LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Student Research Project

Tomasina Alford
LITR 5731
May 7, 2003
Dr. Craig White

Multicultural Literature and the English/Language Arts Curriculum

Introduction

            The current school where I teach has a very ethnically diverse student population, but its teaching population does not reflect the diversity.  The demographics of the students and teachers for the English/language arts department are as follows:

            In education, we strive to expand the students’ thinking skills with new knowledge.  Recent studies have shown that the most effective way of conveying new knowledge to students is to have the new information make a connection with the students.  Oftentimes, teachers rack their brains trying to find innovative ways of making a connection between new information and student learning.  But, in English/language arts classes, the solution of making this connection may be staring the teachers right in the face- incorporating minority literature.  I work with predominantly Hispanic and African-American students, and I find it difficult for them to gain an interest in the pre-selected literature for the class.  My goal as a teacher is to gain students’ reading interest; in addition, I want to make the new instruction connect with the students to have lasting effects.    “Students must be guided to seek a personal experience in literature” (Dietrich).  I feel I can do both quite effectively by incorporating minority literature into my classroom instruction. 

            In doing so, I need to focus on the district’s current English/language arts curriculum and see what modifications, if any, can be made to incorporate minority literature and possibly propel the students’ interest in the selected literature for the class.

            Most of the literatures currently used in our English/language arts curriculum are classics or literature that has little relational value to the students.  “Some adults want adolescents to read stories that describe the world as it ideally is—beautiful, exotic, and innocent.  In contrast, adolescents may want to read stories about the world as some experience it—ugly, lonely, and violent” (Darlington). 

However, I do not feel just incorporating minority literature is going to do the trick of gaining student reading interest or make a relevant connection for the students.  I feel the structure of the class will also impact the student learning success.  I have been extremely impressed with the reading structure in this seminar class- taking a culture’s literature and learning about it from the classical or original derivation to the contemporary art form.  The poetry added to the major pieces of literature also provides the extra depth needed to gain a better understanding of a culture’s motivation and varying styles of writing.

Multicultural literature helps students expand their understanding of geography and natural history, increase their understanding of historical and sociological change, broaden their appreciation for literary techniques used by authors from different cultural backgrounds, and improve their reading, writing, and thinking abilities…For the present, they discover the threads that weave the past with the present and the themes and values that continue to be important to the people” (Norton 28).

 I believe this class structure will contribute immensely to the students’ learning outcome in my classes. 

Teachers play a vital role in the lives of students.

Most current teachers acquired their degrees priors to both the proliferation of research attesting to the role of cultural difference in the creation of unequal educational outcomes and the recent challenges at the university level to the literature canon.  Recent graduates are unlikely to have fared a great deal better, since teacher-education programs have been slow to incorporate a significant multicultural focus” (Bigler & Collins).

            My observation of the current curriculum established by the district I work in portrays the curriculum as very scattered with no thematic backdrop, making it difficult for students to get a sense of connection of the literature or the desired learning concept. 

One of the values of seeing commonalities across cultures are the avenue it creates for students to establish lines of communication with people of diverse cultures.  Knowing that one shares a common interest or value sets the stage for finding other areas of compatibility.  Children across the nation and the world share similarities (Dietrich).

Current English/Language Arts Curriculum

…[T] raditional classes tend to insulate the student from the impact of the literature.  In these classrooms, the primary emphasis of the instruction has been the identification of literary elements such as plot, setting, and character description.  When the concern is on the intellectual response, students are protected from experiencing the literature, and consequently there is no personal response.  Traditional classroom instruction tends to down play the rich cultural life experiences students bring to the educational arena (Dietrich). 

In our current high school English/language arts curriculum, the classes are reflective of what Dietrich describes.  By reading the pre-selected novels by the district, which are usually classics or literary pieces that portray Anglos as the protagonist, teachers feel they are teaching students the “right stuff.”  By teaching the “right stuff,” the teachers are preparing the students to deal with the American social and economic world, which is primarily the creation of the Anglo population.

