Al Capone

I was reflecting on our previous discussion of Al Capone and of literature featuring disablities (for lack of a better term) in general. It really seems to me like it is the forgotten area of multicultural literature. I tried to reflect on my own reading as a student in elementary school and while I can recall reading books about people of various races, I cannot ever remember reading any sort of book that had people in it with disabilities. In fact, the only book I can remember at all had a main character that was blind, but that was a book I bought and read on my own outside of school. In high school, students that had severe physical or emotional learning disabilities were really kept separate from the rest of the students. They rode a separate bus and had their own classroom. This complete separation is really not beneficial to anyone. Students initial curiosity can lead eventually to discrimination. That is why it seems so important to include books featuring characters like this in them. In Al Capone the sister was not the main character, but it captured her life in a way that did not make her awkward or weird. The important part of the book was the relationship between two siblings. It is important for students to see that all people have qualities that make them unique and we should embrace that instead of being afraid of it.

Schneider Family Book Award

Our group conducted research into the Schneider Family Book Award. This award is sponsored by the American Library Association and is given out each year in three different categories, birth through grade school, middle school, and teens. The award honors an author or illustrator that has written about the experience of living with disabilities, either physical, mental, or emotional, for teens and children. The work must portray the person with disabilities living life to the fullest. The award was started in 1994 by Dr. Katherine Schneider and it was modeled after the Coretta Scott King award. As Dr. Schneider says, “The disability experience in these wonderful children’s books is a part of a character’s full life, not the focus of the life. . . . The bonus is that children get to experience someone else’s world which involves having a disability or having a family member with a disability.”

The award is given by a committee of 7 members selected by the ALA.

This years award winners are as follows:
Young Children- Piano Starts Here: The Young Art Tatum by Robert Andrew Parker
Middle School- Waiting for Normal by Leslie Conner
Teen- Jerk, California by Jonathan Friesen

Another award winner was Becoming Naomi Leon which is one the books for our TE 448 class.

Organization of poetry

In class we started an interesting discussion pertaining to how the author of Bronx Masquerade organized her book in reference to the order of poems and chapters. Before class I hadn't really spent much time thinking about it but now it has raised some questions in my mind. I really enjoyed the book, especially the poetry, but I do often enjoy reading poetry. When I was reading this book I would read the chapters silently to myself but whenever I got to a poem I would have to read it aloud, I feel I can't appreciate poems as well unless I can really hear how they sound when they are being read. With that said, does it make a difference whether the poems come first or the chapter comes first? The way it was set up the reader read about the particular characters issues, then read the poem they had written. Someone raised the point that this really was opposite of how the characters in the book would have experienced it. When someone read their poem this would have been their first time looking deeper into their classmates feelings and experiences. Why then, would the author want the reader to have the background knowledge first?

What I really enjoy about poetry is the struggle combined with the mystery. Since poetry often is so brief it is difficult to understand the message the author might be trying to convey at first. It takes a lot of work to really get at the meaning behind a poem. Ultimately, you never really know if you're right or wrong, which is where the mystery comes in. When you know the author's background and reasons for writing the poem first, a lot of this is taken away. Yet I recognize that I am speaking from the perspective of someone that enjoys this about poetry. Evident even in our class, many students do not enjoy poetry and it is difficult to get them to read it. If the author was marketing this book at a junior high/high school age group she surely must have been aware of this. If her primary intention was to tell a story and have students enjoy the poetry she was writing, it may have been necessary to give background information first. This makes the poetry more understandable right away and perhaps allows the reader to track how some of the characters thoughts are expressed in his poetry.

It really is fascinating to think about all the choices that authors must make when writing a novel. So many things can impact the readers experience.

