Why Asian-American Literature??

My decision to research and do my final project on Asian-American Literature is in no way random. This decision comes after almost a year of experience tutoring Korean children in America. I work with five different students from three different families in Okemos and East Lansing. My students are living in America for one or two years because their parents are grad students at MSU and want their children to learn and become proficient in English. This familiarity with a portion of Asian culture makes the chance to learn more about Asian-American literature very interesting and appealing. Still with all the experience I have accumulated, I still do not have an adequate grasp of the Korean culture and how it relates to America. I know some of my students will return to America with the potential of moving here permanently someday. Therefore, it becomes my job to educate them on the experiences they or their future children may encounter if they ever choose to be become Korean-American citizens! So naturally I was drawn towards completing my project on this amazing, unique, and diverse culture. Hopefully our final project will help both me in my role as a tutor and future elementary teacher and the Korean students I interact with on a daily basis better understand Asian-American culture.

Boy Meets BOY

So I just finished our last book, Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan and could not wait to blog about it! This was by far my favorite book we have read for class. I don’t even know where to begin!! My initial reactions deal with a longing for this sort of acceptance towards gays in real life high schools! Just the other day I read about a fifteen year old who was murdered by his classmates because he was gay. I wonder if that would have happened if students in that school would have had opportunities to read books such as Boy Meets Boy and other gay resources. Perhaps then, they would have better understood this student and been more likely to accept his natural lifestyle.

I also liked this book because it illustrated so many diverse personalities and backgrounds. First there was the manipulated girlfriend (Joni) who gives up her life and friends for her boyfriend. Then there was the confused boy, Kyle, who was torn between liking either boys or girls. There was also the closet gay boy Tony, with the extremely religious and strict parents! Noah took the part of a heartbroken newbie to town with a shaky past. Levithan even included a drag queen football star that doubled as the dramatic homecoming queen! She was definitely one of my favorite characters. However, what was most satisfying was the main character Paul, who was completely comfortable with his sexuality. What was even better was the reception he was given by both his family and his peers. Everyone in the book seems completely comfortable with his sexuality, even his older straight brother. This warm-welcome was so refreshing when compared to the hostile reception towards gays in real life!

One aspect of the novel I found somewhat surprising was the amount of rather detailed intimacy by the main characters. At times the story revealed Paul’s intimate desires to kiss his new love Noah or his ex Kyle. When I explained this to my friends, they were shocked to discover this was in fact a book for my Children’s Literature class. Obviously, this is a book for a more mature audience of young teens. However, I believe this intimacy was necessary to the goals of the book. I believe in a way the author was trying to portray the normalcy of Paul’s life as an openly gay teenager. Through his novel, Levithan shows readers that no matter what a person’s sexuality is, he or she is still human and have the same problems and feeling as everyone else. It was also very unique that Paul was portrayed as someone with such an excellent sense of self. Even in kindergarten Paul knew he was gay and he was always completely okay with this characteristic. I image this is not the case with most homosexuals in modern day America. None of the characters in this book judged others based on their sexuality. Again this book has pleasantly surprised me!

Overall, I am very excited to write my paper on this topic AND hear what everyone else has to say about Boy Meets Boy in class on Wednesday!

Positive Jewish American Lit Take 2

So I’m back with some more thoughts about our Jewish-American book Confessions of a Closet Catholic. Several topics were discussed in class that pertained to my initial concerns with this book. First and foremost I was upset at the mocking undertone of the Catholic religion. Yet, after our class discussion I can better understand this aspect of the story. The main character Justine is in fact a young confused teenager. Her confusion with both the Jewish and Catholic faiths can be attributed to her inexperience, not her neglect or insincerity. Growing up I cannot even remember thinking about any religion other than Catholicism, let alone experimenting with one. I commend the main character on her efforts to explore another religion and I finally understand this portion of the story.

My second concern dealt with this book being viewed as a negative example of Jewish-American literature. I was relieved to find many of my classmates shared this concern with me. This was especially prevalent when we were asked to judge some example texts in our discussion groups. We found it hard to judge our book because no one in my group had any background knowledge of the Jewish culture. Therefore, more research would be necessary before bringing any Jewish-American literature into the classroom!

