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[msyeskel]

November 8, 2021

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

There is, obviously, a lot to talk about with this book. The most salient theme in this novel is racism and police brutality (something which I did not need to read the book to grasp), but what ends up featuring the most in The Hate U Give was identity. Yet this book touches on so many more themes, that I would probably have the main objective be that students identify themes in each chapter, and as a final assessment, discuss one particular theme, how it shows up in the text, and how that theme applies to their own lives. 

The problem I have with this book, however, is how I believe it could be misused or offered to the wrong class. I do not believe every student would benefit from this book as it is a severely triggering subject, and I could totally see a teacher using this book as a Band-Aid for the next highly publicized murder of a Black person at the hands of police. Also, considering its length and subject matter, this would be more suitable as a choice book. While reading it might be catharsis, for others, it might be a re-traumatizing experience.

Just to talk about the novel content for just a moment, I appreciated how Thomas let Starr and her family experience joy and happiness throughout the book. Often trauma novels skim over the possibility of happiness amidst trauma as if somehow, happiness and love detract from the traumatic impact. Scenes that feature a happy Carter family humanizes them and humanizes Starr. It’s so simple, but so effective in turning Starr into a character with agency rather than only a victim. 

[msyeskel]

November 1, 2021

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Wow, a lot to unpack with this one. 

First off, I want to express disappointment that I had already read another article for another class that spoiled the revelation that Danny was Jin. It took away from that emotional moment - that hit in the chest when you realize what Danny has traded for his white identity. However, having this spoiled for me didn’t erase the emotional impact - I simply read the text a different way. 

American Born Chinese is centered on identity and discomfort of identity. While The Best At It explores one child’s discovery of his identities, American Born Chinese starts the reader off in a place where the characters know who they are but only see deficits in relation to other people. The very beginning of the story depicts the herbalist’s wife who advises Jin that he can be a transformer, but he’ll have to give something up in return. I’d really like to go into this further with students. What do we give up when we dismiss or neglect parts of ourself? Do they go away? 

Also, the theme of transformation is so powerful in this book. Not only do the characters play with Transformers, but every chapter features some sort of transformation. It would be interesting to have students identify the transformation in each section. 

This is a very hard-hitting book, and I don’t know if it would be right for every student. However, I do think it offers both a mirror and a window into one Asian American experience.

[msyeskel]

October 25, 2021

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Going into this novel, I had no idea what it was about, and I had no clue that it was a series of vignettes. I really raced through this book because of the vignettes (and also, I was on a flight and read it in the two hours we were in the air). If I had more time, I would have like to read it more closely, and I actually think this is something that would be a good thing to go over with students. Just because a book is shorter doesn’t mean we should take less time with it. I think it’s very natural to zoom through texts, but how can we learn to sit with shorter texts without rushing? I think if I were to teach this book, it would be something that we would read over a long time. 

Shelby, in her reflection, spoke to how she would also have students write their own vignettes as well. I’m completely on board with this. Since I am very much a “themes” person, I’d like to tie this into a unit on “Home.” What is home? Is home a place? A person? A meal? A song? A birdcall? But the beauty of this book is that it could fit into so many different units. The vignettes are also so digestible. After reading the novel as a class, it would be cool to split up the vignettes between students, have them do analysis on their own, and then share with each other. 

[msyeskel]

Week of 10/18

What I find particularly compelling about The Crossover is the theme of identity in the book. I realize my base group did an entire lesson on identity, but this book could easily be a continuation of that. I actually think I would use this more as a choice book than an entire class read, particularly because of the heavy focus on basketball (I enjoyed this as an adult, but I know I wouldn’t have been interested in seventh grade), and there is a death of a parent. As a student whose father also died of a heart attack, this would have been triggering to me and I probably would have preferred to read something else. 

But back to identity! That the two brothers are twins makes it much more challenging for our protagonist Josh to find out who he is without his brother. Who is Josh without his locks/basketball/brother/father? What significance do names play in this book? How do appearances play with this (twins/locks, etc.)? How does verse compare to prose, and why was this stylistic choice appropriate/compelling? 

[msyeskel]

Week of 9/27

Think about bell hooks’ discussion of “critical fiction.” Share a text that you would identify as a critical fiction, explain your rationale, and identify how you might use it in a classroom 

Quick note, I spent too much time thinking about this. I honestly struggled so much with this question. I apologize if I do not fully grasp the concept of critical fiction, but I’m wondering if it’s because I’m thinking too hard about it. I wrestled with a lot of different texts and realized that much of what I considered bringing to the table were actually trauma novels, not critical fiction.

