I am lucky enough to be teaching a course on multicultural literature in the Spring of 2021. I, like many of you, will be starting my second semester of synchronous online teaching at the university level. It is not my preferred method of teaching, but I learned a great deal the first time around. I am game for the next chapter. I am hoping to build a community in which we can discuss difficult topics.
| As I start again, I am aware my students will all approach this course with different life experiences. The single common factor might be that they are all taking a graduate course in Literacy Education. What else might they have in common? Teaching experience? Perhaps, but in reality they have taught at different grade levels and at different schools. If you are in education for any length of time you realize that every school has its own climate and culture. You also understand that teachers carry with them their own sense of an educational mission. How they understand instruction will vary. Some will favor a tightly controlled curriculum with little room for flexibility and others will lean into inquiry and try to go where that leads them and their students. How do I structure a class that will explore Multicultural Literature? Remember, it isn’t an English course. It is a course in Education. In my mind, this implies that we will consider how it might be taught, how it might be received by students, and how we interpret or understand various understandings of the categories and definitions of multiculturalism. Given our different experiences do we share the same assumptions about education--or the world? I doubt it. Will there be, as Stanley Fish asks, “a text in this class? |  |
| As the instructor, I have planned a course and picked some books. For this course, I am combining three foci. The first is Multicultural Education as explained by Gollinick and Chinn in their newest edition (the 11th) of Multicultural Education in Pluralistic Society. In this book they outline seven categories of multiculturalism--class, ethnicity & race, gender, exceptionality, religion, language, and age. The second focus will be to introduce Reader Response Criticism by reading articles and chapters that represent some of the foundation positions of this theory. For the third focus I will be using young adult novels for the examples of multicultural literature. I have chosen thirteen novels that represent at least one of the seven categories outlined by Gollnick and Chinn. In most cases they represent two or more. |  |
Multicultural Education is a complicated issue. I believe that much of the unrest and contention that we have felt during the last year of COVID, elections, police brutality, social protest and social unrest is a manifestation that we still don't understand each other or the lives we experience. How do the categories of Exceptionality, Age, Class, Ethnicity and Race, Religion, Gender, or Language? Can we even agree of definitions of these concepts?
I also am including Reader Response theory for at least two reasons. First, to introduce students to the theory as introduced by Rosenblatt. Then, second, to have them develop the habit of reconsidering their first response to a text. We will be doing reading from Probst, Fish, Iser, and Holland among a couple of others. Issues of Multiculturalism are often difficult for us to completely internalize. We may empathize with conditions and opinions, but unless we have experienced them first hand we may not understand the degree to which others experience the same experience. How does abject poverty shape the way someone approaches the world? What is it like to view a society from a religious perspective that is clearly in a minority? What do the issues of the Black Live Matter movement play out of other people of color who may not feel automatically included in their agenda?
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Without question, I have considered double or triple the number of the books as I was narrowing my choices to these 13 books. I would love to hear what you might select given the same requirement to have a course that focuses on multicultural literature and how a K12 teacher might employ these texts in the classroom. Not an easy task.
As the class experiences these texts together, it is clear that we will experience them differently. Together, I hope that we can have conversations that will help us reconsider our first reactions. Once again, Is There a Text in This Class? I hope so and I hope it leads to a productive community experience.
As the class experiences these texts together, it is clear that we will experience them differently. Together, I hope that we can have conversations that will help us reconsider our first reactions. Once again, Is There a Text in This Class? I hope so and I hope it leads to a productive community experience.
The Texts in the Syllabus
Until next time.
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