans/instructor/multicultural.htm)

If we are going to teach literature to Minorities we must find sources in our current, everchanging, body of literature to bring to our classrooms. One site offering insights into what we should and should not choose is the Scholastic website. Above is the link to the complete article found that illustrates some of the choices we must consider for African American students. Let's take a deeper look.

• Relevance - This should be one of the first considerations for any group of students that we are teaching. We should be looking at our entire classroom as diverse and we should not assume that a student that is Black, living in the urban North, will understand the rural south anymore than his white or asian classmate that has little or no experience in this part of the country. Also, we need to consider the times (or setting of our chosen pieces of literature). We must realize that we may have to do some explaining about ideas of overt racism, or ideas about segregation, or marches, or even Jazz. This should be a rich opportunity to bring new ideas to light for your students. On the other hand if we have students that do have first hand knowledge then that should be used to benefit the group's collective learning.
• Global - This area is very interesting because we are being told here that this is important but we don't have this attitude when looking at mainstream English lit in America. We don't take a global view there so why is it important when looking at African American Lit? I think this is a very valid question. The idea contained here is one that is hotly contested even among African American elite. The Black Diaspora, while containing all people in the world with African roots, can be a little ambiguous for American students since we, Americans, do not take a world view yet when educating our children. If this is the case why is it necessary to choose books from all around the Diaspora? While some think that this is important when we look at the issue of relevance for Black students to have a world view and others may find it unecessary for Black students and the rest being American. I find that it is important to take a world view when looking at all literatures. Therefore, this should not be stressed for just our Black Students but this strategy should be employed when choosing literature for all of our students. I think Democracy can handle it.

This is the end of part one check back for part 2.

Digital Divide or Infomercial ?

While we went to hear about Dr. Gates' ideas concerning the digital divide we didn't hear much on the subject. We did hear that while Dr. Gates was working to sell his idea of the Encyclopedia Africana, as envisioned by DuBois in the early 1900's, that Microsoft wanted to do a feasibility study concerning how many African-American households had computers, since the Encyclopedia was going to be produced on CD-rom. We never did find out any real numbers but when Microsoft came back and said that they would produce the work, the assumption was that it was a number that was at least one that met their minimum standard. I would like to know what that number is. I would like to have known more about how the digital divide is getting larger, or smaller in the estimation of Dr. Gates. Well, while I heard a lot about history that I already knew and I got to revisit some topics of interest to me being one who has read DuBois', Carter G. Woodson's, and Booker T. Washington's (required reading at Tuskegee University) as well as many other's works on subjects concerning the American Negro (like there is a negro somewhere else in the world), I was very disappointed.
Therefore here I will take a brief look at the digital divide and its affects on students and communities that are being left behind due to their position in the divide. This is not a new idea and has been of growing concern for years now. Recently, Anita Brown died on Sept 8th and she was one of the countries leaders in the area of bridging the gap. In her obituary it was written about her that:

"Early on, she pushed to connect African Americans in Washington and elsewhere to the Internet through workshops and seminars. One of her first efforts in 1997, "Taking IT to the Streets," attracted more than 200 people and featured a live feed to chat rooms on the Internet."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/19/AR2006091901650.html

I know you have heard of AOL, illustrating that you are not on the side of the digital divide that so many others are, well, Mrs. Brown "designed and managed the help desk for NetNoir on AOL." For more on her and her achievements in trying to bridge the gap click on the link above.

We know that the problem exists, what we as educators have to be even more senisitive to is that our students may have limited or little access to the resources of a pc in the home as well as access and knowledge of the uses of the internet. We have to be ready for this. We also have to be cautious in our assumptions that "they know how to do this stuff," speaking of our students, since they may not know. Personal computers will take a back seat to the other things that a family needs to sustain itself. Also, we must realize that the feelings toward technology and the invasion of "all that information" into our homes does scare some people and the reports on the news about sexual predators and pornography will scare some people into not seeing the need for such an appliance in their homes.

In "Factors of the Divide" by Karin M. Wiburg hits on some of the points that I have already touched on above. The idea that digital equity is something that is the same for everyone is a false one. We must attack the idea of bridging the digital divide by looking not only at the home life of our students and their access to technology but also to our schools systems taking a look at the areas that surround the topic. We must focus on Econimic factors, Language factors, Special Education, Native Communities, our Borders, and Pedagogy. The solution is to take all of the factors and find out from the groups affected by these factors what they need to meet their needs from a technology perspective.

