Multicultural Literature in the K-12 ClassroomUNM Latin American & Iberian Institute

I: Philosophical + Theoretical Foundations

What do we mean when we say culturally relevant pedagogy and multicultural education?

Why are these two concepts important to the idea of multicultural literature?

Who are some of the seminal scholars we can refer to when trying to understand and apply these concepts?

Gloria Ladson-Billings

In The Dreamkeepers, an ethnographic account of teaching, Ladson-Billings offers the following insights into culturally relevant pedagogy:

Culturally relevant pedagogy…

“…empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes.”

“…incorporates student knowledge and experience into the official content of the classroom and prepares students to effect change.”

“…produces students who can achieve academically, demonstrate cultural competence and can understand and critique the existing social order.”

Sonia Nieto

In Affirming Diversity, Sonia Nieto offers the following insights into multicultural education:

Multicultural education…

“Multicultural education is a process of comprehensive school reform and basic education for all students. It challenges and rejects racism and other forms of discrimination in schools and society and accepts and affirms the pluralism (ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, economic, and gender, among others) that students, their communities, and teachers represent. “

Sonia Nieto

Multicultural education…

“Multicultural education permeates the curriculum and instructional strategies used in schools, as well as the interactions among teachers, students, and parents, and the very way that schools conceptualize the nature of teaching and learning. Because it uses critical pedagogy as its underlying philosophy and focuses on knowledge, reflection, and action (praxis) as the basis for social change, multicultural education promotes the democratic principles of social justice. “

Sonia Nieto

Multicultural education…

“Multicultural education is antiracist education.

.........................................basic education.

.........................................a process.

.........................................pervasive.

.........................................important for all students.

.........................................education for social justice.

.........................................critical pedagogy."

Wayne Au

In his book Rethinking Multicultural Education, published by Rethinking Schools, Wayne Au offers the following thoughts on multicultural education:

Multicultural education…

“It was grounded in the lives, identities, and histories of students; it provided critical alternative perspectives on history that we were not getting in our other classes; and it openly addressed the issue of racism.“

Enid Lee

In her book Beyond Heroes and Holidays, Enid Lee offers the following thoughts on multicultural education:

Multicultural education…

“I have met some teachers who think that just because they have kids from different races and backgrounds, they have a multicultural classroom.”

“Bodies of kids aren’t enough. It also gets into issues such as what kinds of pictures are up on the wall? What kinds of festivals are celebrated?”

“What are the rules and expectations in the classroom in terms of what kinds of languages are acceptable? What kinds of interactions are encouraged? How are the kids grouped?”

Enid Lee

In her book Beyond Heroes and Holidays, Enid Lee offers the following thoughts on multicultural education:

Multicultural education…

“Teachers might develop a unit on Native Americans, or Native Canadians, or people of African background. . .But it’s a separate unit and what remains intact is the main curriculum, the main menu.”

“You usually have a two-or three-week unit on a group of people or an area that’s been omitted in the main curriculum.”

“You’re moving into structural change when you have elements of that unit integrated into existing units. Ultimately, what is at the center of the curriculum gets changed in its prominence”

How do we connect multicultural education to literature?

How do we choose good multicultural literature?

What are some of the resources we can use to seek out quality multicultural literature?

How can we link multicultural literature to the Common Core standards?

II: How to implement quality multicultural literature

Enid Lee

In her book Beyond Heroes and Holidays, Enid Lee offers the following thoughts on multicultural literature:

Multicultural literature…

“I encourage people to look for the voice of people who are frequently silenced, people we haven’t heard from: people of color, women, poor people, working-class people, people with disabilities, and gays and lesbians. I also think that you look for materials that invite kids to seek explanations beyond the information that is before them.”

“I encourage teachers to select materials that reflect people who are trying and have tried to change things to bring dignity to their lives, for example Africans helping other Africans in the face of famine and war. This gives students a sense of empowerment and some strategies for making a difference in their lives.”

Enid Lee

In her book Beyond Heroes and Holidays, Enid Lee offers the following thoughts on relevance and multicultural literature:

Multicultural literature…

“I encourage them to look for materials that are relevant. And relevance has two points: not only where you are, but also where you want to go.”

“In all of this we need to ask what’s the purpose, what are we trying to teach, what are we trying to develop?”

Text Complexity

The following titles offer good examples of books which enhance students’ ability to think critically about text complexity:

Caminar by Skila Brown (a novel-in-verse depicting a young man’s experiences in Guatemala’s civil war)

Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle (a novel-in-verse depicting the experiences of a shipwreck as one of the first moments of encounter between the New World and the Old World).

What the Moon Saw by Laura Resau (a standard novel that juxtaposes multigenerational perspectives, indigenous and mainstream cultures, gender norms, economic implications of immigration, etc.).

What are the questions we should consider when reading a book?

The following questions will help to unpack the engage with stereotypes and power dynamics within a given text:

What causes conflict and how is it resolved? Which characters change? Which ones do not? Why?

Who makes the decisions? Who follows orders? Who speaks and who is silent or silenced?

Whose interests are served? That is, who is privileged by the story? Does the problem get resolved by assimilating to social norms? Whose broad social interests are served?

What roles are given to women, people of color, the working class and poor, and the differently abled? Is this problematic? What roles are given to characters representing dominant groups? Are they shown as being made aware of their privilege and exclusionary practices? Is this problematic?

What are the questions we should consider when reading a book?

The following questions will help to unpack the engage with stereotypes and power dynamics within a given text:

What areas of the world are illustrated, if any? Are the regions homogenized (i.e., does the book discuss Latin America or Colombia? Africa or Sierra Leone?)?