“Critical fictions effectively intervene and challenge dominant reading practices when they compel the uncritical reader to put aside set notions of what literature should be or do and enthusiastically grasp new and different approaches. This may indeed require them to relinquish privilege and their acceptance of dominant ways of knowing as preparation for hearing different voices. The ability to be empathetic is rooted in our capacity to imagine” (hooks, p. 57)

So much to unpack here, but I love this passage, and I think it really relates to our earlier conversation of multiple lenses. In my opinion, one glaring reason why we bother to teach students multiple viewpoints is because of what bell hooks is saying here. That ability to take oneself out of one’s own experiences and into someone else’s is a powerful skill. I just want to include this passage in this portfolio so I can look back on it. 

This question has really forced me to confront my relationship with reading and what I’ve chosen to read. Frankly, the most recent novel I’ve read that might be considered critical fiction if you squint and turn your head sideways is The Golem and the Jinni. Although it takes place at the turn of the century, much of this story draws on the experience of immigrants and the desire to be isolated to protect oneself but also desperately needing interpersonal connection. The story follows two creatures—a jinni that is impossibly ancient that has been imprisoned for hundreds of years and a golem, a being that has been created quite recently. While they have opposing goals, their situations are very similar: neither of them really ‘belong’ in New York City, but neither can return from where they came. I would love to use this novel as a critique on the way we expect immigrants to assimilate and hide who they are in order to fit in to the dominant culture. Situating this in a unit on Assimilation in general might be interesting. An essential question might be, Why does dominant culture require assimilation? What happens when someone does not assimilate? If assimilation happens, what do we lose?

[msyeskel]

Week of 9/20

What I’ve discovered so far in this program is that once you’ve adopted some sort of theorist as a prophet, suddenly an instructor presents a new text or idea that ultimately sends you spiraling and unlearning/relearning something you’ve only just learned. One thing I am discovering that I love about the field of education is that there is no right answer, and there is no magical method of doing anything. Luke, in regard to Freire, points out Foucault’s critique that “binary opposition [has] the potential to obscure the complexity of discourse” (Luke, p. 6). I’ve felt quite comfortable in Freire’s binary of oppressor/oppressed because as humans, we like binaries. It’s easier to conceptualize—good/bad, capitalist/communist, etc. Yet interestingly enough, this negates the very concept of critical literacy, doesn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I love Freire, but I think we’re diving into perilous waters when we treat his writings like they were whispered into his ear from the teaching gods. Sometimes I even critique the term “banking model.” If education is a conversation, why can’t teachers have dialogue back? I say this because honestly, I don’t hear my instructors talk enough about their experiences, and it’s disappointing. So many instructors are adamant that they remain completely student-focused, but I feel like we’re missing out on getting to know them. Also, I don’t mean to be awful here, but what if you’re a teacher who’s teaching in a predominantly white, middle-class school? How do students learn through crisis in that situation if there’s not a tiny bit of banking model going on? 

Coffey and Janks further define critical literacy. Janks suggests that “texts are partial—they cannot capture the world as it is” and that texts are “not neutral but reflect the point of view of the text producer” (p. 17). I jotted down in my notes as I was reading. Let’s say you’ve got to read a problematic, canonical text. Could you supplement that text (or partial story) with contemporary texts and voices? Ones that present contrasting views/perspectives? It seems like Coffey and I have similar ideas! Coffey brings up a practical application of this in which a teacher might incorporate Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” lyrics into a lesson to “make connections between popular media and political issues” (p. 5). 

 Also, I don’t have much to add onto Grinage only that I never considered “trauma novel” as a genre before, particularly when it comes to “socializing with racial ghosts.” I would not say that I’m excited to read The Hate U Give, but I’m highly anticipating it!

[msyeskel]

Week of 9/13

Hello! This week I’m sharing my notes/thoughts as I read through each text this week, making notes of quotes that stuck out to me.

Appleman, Chapter 1

In regards to critical lenses, Appleman notes that to read texts without a critical lens is a political act itself. Classrooms are constantly changing as quickly as the world and society changes. To fail to regard texts with multiple lenses would be to abandon relationships with students. I also agree with Appleman the importance of reading a text with multiple lenses--how can we build credible arguments and construct our own values without considering an opposing viewpoint? 