We must understand that the Digital Divide is not only about the "hardware." It is also about access. I may have a pc and may know how to use it for word processing or doing spreadsheets or even how to create a playlist for my iPod. But if I don't have an "internet connection" then I am not privy to the plethora of information contained within the web. Harouna Ba has an interesting article from 2001 that defines what is meant by the term Digital Divide:

To date, the digital divide debate has turned on the concept of access, that is, providing access to those who have no computer or telephone and, thus, cannot enter the Internet realm at school or home. Lack of access to networked technology will result in a substantial segment of society having neither the skills nor the means to participate in the progressively more "knowledge-based" U.S. economy. The concept of "access" encompasses the acquisition of hardware and software as well as complex uses of software for design and production. Between these two extremes, which represent both physical and expressive access, lie other dimensions of access: quality and affordable hardware and software, tools with rich educational content and/or fun activities, and technical and educational support. According to Bruce and Hogan (1998), new tools afford new literacy skills, and various challenges. They also argue that computer technologies are "actors in social systems" that function in a larger social context.

http://www.tcla.gseis.ucla.edu/divide/politics/ba.html

This is what I wanted to hear about from Dr. Gates. I know that Vicodin can be a powerful "non-motivator," but touching on this subject would have taken his history lesson to the next level. In looking at teaching Minorities in America which "white folks" will be one very soon, we must be ever mindful of what our students know and also have access to in order to serve them in the most effective fashion possible. We must be sensitive to their access to books, magazines, newspapers, pc's, and the internet. We must make sure that we as educators provide all of these things to our students. We also, as parents and taxpayers must make this a priority in our city, and state government's agendas. We cannot let our students continue to be denied the digital equity they deserve because of where their house sits.

"I'm not mad. Dogs get mad. I'm angry." (Claire Huxtable - The Cosby Show)

To YA Lit or Not to YA Lit?

Older literary fare has been replaced by "culturally relevant" literature that targets students' ethnic group identification, on the assumption that sharing the lead character's ethnicity will motivate them to read.

There is no evidence that either of these types of reading fare turn boys into lifelong readers and learners.
Exerpt from "Young readers' interest waning"
Published in The Lake County Leader and the Advertiser
By Dennis Anderson
Posted, March 23, 2006
http://www.leaderadvertiser.com/articles/2006/09/20/columns/columns03.txt


So, this is the conclusion from the President of the Mission Valley Friends of the Arts reacting to a study published by the National Endowment for the Arts. Mr. Anderson does note in his article that the disparity between young girls and young boys when it comes to reading is alive and well. He also nots that boys "prefer adventure, war, sports and historical nonfiction, while girls prefer personal relationship and fantasy tales." It seems that that is where teachers should be focusing their lessons for their young adult readers. It would seem at least to me that Mr. Anderson's view that the problem of disinterest by young adult readers is the K-12 curriculum is unfortunate. I think he is missing the point. Educators need to look at the stats and research and find ways to fix the problem in front of them. They need to find ways to bring the materials into the classroom that will interest our young readers.
As for the idea that culturally relevant literature and ethnic group identification don't work to motivate readers is just not true. The purpose of Young Adult literature is to have a protagonists that the reader will associate with. If the reader is a young Chinese-American girl shouldn't she have available to her works that have strong characters like herself? Or, in the least shouldn't there be works available that have characters that she identifies with? I think that this may stimulate her to continue reading through those tough years in middle and high school. If she comes out of those years with positive feelings toward reading in general and the tools, taught by her teachers, to move on to more difficult works then she will be armed to tackle other works in not only her literature classes but all of her classes. She will be able to see some "relevance" in what she is doing, and she will understand why she has to do what her professors will have her do.
The focus of the article seems to highlight boys and how they aren't becoming lifelong readers, but I would contend that boys growing into men read like most people. The read what they LIKE to read. It is not our job as educators to dictate what should be enjoyed. It is our job to assist our young adult readers to become better readers and comprehenders of what they are reading. We are to use those two tools to be better thinkers. Therefore educators need to use whatever possible to motivate our young adult readers at a time when their society (school culture) is telling them that reading sux!