            We know that school-based text should appeal to the new population, so why is it not?  When asked to explain reasons for inclusion of particular selections, teacher responses focus on:

§         The department mandated some works

§         They had to use the books that were available

§         They personally liked a particular piece; it moved them

§         They felt comfortable with the piece, and understood it

§         The story taught something important to the student, e.g., the harmful consequences of prejudice and discrimination

§         The story included characters facing some of the same problems as the students

§         The reading level was suitable for the students

§         The topic was appropriate for young teenagers

§         The story contained “universals” that all children could relate to e.g., “coming of age” struggles, etc.

Through carefully selected and shared literature, students learn to understand and to appreciate a literary heritage that comes from many diverse backgrounds. 

Ellen Bigler and James Collins found four concerns of incorporating multicultural literature into the curriculum:

1.      Knowledge issues: “What is multicultural literature?”

§        One teacher repeatedly stressed that she was not a history teacher, hadn’t studied history and culture in school, and didn’t feel confident talking about other cultures with her students because of this.

2.      Logistical issues: “How am I supposed to fit it into the curriculum?”

§        How am I supposed to fit it into the curriculum when we barely have time now to do the requirements, with all the emphasis on testing and skills?

3.      Canonical issues: “Good literature.”

§        Good literature was something that teachers intuitively agreed upon, and criteria for “good” literature included widespread acknowledgment of its inherent “quality.”  Teachers also emphasized that good literature contained “universal themes.”

§        Several teachers voiced uncertainty about whether “multicultural” literature, which they tended to see as something apart from “traditional” literature, would be considered good literature and have “staying power” in the future.

§        Teachers with higher-track students worried that their students might “lose out” by not being exposed to the classics, particularly if they were expected to know them in order to do well in high school and college.

§        Why should we teach multicultural literature? - To include something that minority students could better relate to.

4.      Danger issues: “Don’t get students ‘all stirred up.’”

§        The need for “inclusion” and valuing “cultural pluralism,” but to leave it at that is to fail to acknowledge the political edge of the debate and the questions of power that surface in the process of “reframing” our histories and literatures.

§        Teachers’ unwillingness to engage their students about particular topics.

a)     “Language” issues

¨      Teachers were very concerned about the use of obscenities in the multicultural literature selections they considered.  Many considered such terms, in particular slang references to sexual organs, totally unacceptable in school texts and rejected texts solely on that basis.

¨      They were unprepared to deal with students’ reactions to the terms; they would be embarrassed saying such terms aloud in the classroom; they were morally offended by the language; or they would “get into trouble” with administrators and parents because of the language.

b)     “Social problems”

¨      The literature written by minority authors about the minority experience in the United States may well include topics that middle-class mainstream teachers are ill-prepared to discuss, or indeed to acknowledge: drug usage, gangs, teenage pregnancy and sexuality, AIDS, and violence.  While such issues are not exclusive to any ethnic group or particular class, they were often linked in teachers’ minds (as in general perception) with impoverished inner-city residents, the majority of whom were seen as people of color.

¨      Delinquent peer groups, sexuality, and drug abuse are not exclusive to any particular social class, but the ability to avoid public discussion of them may be a middle-class achievement.

c)      “Threats to Authority”

¨      Multicultural literature often draws upon the experiences of oppressed national minorities.  It introduces into the classroom perspectives and experiences of individuals from social backgrounds that differ from those of most schoolteachers or from those depicted in traditional school literature.  Teachers were often uncomfortable with multicultural literature selections that depicted key societal institutions or their representatives- the courts, police, schools, teachers, the church in a negative light.

¨      Some teachers felt that discussing the kinds of issues frequently raised in multicultural literature might also “rock the boat” and get students “all stirred up.”

¨      Most teachers would subscribe to the notion that celebrating “diversity” was a worthwhile endeavor “if it didn’t go too far.”  “Too far” meant many things: challenging the existing literature canon; questioning underlying social assumptions that teachers endorsed (e.g. that police, schools, and churches are fundamentally benign for all social groups); or questioning their own positions as arbiters of classroom language and discipline.