Habibi.. thoughts

I read through Habibi and when I finished it I wasn't quite sure what to think. So I decided to go through all of the coursepack readings and I still wasn't sure. Then I just sat and thought about the book for a veery long time and I realized there is a lot more to the novel than I originally caught. I found this letter that the author Naomi Nye wrote to "Would be Terrorists" http://godlas.myweb.uga.edu/shihabnye.html. She discusses how much time she spends writing in to newspapers, lawmakers, etc. regarding the United States unfair policies on Israel. This reminded me of a State News article a few weeks ago. I do not have a link for it but it was about two Arab American girls that were holding a sit in at their congressmen's office until he was willing to speak to them about the United States support for Israel in light of the recent conflict occuring there. Thinking about this side of the debate caused me to spend some time looking for examples of how Nye shows United States support towards Israel in the book and it cropped up several times. One time Liyana and her brother and directly addressing American citizens to explain to them how the United States supplies Israeli soldiers with guns and money. This is a very important issue for a lot of people but it seems like its something that does not get discussed very much. When I get some time I will need to go searching for more of Nye's writings to see how she writes about this issue even more.

Insider v Outsider

If I were to follow Shannon's personal definition of himself, then I would be nearly the same as him on all counts but gender. Growing up, many of the stories that I read were considered fairly mainstream literature and it was not hard to picture myself as any of the white female characters. They often had stories similar to mine, or at least close enough for me to imagine. Does this make me an insider? I'm not sure. I don't know how one goes about getting on the "inside". Maybe this is just because I have always benefited from being able to easily relate to literature that I am reading. Maybe I take it for granted. Does the skin color or gender or religion of the character matter more, or are the issues more important? Are the two so inextricably interwoven that they cannot be separated? I have difficulty believing that anyone can neatly fit into either group. Sometimes people can be in and then they can be out because everyone is made up of their own history and their own problems and views. I think what is important is evaluating your own stance on every text, whether it makes you feel like an insider or an outsider, and then to ask yourself why this is so. Good literature should help you look inside yourself. This can still be accomplished whether you feel like the character in the book mirrors your own life or not.

Who gets included in the term multicultural?

Before coming into this class when I heard the term diverse or multicultural literature my first thought probably would have been race, African Americans, Indians, Arabs, Asian, etc. I probably would not have included white and it also wouldn't have occured to me to really think too much about gender issues or ideas of religion. I have been working on the readings for our upcoming class period and I was amazed at the reaction Patrick Shannon sparked with his article. I will need to reread some of the articles again but at first the writers that were responding to Shannon's article seemed almost defensive that he said they thought race deserved the most recognition in regards to multicultural literature. It made me stop and think about my own definitions again. The Cai article goes through and lists various definitions for what multiculturalism might mean and they all have some basis and it would be extremely difficult for me to pick the one that I think is the best.

The community I came from was very homogenous in regards to just about everything, race, religion, socioeconomic status. While I love my community I have also seen some of the detrimental effects of not learning enough about other cultures. I would like to someday get a job in the same area so I can see my future role as a teacher including bring in books about many many topics to expose these children to cultures and ideas that they do not come into daily contact with. This means going beyond just racial issues and bringing in texts about different religious practices or different family lives.

This brings up an important point in my mind though. What is the main purpose of diverse literature, or does there need to be a point? Should a teacher include diverse literature in her classroom so every student can find a book that he or she can connect with on a personal level, or should diverse literature be brought into the classroom so students can explore cultures different from their own? I think both of these answers are right but they are questions I will be exploring as the semester continues.

Poem

Where I’m From


I am Anne with an e
But don’t ask me to recite Anne of Green Gables
I was never a fan

I read “Little House” and cheered for Laura Ingalls
With stacks of books covering every space in my bedroom
Bringing me to faraway places

I am not from “Up North”
I’m from da U.P. eh?
No, not Canada, Michigan has two peninsulas

My community is logging and mining and farming
With wide open fields and tall, tall trees
But most of all, loving

I am from hunting and fishing and skiing
Fish boils each summer and venison all November
And sometimes even flannel wearing

But we’re not backwards or backwoods or back anything
Every car in my yard is running
And the bathroom in my house has real indoor plumbing

I am from the smell of fresh cut grass
Swinging a golf club through the sweet dew
Enjoying an early round on the course

I am from summers spent under the stars
Camping with smoky fires and s’mores
With the smell of sunscreen and warm summer days

I am from a family of five
With five generations of parents and grandparents all from my little town
I would never trade where I am from