“Multicultural literature has largely been embraced by many teachers, but the complexity of teaching diverse works to diverse and nondiverse classes is just beginning to be confronted” (p. 10)

Appleman, Chapter 2

Quick thought - could I show the movie Hoodwinked to demonstrate multiple viewpoints? As an activity, we could do an activity where the students tell a fairytale from the perspective of either another character.  

“Additionally, as literature teachers we may want to move students beyond their own personal response into the perspective of others” (p. 26). Yes! Frankly, I don’t really remember doing much reader response in late high school. My teachers in early high school simply were looking for very basic interpretations of the text, but by late high school, my teachers insisted that we not use the reader response lens when we write an analysis. 

Kumashiro, Chapter 7

“A wider range of texts might also present students with alternatives to the predominant or commonsensical ways of thinking that have traditionally framed or hindered the ways they make sense of their own lives” (p. 71). Yes - as important as this is, I’m glad that Kumashiro points out that diverse literature does not mean “free from prejudice.” In regard to the theory of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies, it is not enough to simply read diverse texts without a critical lens. I am not referring to “reverse racism” (which doesn’t actually exist), but perpetuating stereotypes.

Oh, ha, that’s what Kumashiro says on page 75.

On classics, Kumashiro writes, “They can be useful in an anti-oppressive lesson if teachers ask questions about the ways they reinforce the privilege of only certain experiences and perspectives” (p. 75) and comments on the reverse, that multicultural literature has the potential to “reinforce stereotypes if teachers fail to ask questions about how students are reading them.”

Also problematic, we want our diverse books written by diverse authors to be perfect representations of whatever marginalized group is featured. This is simply not possible. Such a notion suggests a monolithic group, ignoring the fact that each person is unique. This also suggests that if there is one thing wrong with a text, it should be completely disregarded, shutting down conversations before they start. When engaging with a text that we like or enjoy or in which we find value, is there space to be critical? Can we identify stereotypes and racist ideologies without throwing out entire texts? Literature is so often put on a pedestal or completely thrown out. As humans, we love to compartmentalize - this is morally good, this is morally bad. How can we work with our students to be critical without critical being a bad word? 

[msyeskel]

Week of 9/7: Reflection #1

Regarding Smith and Wilhem’s chapter Teaching So It Matters, I think this reaches into why we get into teaching English and Language Arts in the first place. We read literature on our own not to analyze but to answer an essential question: How does this piece of literature change or influence our worldview? In this chapter, the author gives an example of Jeff and his annual lesson on The Incredible Journey. This really addresses my anxiety of assigning required texts (particularly ones that are problematic and perhaps no longer should be taught). I am particularly interested in reframing how we read a particular text, especially ones that are required. This is also entirely related to relationship building and determining the interests of one’s students. Do the essential questions look the same each year for the same required text? Or should that question change based on the students or even current events? Global events can change the context of a novel entirely and shed light on new angles we might not have considered. For example, texts or media that feature a character (or characters) in quarantine will have shifted from the question “what would I do if I were quarantined?” to “how does this compare to my experience of quarantine?” 

 This reading was a bit of fresh air, to be honest. It was a solid interpretation of how Understanding by Design can be applied in an ELA context. Since we study quite a bit of theory before we head to the classroom, sometimes I have difficulty picturing what particular strategies will look like in practice. Teaching backwards in order to facilitate understanding certainly makes sense, and frankly, teaching with an end goal is…ideal.

Smith and Wilhem’s state that “we must decide what is most worth emphasizing in the little time we have” (Smith and Wilhem, p. 76). In regard to Ladson-Billings’ reading, we can take this phrase and apply cultural relevance like I suggested above. We cannot teach everything—there is simply too much or we risk the dreaded “coverage.” However, since there is so much, it means that we and our students can pick what is most important. 

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Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). But that’s just good teaching! The Case for Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. Theory into Practice 34(3). 159-165. 

Smith, M.W., & Wilhelm, J.D. (2006). Teaching so it matters: Where should we be going and how can we get there? Going with the Flow: how to engage boys (and girls) in their literacy learning (pp. 54-79). Heinemann. 

Wiggns, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Backward Design. Understanding by Design. (pp. 13-34). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.