The Goal of English/Language Arts Curriculum

            In introducing literature to students, teachers need to delicately balance giving the students background information prior to reading the text with allowing students to first connect with the literature.  Providing “focus” activities to the students prior to reading a selection can attain such a balance.  Dietrich believes, “too much background information inhibits the student from seeking a personal response to the text.  Too little background information fails to entice the reader into the richness of the cultural world of the literary work…. Accurate background information prevents the students’ prejudices and stereotypes from coloring the text and encourages them to attempt literary works that are slightly beyond the borders of their current capabilities.”  This sounds very encouraging and could possibly assist students when they are preparing for Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).  On the TAKS, students will be exposed to literary and expository pieces of literature.  The students’ goals are to compare the literatures and find commonalities of varying literary devices, literary language, and characterization through analysis, while connecting the literature to historical context, current events, and personal experiences.  In addition to literary concepts, the students are to deconstruct a media representation, carrying the same theme as the literature pieces, by analyzing relationships, ideas, and cultures.

Personal Experience

            I attended a predominantly Anglo-American high school.  There were less than 10% African-Americans and even fewer Hispanics.  I was also engulfed with classical literatures such as Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Scarlet Letter, Hamlet, The Odyssey, The Iliad, Greek mythology, and numerous other pieces.  I felt no connection to any of these literatures.  I just knew I needed to read these pieces because that is what the teacher told me.  Some of the readings have stayed with me such as Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, and some of the mythological stories because I was a vested reader, but others have long escaped me.  It amazes me to see how little progress English/language arts curricula have progressed because ten years later, a different school district, and a different population of students are still reading the same books I read in high school.  The purpose for reading these literatures is still the same- they are classics and need to be read. 

            When teaching these classics, I develop a theme for my students to connect the literatures to.  Although we still do not have a real purpose for reading these pieces, I feel my students should finish the reading and have it make some type of connection with them.  Regardless of race or economic backgrounds, universal themes carry on into each person’s life.  Thus, each student can grasp a connection to these classical literatures or even minority literatures.

Incorporating Minority Literature

            “Experts in multicultural education frequently emphasize the importance of using literature to increase cultural awareness…multicultural literature is essential in the classroom because these materials meet the needs of students and help them grow in understanding of themselves and others” (Norton 28).             The TAKS does a better job than TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) in regards to incorporating multicultural reading selections.  The TAKS includes a literary (fictional piece), an expository (factual piece), and visual representation.  Combined, there is a universal theme that runs through which can easily adapt to minority literature and characters.  Although the test is established based on an Anglo-patriarch standard of education, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) does recognize over fifty percent of Texas’ population is of the minority persuasion; therefore, “[the] test educator review committees have been and will continue to be broadly representative of the State’s diverse racial/ethnic population.  The purpose of these committees is to review proposed TAAS test questions and to ensure fairness of the test items to all students regardless of their race, color or national origin” (NAACP).  The committee also examines each test item to eliminate potential bias, including cultural, ethnic, racial, gender, geographic and economic bias.  According to the TAAS Resolution Committee, “TEA will continue to follow similar assessment equity procedures in the development and implementation of the TEKS” (NAACP).

            Classrooms where the traditional classics dominate seldom give students of diverse backgrounds the opportunity to read about those like themselves.  Furthermore, the American and British literature focus of the standard junior and senior (English III and IV) high school curriculum content rarely offers a female as writer or heroine.  The canon may now include works by ethnic writers, but they are most often male such as James Baldwin or Richard Wright.

In today’s classrooms the teaching of multicultural literature featuring female protagonists is vital.  The reasons are two-fold: teachers should not only emphasize the commonalities between all people from diverse backgrounds, but also bring females to the forefront of the study of literature because the texts studied have typically featured only males in multicultural settings and/or with differing ethnic roots…In an increasingly diverse country, students need to find themselves in their reading as they engage in that crucial goal of adolescence—formulation of self, and identity (Hayn).