(This article was found using Yahoo News/Education)

A Blog on Searching for Blogs!

Since I have spent the last 4 hours looking for information about Teaching Minorities using YA Lit. and have been very unsuccessful I thought it might be a good time to write about it. It is interesting in these times of revamping the educational practices a dictated by NCLB and with the pushes in American Public Schools to close the achievement gap between students of different ethnic backgrounds that there would be more information devoted to my chosen topic. While I won't give up the search it is interesting that finding good sources has become analogous to finding good literature that is not only relevant to young adult ethnic minorities, but also interesting and focused on them.
I have gone to large bookstores and perused the YA shelves for books that were written by minority writers for a minority audience. While, I think they were there, somewhere, they weren't in anyway highlighted to be found easily by the novice YA Lit. reader like myself. Why is this? Why aren't these texts available? Why aren't they easy to pick out? Were they in other parts of the store? If they were why weren't they with all of the other YA texts? If I was having such trouble let's consider the young adult reader. Does this person just say, "I'll just read this..." and move on? The YA texts on the shelves were categorized largely in two categories, Fiction and Fantasy/Sci-Fi. Now where do I find YA texts that are for a particular ethnic group? Should I be? Should fiction be for a particular group or should young adults cease to separate themselves and be open to all the of the stories of their peers? Is it really necessary that a Hispanic male read stories containing a Hispanic protagonists?
I think that the answer is obvious but I don't think that the current way that these texts are or are not displayed is loyal to the feeling that all readers need to read stories that contain characters that are similar to them. What does a young Black female read? Or what about the Chinese boy? Where are the stories about them?

On Preparing Teachers with Knowledge of the Literature of Minorities

1972 NCTE Annual
Business Meeting
in
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Background Activities of recent years
have indicated growing awareness among English teachers that
a study of American literature must include the literature of racial and ethnic minorities of America. Teachers have revised courses to reflect this belief; the National Council of Teachers of English itself has adopted a policy refusing to advertise as "American" literature any anthology which does not include the literature of American minorities.
Even greater emphasis can be given to this concern by having it
reflected on nationally used standardized tests of literature. Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English express to the major testing services its
continuing belief that questions about American literature should require the examinees to demonstrate knowledge of the literature of racial and ethnic minorities in America.

http://www.ncte.org/about/over/positions/category/lit/107431.htm NCTE Resolution (1972)

So, this is my dilemma. Finding the texts, finding the sources for info has become my Jones-ian quest. I won't wear the hat....and I will be staying away from whips, but the quest is in front of me nonetheless. So come with me and let's dive into the
pool of YA Lit and find where teachers are to get the texts necessary to appeal
to all of their students that will entice and create a thirst for reading that
will enlighten their lives.

I step down from my soap box for now.

Minorities and Learning Literature

"Let's take a look at teaching literature to Minorities with a focus on the use of YA (Young Adult) Literature."

This is how I started my blog, now I have become far more informed of the lack of discussion in blogs and news sites on this subject. As I look for recent articles on my stated topic I find that there aren't many at all. Therefore, what I will be doing is continuing to use Yahoo News, Washington Post, USA Today, and any news site out there to find some valuable information to pass on to you. Since this topic isn't being discussed much in the news it would seem that news outlets don't find the topic a viable one in the world of education. There are lots of sites that are dealing with Multicultural Education issues in America today, but that is not what I am concerned with here. I do realize that sometimes some of these will have to be used and I will continue to bring you websites that will allow you as teachers and soon to be teachers to easily find resources so that you can continue to broaden the horizons of your students and to become well rounded teachers as well.
The other problem that I am finding is that bloggers and news outlets aren't looking at the viability of using Young Adult texts to enlighten minority students in America's schools. I have found areas on the web that say that it is a good idea to include these texts, especially in February and October but that is limited as well.
I really didn't think that this topic would be so limited in the news outlets in America with the push to not only retain minorities in our middle and high schools, and to appeal to these young readers by giving them some texts that have more immediate relevance to these young adults. As this blog is a work in progress I will not say that there won't be anything of value to pass on to you in the future but I will continue to comb through my Google Reader's results to bring relevant info. to you.
Could it be that the news outlets just aren't concerned with Minorities learning literature and becoming "life long readers?"