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Open-access
E-journal for
International Scholars, Practitioners, and Students of Multicultural
Education
ISSN:
1559-5005
Copyright © 1999-2006 by
Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education
THIS
ISSUE
(Spring 2005: vol. 7, no. 1)
Theme:
Multicultural
Curriculum for Language Arts
ARTICLES:
Makinde
•
Landis
•
White-Clark & Lappin
INSTRUCTIONAL
IDEAS:
Hecsh
REVIEWS:
Art
•
Books
•
Multimedia
CONTRIBUTORS
+++
Previous Issues
Call for Papers
Call for Reviewers
Issue Themes
Acknowledgments
About EMME
About the Editors
Heewon Chang, Ph. D.
Editor-in-Chief
Linda
Stine, Ph. D.
Copy Editor
Hwa Young
Caruso, Ed. D. & John Caruso, Jr. , Ph. D.
Art Review Editors
Leah Jeannesdaughter Klerr
Assistant Editor
Eastern
University
Education
Department
1300 Eagle Road
St. Davids, PA,
19087-3696
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MULTIMEDIA REVIEWS
(Provided
by the editorial staff of EMME unless indicated otherwise)
Films and Videos
Websites
Films and
Videos
Guerini, Franco (Director). (2000).
Native American Novelists (4-part Series:
N. Scott Momaday, Leslie M. Silko, Gerald Vizenor, & James
Welch). 45-50 minutes (each), color. Distributed by
Films for the Humanities &
Sciences.
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This video series is a
crucial and startlingly relevant resource for a
multicultural liberal arts curriculum. Although aimed
toward professionals, the videos could provide a
profitable knowledge base and engender discussion in a
thoughtful class of secondary students. If used in a
classroom, however, the videos require a mature audience
as the interviews include some stereotypical or
derogatory terms to illustrate the offensiveness of
broad ethnic slurs to the Native Americans.
Additionally, there are some careless generalizations
about both Native peoples and Caucasians that may
require discussion. The biographies and literary import
of N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie M. Silko, and
Gerald Vizenor are examined in the four videos. The
interview questions and responses are refreshingly frank
as they address sensitive issues. For example, Welch
embraces his "cross blood" title while Vizenor denies
the categorization of his identity and writes with the
purpose of ensuring that no reader will be able to
comfortably say or read the word “Indian”. The
novelists honestly discuss the inherent exclusivity of
some Native American experiences resulting from a
community-oriented lifestyle, a non-linear understanding
of time, and the rejection of the idea of land
ownership; these factors may interfere with
understanding of the authors by a Western nation or
audience. Points of discussion may include the
necessity of violence in post-colonial literature, the
unique treatment of the English language by Native
American novelists, and the limits of such a linear
literary form as the novel. While the four authors
maintain some similarities, the differences, based in
their backgrounds, tribal experience, or writing
processes, are telling: Welch prefers history to
Vizenor’s historiography and Silko thinks anger a
justifiable reaction to the world at large while Vizenor
attempts to instill the reality of communal life into
his literary audience. Whether used in a professional
or educational setting, these videos will prove
thought-provoking and useful in conjunction with any
humanities or liberal arts classroom at the secondary
and post-secondary education level.
Lauren Bailes
Eastern University |
Rose, Suzanne
(Director). (2003). The Expanding Canon: Teaching
Multicultural Literature in High School (Section 7: Critical
Thinking). 60 minutes, color. Professional Development
Workshop. Produced by
Thirteen/WNET and distributed by
Annenberg/CPB.
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For secondary English
teachers who would like to incorporate multicultural
literature and critical thinking into their curriculum,
this video is a perfect match! This workshop video, one
of an 8-piece series, presents scenes from actual
classroom teaching, in which two veteran high school
English teachers skillfully weave multicultural
literature into instruction. Cathie Wright-Lewis from a
Brooklyn high school in New York uses Octavia E.
Butler's novel Parable of the Sower; Sandra
Childs from a Portland high school in Oregon discusses
Ruthanne Lun McCunn's novel Thousand Pieces of Gold.