Teachers must first help students examine and identify with their own cultural backgrounds.  Some students are knowledgeable about their ethnic cultural heritage, while others identify so strongly with mainstream culture that they fail to see that their own cultures are reflected in behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.  “The ability of most students and adults to look at their own cultures objectively is a challenge because they tend to be insulated by family and communities.  Dietrich also emphasizes that:

Multicultural literature is a primary vehicle for generating dialogues.  The literary work becomes the shared body of experience, allowing students to respond from the perspectives of their individual cultural backgrounds.  The teacher uses thought-provoking questions to enhance students’ connections to the literature and to establish a relationship of cultural equality between students and teacher... Appropriately selected literature can encourage students to see their own culture from another culture’s point of view” (Dietrich).    

            An important by-product of immersion in literature written from perspective other than Anglo-American results in an increased tolerance among adolescents for those who represent other cultures.  “One major goal of teaching multicultural literature with contemporary protagonists is to have all students realize that children and young adults from diverse backgrounds experience the same successes and frustrations, struggles and accomplishments, and proud and embarrassing moments of growing up.  It is critical to show students the universalities between culturally diverse males and females and to celebrate the differences and enhance the similarities.  Unfortunately, outside the world- literature textbook, where the selections are often difficult to read and seem irrelevant to modern adolescents, the opportunities to engage with texts with this focus are rare.  “…The English curriculum remains narrow nationwide, with the majority of schools (public, parochial, and independent) teaching books with a white male viewpoint written by white male authors” (Hayn).

…Multicultural literature is crucial for connecting our students with the world.  For the teacher, the literature leads to the development of worthwhile classroom activities and thought-provoking assignments necessary for creating responsible, critical, creative thinkers.  Young adult novels written by and about minorities, by and about immigrants recently assimilated into this culture, and by those from other countries who write about the adolescent experience in other lands provide one method for beginning to break down barriers created through culture and ethnicity (Hayn). 

To promote equity, educators should help students explore their own cultures and contribute to intercultural understanding.  Too often students are limited by their own cultural boundaries as they read and evaluate literature.  “…[E] ducators need to deconstruct the myth that America is homogeneous by reexamining traditional literature and selecting literary works that reflect the perspectives, experiences, and values of all ethnic and cultural groups” (Dietrich).  In order to do so, teachers should become students, willing to reexamine the materials and be willing to engage in discussions that challenge their own cultural perspectives.  “The point is not to delete the classics, but to teach them in relation to the texts that challenge them” (Dietrich).

Norton has established a five-phase model for studying multicultural literature:

Phase I:            Traditional literature

                        (Generalizations and broad views)

A.    Identify distinctions among folktale, fable, myth, and legend

Identify ancient stories that have commonalities and are found in many regions

Identify types of stories that dominate the subject

Summarize the nature of oral language, role of traditional literature, role of audience, and literary style

Phase II:             Traditional tales from one area

      (Narrower view)

A.    Analyze traditional myths and other story types and compare with Phase I findings

B.    Analyze and identify values, beliefs, and themes in the traditional tales of one region

Phase III:            Autobiographies, biographies, and historical nonfiction

A.    Analyze for values, beliefs, and themes identified in traditional literature

B.    Compare information in historical documents with autobiographies and biographies

Phase IV:            Historical Fiction

B.    Evaluate according to authenticity of setting, conflicts, characterization, theme, language, and traditional beliefs and values

C.    Search for role of traditional literature

D.    Compare with non-fictional autobiographies, biographies, and historical information

Phase V:            Contemporary fiction, biography, and poetry

A.   Analyze the inclusion of any beliefs and values identified in traditional literature and biographical literature

B.   Analyze characterization and conflicts

C.   Analyze themes and look for threads across the literature

(Norton 31)

            This setup is quite similar to the class structure used in our minority literature class. 

English teachers are now being asked to reexamine their literature choices in order to better reflect and more accurately portray the multicultural reality of the United States.  The thrust to introduce such texts into the nation’s classrooms has of course not gone unchallenged.  Attempts to alter traditional school canons have been caught up in recent battles over “political correctness” (Bigler& Collins).

Bonnie Ericson believes that “promoting the reading of books that look at homes in the lives of teenagers from many cultures can, therefore, be an important beginning in the exploration by young adult readers of what they have in common and how they differ.”