Does the text resist romanticizing or stereotyping the cultures? What could this book help students understand?

What are the limitations of this book? What could the teacher do to move beyond the limitations of the text?

How do we go about finding quality multicultural literature?

Bloggers, smaller publishers, and national review committees offer two excellent ways to seek out and identify quality multicultural literature. The following are several examples of these resources based upon broad multicultural topics or regional and cultural interest:

MULTICUTURAL LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog Mitali’s Fire Escape blog Paper Tigers blog School Library Journal Carter G. Woodson Book Award for young readers for best depiction of ethnicity in

the United States. Lee & Low Books’ “The Open Book” blog

How do we go about finding quality multicultural literature?

AFRICA Africa Access and the Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA)

AFRICAN-AMERICAN Coretta Scott King Award for African-Americans “The Brown Bookshelf” blog

AMERICAN INDIAN American Indian Youth Literature Award “American Indians in Children’s Literature” blog

ASIAN/PACIFIC Asian/Pacific Award for Literature Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind blog

How do we go about finding quality multicultural literature?

MIDDLE EAST Middle East Book Award

LATIN AMERICA / LATIN@S Américas Award Pura Belpré Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award “Vamos a Leer” blog “De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children” blog “Latin@s in Kid Lit” blog

Introduction to The Dreamer, including What is The Dreamer about? Who was Pablo Neruda? What are some of the emergent themes in the

novel? Reading the world before reading the word,

thoughts on Paolo Freire How might the protagonist serve as a role model or

otherwise make a lasting impact on our students?

II: Introduction to The Dreamer

About The Dreamer

About The Dreamer

The publisher writes: “From the time he is a young boy, Neftalí hears the call of a

mysterious voice. Even when the neighborhood children taunt him, and when his harsh, authoritarian father ridicules him, and when he doubts himself, Neftalí knows he cannot ignore the call. Under the canopy of the lush rain forest, into the fearsome sea, and through the persistent Chilean rain, he listens and he follows. . . Combining elements of magical realism with biography, poetry, literary fiction, and sensorial, transporting illustrations, Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís take readers on a rare journey of the heart and imagination.”

Chilean Landscapes

Under the canopy of the lush rain forest

into the fearsome sea

through the persistent Chilean rain…

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda: Chilean poet + politician

Born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basolta. Neruda was his pen name and, later, his legal name.

Known for his love sonnets, odes, and extensive corpus of poetry.

Also recognized as a fervent political activist and advocate for the oppressed.

Emergent Themes

Emergent Themes

History + Politics

social policies of Allende; military dictatorship under Pinochet; political protest and exile; human rights

Physical + Cultural Geographies

natural resources, climate, terrain, ecosystems, land use, medicinal plants

Human Rights

political repression, indigenous peoples, sovereignty, Mapuche people

Writing Formats + Styles

poetry, prose, fictionalization, epistolary, biography, magical realism, journalism + media

Social Justice + Voice

marginalization, repression, agency, protest, resistance

Paolo Freire

Protagonist as Role Model + Lasting Influence

Neftalí serves as a role model for students given his

Acceptance of self;

Acceptance of others.

Part IV: How to Use The Dreamer in the Classroom

An Educator’s Guide to The Dreamer

Introduce Related Texts

Interdisciplinary Writing Exercises: Neruda’s Book of Questions and Critical Inquiry Epistolary Practices and Personal Knowledge Research and Indigenous Peoples Compare and contrast: Adventurers + Explorers Scientific Connections: Odes to Nature

Educator’s Guide

Introduce Related Texts

Neruda’s Book of Questions + Critical Inquiry

Epistolary Practices + Personal Knowledge

Research + Indigenous Peoples

Research + Indigenous Peoples

The Mapuche Indians of Chile: Politics, Resistance, and Tradition (an independent article by Laura Ann Moylan)

Mapuche Indians in Chile Struggle to Take Back Forests (an article by Larry Rohter, The New York Times - August 11, 2004)

Without Our Land We Are Not A People: Chile’s Indigenous Mapuche Natives Fight a Forgotten, 500-Year War for Self-Determination (an article by Avedis Hadjian, International Business Times – April 6, 2013)

Who are the Mapuche? People of the Land (a summary description written by the Mapuche Foundation FOLIL)

Compare + Contrast: Adventurers + Explorers

Scientific Connections: Odes to Nature

To Continue the Conversation…

More information on teaching Latin America through literature is available online via the LAII’s Vamos a Leer blog: http://bit.ly/vamosaleer

Additional curriculum materials and related resources are available through the LAII’s main website: http://laii.unm.edu

Connect with us and share your thoughts: laii@unm.edu

Acknowledgments

Photo Credits:(each title links to further information)

World Map. Reprinted from public domain. Chilean Landscapes:

Rainforest. Photograph by Vera & Jean-Christophe. Reprinted under CC copyright; some rights reserved.

Sea. Photograph by Pato Novoa. Reprinted under CC copyright; some rights reserved. Rain. Photography by Felipe Del Valle. Reprinted under CC copyright; some rights

reserved. Pablo Neruda. Photograph reprinted from public domain. Pablo Neruda. Signature reprinted from public domain. Paolo Freire. Reprinted and adapted from Sally Hart. Epistolary Practices + Personal Knowledge. Image adapted from The Dreamer’s illustrations. Compare + Contrast: Adventurers + Explorers. Image adapted from The Dreamer’s

illustrations / Fundación de Santiago de Chile. Reprinted. Scientific Connections: Ode to Nature. Image adapted from vintage tomato graphic. Reprinted

from public domain. Lithograph of Mapuche by Esculapio Perez. Reprinted under CC copyright; some rights reserved.