12 Multicultural Novels

Incorporate multicultural literature easily into your English program! Vivid stories that captivate the imagination and expand cultural understanding offer effective teaching strategies. This literature guide; gives you effective teaching strategies and complete material for 12 novels by writers from diverse cultures and ethnic backgrounds. The novels are: Ellen Foster, Reservation Blues; Shizuko's Daughter; The House on Mango Street; Somewhere in the Darkness; Make Lemonade; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; MAUS: A Survivor's Tale; The Long Season of Rain; Jesse; Allegra Maud Goldman; and The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan. Included for each novel are chapter-by chapter synopses, teaching notes, discussion questions and suggested responses, and a reading quiz and answer key.

Who Are We? helps us to understand and appreciated the diversity in our community. This bilingual book in Dari and English, part of the Language Lizard Living in Harmony Series, includes access to free lesson plans and fun activities to support diversity education.

Author-illustrator Vashti Harrison shines a bold, joyous light on black men through history in this #1 New York Times bestseller. An important book for readers of all ages, this beautifully illustrated and engagingly written volume brings to life true stories of black men in history. Among these biographies, readers will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include writer James Baldwin, artist Aaron Douglas, filmmaker Oscar Devereaux Micheaux, lawman Bass Reeves, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, and musician Prince. The legends in Little Legends: Exceptional Men in Black History span centuries and continents, but each one has blazed a trail for generations to come.

Judith Ortiz Cofer's Pura Belpré award-winning collection of short stories about life in the barrio! Rita is exiled to Puerto Rico for a summer with her grandparents after her parents catch her with a boy. Luis sits atop a six-foot mountain of hubcaps in his father's junkyard, working off a sentence for breaking and entering. Sandra tries to reconcile her looks to the conventional Latino notion of beauty. And Arturo, different from his macho classmates, fantasizes about escaping his community. They are the teenagers of the barrio -- and this is their world.

With the growing number of ethnic minority students in public schools, it is very important for teachers, librarians, and all those who work with children to have an understanding of appropriate multicultural literature. This book and the literature selections are designed to develop heightened sensitivity and understanding of people from various cultures and traditions through the selection of carefully chosen literature. It includes a balance of research about the culture and the literature, a discussion of authentic literature for students from early childhood through young adults, and teaching activities designed to develop higher cognitive abilities. The book uses a unique five-phase approach for the study of multicultural literature that has been field tested.

With a focus on fostering democratic, equitable education for young people, Ginsberg and Glenn’s engaging text showcases a wide variety of innovative, critical classroom approaches that extend beyond traditional literary theories commonly used in K-12 and higher education classrooms and provides opportunities to explore young adult (YA) texts in new and essential ways. The chapters pair YA texts with critical practices and perspectives for culturally affirming and sustaining teaching and include resources, suggested titles, and classroom strategies. Following a consistent structure, each chapter provides foundational background on a key critical approach, applies the approach to a focal YA text, and connects the approach to classroom strategies designed to encourage students to think deeply and critically about texts, themselves, and the world. Offering a wealth of innovative pedagogical tools, this comprehensive volume offers opportunities for students and their teachers to explore key and emerging topics, including culture, (dis)ability, ethnicity, gender, immigration, race, sexual orientation, and social class.

I Can Do Hard Things is a beautiful reminder to tune into and listen to that quiet voice inside so that you can do what's right for you. I don't always feel brave, confident or strong. Sometimes it seems easier to follow others along. It's hard to navigate a world in which we get so many messages about how we should be. We pause. We listen to the quiet voice inside. I connect with the love and strength it brings. It helps me remember: I can do hard things. I Can Do Hard Things: Mindful Affirmations for Kids is the perfect addition to your home or school library. (The book is available in Spanish as Yo Puedo Hacer Cosas Dificiles: Afirmaciones Concientes Para Niños).

Today’s public schools represent a demographic of students that are more diverse than ever before. In turn, culturally responsive and affirming teaching practices should mirror the academic, social, and cultural needs of an ever-increasing population of diverse students. Through multicultural education students can discover the ways they are shaped by their own culture, as well as learn more about others. Multicultural education practices provide mutually beneficial dialogue between cultures, and the pedagogical practices increase learning outcomes for not just the ethnically and racially diverse, but all students who are participatory in the content. This book provides educational stakeholders with culturally relevant and affirming techniques for utilizing multicultural literature as a pedagogical tool in social studies, mathematics, science, and reading. Each chapter provides a brief summary about the selected multicultural text and also contains an instructional strategy to be used. Following this, an inquiry-based lesson is provided with supplementary materials and resources that allow for K-12 differentiation.