Specific literatures:

The House on Mango Street

            “Cisneros addresses poverty, cultural suppression, self-identity, and gender roles in her fiction and poetry.  She creates characters who are distinctly Latina/o and often isolated from mainstream American culture by emphasizing dialogue and sensory imagery over traditional narrative structures…The cultural traits of Hispanic people are strongly evident in her writing […because] she writes of a typical Hispanic-American’s life and struggles” (Morris).  At the ninth grade level, I find the students thoroughly enjoy reading The House on Mango Street.  It is enjoyed by many of the students because of author’s voice and tone of the short stories; but most importantly, the life situations depicted in the novelette connects with many of my Hispanic students and the life situations they are currently living.

Bastard Out of Carolina

            Dorothy Allison should be read for two reasons: “one, she is a writer whose voice is elegant and forceful enough to overpower the din of the canon wars; and two, as a narrator she speaks clearly to the social and economic structures which disempower females” (Darlington).

            “Current statistics provide evidence that Allison has chosen a topic that is of serious concern.  A quarter of all American children born today are not part of a so-called nuclear family and this quartile is most likely to be fatherless and living in poverty” (Darlington).  Among children growing up today, females are becoming more and more likely to become heads of impoverished households.  “Thus it is safe to argue that adolescent fiction must tell a more complete story about the chances of growing up female and poor, if anything is to improve life for this quarter of the American population” (Darlington).

Conclusion

“A multicultural curriculum has been encouraged as a primary means of making schools more inclusive, as a way of breaking the silences and acknowledging the political nature of educational choices” (Bigler & Collins).  As Melissa Morris stated in her research journal, “schools that engage in multicultural education and programs that emphasize appreciation of diversity can expect greater participation, academic achievement, improved self-esteem, and more positive behavior…”     

Students should be allowed real choices among texts in high school classrooms and libraries.  Most likely, some teachers will not be able to make the Bastard Out of Carolina or other minority literatures mandatory reading for everyone in a class because of censorship issues which may surface in their districts; however, these same teachers may be able to interest some students to choose to read it.

Works Cited

Bigler, Ellen and James Collins.  Dangerous Discourses: The Politics of Multicultural Literature in Community and Classroom.  http://cela.albany.edu/danger/main.html.  No. 7.4, 1995.

Bontempo, Barbara.  “Exploring Prejudice in Young Adult Literature Through Drama and Role Play.”  Digital Library and Archives:  The Alan Review.  Vol. 22 no. 3, Spring 1995.

Darlington, Sonja R.  “Challenging the Canon of Adolescent Literature: Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina.”  Digital Library and Archives: The Alan Review.  Vol. 24 no 1, Fall 1996.

Dietrich, Deborah and Kathleen S. Ralph.  “Crossing Borders: Multicultural Literature in the Classroom.”  The Journal of Educational Issue of Language Minority Students.  Vol. 15, Winter 1995.  Boise State University.

Ericson, Bonnie O.  “At Home with Multicultural Adolescent Literature.”  Digital Library and Archives:  The Alan Review.  Vol. 23 no. 1, Fall 1995.

Hayn, Judith and Deborah Sherrill.  “Female Protagonists in Multicultural Young Adult Literature: Sources and Strategies.”  Digital Library and Archives: The Alan Review. Vol. 24 no. 1, Fall 1996.

Hoachlander, Gary, Martha Alt and Renee Beltranena.  “Leading School Improvement: What Research Says.”  Southern Regional Education Board.  March 2001.

Morris, Melissa.  “Cultural Learning Styles of Native Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Students; A Research Journal.”  Dec. 4, 2001

Norton, Donna.  “Teaching Multicultural Literature in the Reading Curriculum.”  The Reading Teacher. Vol. 44 no. 1, September 1990.

Simich-Dudgeon, Carmen.  “Classroom Strategies for Encouraging Collaborative Discussion.”  Directions in Language and Education.  No. 12, Summer 1998.

Texas NAACP.  “TAAS Resolution Commitment.”  http://www.texasnaacp.org/taasrc.htm.  June 1997