Kaczur 1 Sarah Kaczur L408 Dr. Carter Book Rationale ... - Oncourse

Kaczur 15The For Sale sign on the house next door had hardly been up a week when Mama told us she'dheard that a black family had bought the old Faircloth place. Daddy brought his fist down on thetable and the supper dishes jumped. "Place is gonna go downhill," he said.... "I'll just have tobuild me a fence." (p. 1)Cass and Jemmie, with their mutual interest in competitive running and shared reading of JaneEyre, slowly work on their families' antagonism. Through the girls' eyes, Fogelin exposes bothsubtle and explicit barriers impeding cross-racial friendships. Without resorting to an "allproblems solved" happy ending, Fogelin still projects a hopeful future where families growalongside one another in a healthful learning way.Reflection of selfBoth of the above goals--exposing students to a broader view of the world and reducingprejudice and misunderstanding--are important objectives for teachers. Another major goalinvolves helping students see themselves in their reading. As Boyd stated, "In a profound sense,children look to story for self" (1997, p. 107). As a young reader, I encountered variations of myown culture. What must it be like for readers to find only images representing those unlike them?"Students need to be able to make connections between literature and their everyday lives.Children need to receive affirmation of themselves and their culture through literature" (Colby &Lyon, 2004, p. 24).Not seeing one's self, or representations of one's culture, in literature can activate feelings ofmarginalization and cause students to question their place within society. Boyd (1997),describing her childhood reading experiences, reveals "As an African American female child, Inever saw my face or the lives of my family, friends, and neighbors in the books I read" (p. 107).Nothing that she encountered in her reading included images of self. This lack of reflectionaffected her self-image and her feeling of belonging. Boyd recalled, "I realized that I wasinvisible, excluded, disaffirmed, spurned, discarded, scorned, and rejected in the white world ofchildren's literature" (p. 107). What disastrous learning experiences her reading provided.Boyd's destructive encounters with the invisibility of self in books should not be repeated.Children today have more options available. Increasingly, children's and young adult literatureinclude selections by and about people of marginalized--or to use Cai's (2002) term--parallelcultures. Teachers can be an important source of information about available literature. The firststep is recognizing the need for providing reading material that reflects students' cultural selves.Reporting on a study of prospective teachers' understandings of the importance of usingmulticultural literature, Colby and Lyon stated, "It was evident that many had not, until thispoint, considered the dilemma that children of color face in regards to having access toappropriate literature and an environment that acknowledges and celebrates diversity in theclassroom" (2004, p. 24).Colby and Lyon (2004) shared prospective teachers' comments after reading the article "AfricanAmerican children's literature that helps students find themselves" (Hefflin & Ralph, 2001).I didn't realize that there are children that feel like they have nothing to read and relate to...as awhite child I never really thought about it because I already had books that I could relate to.... Itseems obvious that readers want to identify with characters, but I never considered how all-whitecharacters would affect African American students. (Colby & Lyon, p. 25)