After class most of my reassurance for Confessions of a Closet Catholic being a positive diversity book still comes from the Silver article. This idea was further reiterated during a whole class discussion. We agreed as a class that the content does not always have to be positive for the book to be a positive diversity resource. The article and this discussion helped me understand that just because the contents are pessimistic, the book can still be an excellent example of diverse children’s literature.

One exciting topic discussed in class was about a documentary called Paper Clips about a middle school class project meant to honor Holocaust victims. The class decided to collect a paperclip to represent every victim of the Holocaust. This simple class project turned into a national event when millions of paperclips were delivered to the school in support of its goals. This is an amazing story I had never heard up before. After viewing the trailer for the movie online, I hope to watch it soon to find out more about this incredible story!

Positive Jewish American Literature

Since it was not my group’s turn to write a paper this week, I decided to reflect on the book on my blog. I also wanted to write this before class today so I first examine my own thoughts on Jewish American Literature and then see how these views fit into our larger class setting. Therefore, expect another post in the next few days reflecting back over our class discussion on this topic!

At first, I was not wholeheartedly impressed with our novel this week, Confessions of a Closet Catholic by Sarah Darer Littman. I contribute this mainly to my Catholic upbringing and the naive almost mocking portrayal of Catholics in this book. I was also upset because it mainly focused on the sinful aspects of living a religious life. This made the tone of the book quite depressing and negative. And as much as I appreciate the flowery ending with Justine finally meeting a boy who likes her and discovering her Kosher desires, it seems a little superficial. This ending just did not appear very realistic to me! In addition, Confessions of a Closet Catholic did not seem like a very positive representation of the Jewish American culture for young readers. However, all these negative connotations were before I read the articles that accompany this book for class.

The article Judging Judaica by Linda R. Silver brought up a very interesting point about what positive Jewish American literature looks like. The article states “if Jewish questions underlie or animate the theme and the author seeks to answer them in a Jewish context, then the book has a positive Jewish content and focus” (Silver 44). Therefore, it is more important to be authentic about the lifestyle of the culture, than whether this lifestyle is seen as positive or negative. This idea has helped me better understand our novel and see how it can in fact be seen as a positive example of this culture. Just because the actions within the book are negative or at times depressing, does not mean the book is a negative or bad representation of Jewish American literature.

With this in mind, I am still struggling a little with fully appreciating this book. I guess I will see what the rest of my Children’s Literature classmates have to say before delving any farther into this discussion. Be back soon!

My Personal Literacy Philosophy

Often we underestimate the importance of integrating diversity in elementary age language arts classrooms. I have to admit that until recently I was one of those individuals that rarely thought about how to incorporate excellent examples of diverse literature into my future classrooms. I was more focused on bringing mainstream American culture into the classroom. Therefore, it became of critical importance to enroll myself in a Children’s Literature class that focused on diversity. I mainly attribute my lack of diversity to my upbringing in an incredibly homogeneous community. I feel like I grew up living in a bubble, rarely being exposed to individuals or groups outside my own heritage. On top of that, I attended a private catholic school that was about as homogenous as a school can get. With this sheltered background, it is incredibly important that I put myself in situations to learn as much as possible about different diverse cultures. I both need and want to become a more diversity experienced individual with the knowledge and tools to accurately rate diverse Children’s Literature.

There are several advantages to taking a Children’s Literature class focused on issues of diversity. One obvious advantage is its ability to provide me with valuable and high-quality resources for the future. One of my professional goals is to provide my students with the most respectable and accurate representations of diverse literature. This class in turn will hopefully give me the tools to make acceptable judgments to build my classroom library. Unfortunately, my past experiences with diversity in literacy have been slim to none. However, this is not the environment I want to present to my future students. I hope that diversity will play a key role in my teaching pedagogy. We have learned through several class discussions the significance of accurately portraying the many cultures outside mainstream white society. Therefore it is of critical importance that I promote openness about issues of diversity with my future students and diversity plays a key role in the classroom.

Personally I believe providing a multicultural education is of the utmost importance in the classroom. I want my classroom to be a place that does not harvest negative generalizations but to the contrary actually disengages harmful stereotypes. In order to discourage egocentric values, students need to be exposed to a large range of diverse cultures and ethnicities. Multicultural education is a great stepping stool towards promoting positive characteristics of diverse and often underrepresented cultures. As a future elementary school teacher one of my main priorities will be providing a strong language arts program for my students. This will certainly include a critical pedagogy and critical literacy. I want to push my students to think deeper and question the texts they are reading. I hope to foster comprehension through a wide variety of positive diverse literature examples. I certainly do not want my classroom library to only represent the majority culture. Bringing examples of diverse literature can help broaden student’s perspectives of others that may be different to them. It can also encourage the removal of harmful stereotypes towards underrepresented cultures.

Like all new teachers, I have many concerns when bringing accurate and respectable diverse literature into my future classroom. Through this class I have realized there are several factors to consider when choosing good diverse literature. I wonder if I will be able to put my own biases aside and make accurate decisions about the literacy within my classroom. In addition to this concern, I believe the main challenge I will face in the future will be incorporating the literature of every diverse culture I want into one school year. I do not know if I will be able to fit everything needed to give students the best possible exposure to diverse cultures. Lastly, I am also interested in learning more about diverse literature dealing with the insider-outsider debate. This is a topic I can certainly envision myself proposing to a classroom full of students. It would be nice to hear the perspectives of my students on this topic. It is also a topic I would like to discuss with future colleagues and experts in the future!

Bronx Masquerade not so Bronx??

Several interesting topics were discussed this week during our class on African American Children’s Literature and the book Bronx Masquerade. One topic I found particularly interesting dealt with the language of the book. The question was brought up of whether or not the language portrayed in the book gave an accurate representation of how high school students in the Bronx talk?! In my opinion the language is far too clean and is in no way truly authentic to the high school environment. Now there might be an innocent intention in this depiction. Would this book have been published or win any diversity awards if it contained curse words? Probably not! However, I wonder which is more important: accurate language depiction or curse word free literature? Now I am in no way advocating the obnoxious use of offensive curse words around young children. Yet, curse words are a very realistic aspect of young culture, especially in high schools. Just walk down the halls of any high school in-between classes and you will know what I mean. I believe this book gives readers a false sense of what goes on in an inner city high school by leaving out any dirty language usage. Therefore, I believe it fails to accurately represent the life and struggles of African American students in the Bronx. I believe adding some instances of curse filled language would make the book more realistic and passionate. The language is definitely not extreme enough!

Habibi

Hello All! There was definitely a lot of good thought provoking discussions during out class meeting this week! For instance, during my group’s discussion on Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye, we discussed how two people from one culture can have differing views and opinions on a given topic. This occurrence was evident between Poppy and his mother Sitti. By placing this idea within the novel, Nye can begin to show readers how not everyone from the Arab culture thinks the same way. I also thought this could be helpful when dealing with stereotypes about other cultures. When we understand that people belonging to the same culture can and do encompass differing beliefs and ideas, we hopefully can also see how inaccurate that makes hurtful stereotypes.

We also related our discussion back to the insider vs. outsider issue discussed last Wednesday in class. The question was brought up as to whether Liyana was an insider or an outsider to the Arab culture. It would seem Liyana should be considered an outsider based on the idea that most of the Arab world was completely foreign to her. However, Liyana’s heritage is half Arab, which might lead some to conclude Liyana as an Arab culture insider. For me, this is a question I am still unsure about, although I am leaning towards the outsider perspective. This is mainly based on Liyana spending all of her youth in America and her resistance to many customs of the Arab culture.

Lastly, I am beginning to see the overall purpose of Children’s Literature 448. I did not really know what to expect coming into this class. Maybe, I was hoping for all the answers to many complicated questions about diverse Children’s Literature. Or a list of “good” and “bad” books for the classroom. But I discovered it is more about learning strategies to accurately identify positive Children’s Diversity Literature. It reminds me of the common saying “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever!” This class is not about finding all the answers right now. It is about searching out better ways for us as educators to recognize and bring accurate and respectful diversity literature to our future classrooms.