Employing a variety of instructional strategies such as
class discussion, compare and contrast, role play, and
in-class writing, both teachers challenge students to
link the readings to the current
socio-cultural-political issues of the society and to
critically examine issues presented by the literature.
Viewers may also appreciate "meeting" both novelists
through the video. An in-print workshop guide (ISBN:
1-57680-725-8), accompanying this video as well as
others in the series, contains helpful reading material
to be used in classroom instruction. The video
demystifies challenges associated with multicultural
curriculum and instruction at the secondary level.
Teachers may feel more at ease about trying
multicultural instruction after watching this video and
reading the workshop guide. |
Websites
Discussing Immigration
Through Literature
http://www.intranet.csupomona.edu/%7Etassi/immigrate.htm
The Teachers' Asian Studies Summer Institute (TASSI) at
California State Polytechnic University at Pomona was founded to
provide educators with the opportunity to explore multicultural
and multiethnic educational best practices in order to create
culturally responsive teaching environment. While working with
nationally recognized scholars in the areas of Asian literature,
politics, history, and languages in summer seminars, each TASSI
participant helped create curriculum materials for grades K-12
as part of their seminar. This website archives one of 15
curriculum units developed during the summer of 1997, and it
includes instructional ideas for literature, language arts,
math, social studies, science, art/music, and even recipes. The
appropriate grade level is not clearly announced; however, the
activities listed could be easily adapted for any grade level.
Multicultural
Children's Literature
http://www.lib.msu.edu/corby/education/multicultural.htm
This
webpage, sponsored by Michigan State University (MSU)
Libraries and
maintained by Kate Corby, a reference
librarian and bibliographer of education and psychology, aims
to help teachers create classrooms in which children of all
backgrounds feel welcomed and invited to explore different
cultures through the world of multicultural literature. It
provides over 40 resources, some of which include informative
and useful annotations. Users may find particularly helpful an
annotated list of relevant websites, a list of relevant books
that the Michigan State University Libraries currently hold
(with some synopses), and an annotated list of scholarly journal
articles.
"Multicultural Literacy"
Section of The Literacy Web
http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/multilit.htm
Launched in 2002 by the
NEAG School of Education at the University of Connecticut, The
Literacy Web is a comprehensive website that seeks to use the
Internet as a tool to connect teachers and other educational
professional to current research and theory that explore
literacy practices and to classroom resources for all grade
levels. The Multicultural Literacy section has over 30 links to
articles, booklists, and other compilations of instructional
resources, reviews, and dissertations. Practical tools such as
searchable databases make the site user-friendly. Most resource
links include brief annotations that will help guide viewers to
resources most appropriate to their needs.
"Multi-Cultural
Children's Literature Section" of Frank Rogers' Guide to
Children's Literature on the Web
http://frankrogers.home.mindspring.com/multi.html
Frank Rogers is an elementary
school Library Media Specialist who is also studying children's
literature at University of Georgia in Athens. Rogers arranges
his website according to 13 "themes": e.g., "Hispanic and Latino
Themes," "Disability Themes," and "Rural or Appalachian Themes."
It also contains a "General Multi-Cultural Resources" section.
The links within each theme are listed in alphabetical order
with useful descriptions of the link's content. Over 90 links
included lead users mostly to booklists, book reviews,
bibliographies, and annotated bibliographies, but it also
contains a few links to articles and curriculum resources. At
the time of publication of this review, the website was last
updated in 2002. Readers should note, however, that the author
has advised EMME that he will be updating his website later this
summer.
Reading Across the
Cultures
http://www.cis.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/5/
The Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute is an educational
partnership between Yale University and the New Haven Public
Schools. Every year teachers participating as Fellows in the
Institute's seminar program prepare curriculum units to be
taught in the following year. The Institute's website archives
all of these units. In 1998, the program seminar, entitled
"Reading Across the Cultures," was led by Thomas Whitaker,
Professor Emeritus of English. Volume V of the 1998's curriculum
archives contains a collection of 10 curriculum units from this
seminar. Each unit consists of five elements: objectives,
teaching strategies, sample lessons, classroom activities, and
lists of resources for teachers and students. The units explore
literature from Latino, African American, Native American,
Jewish, and Asian American cultures in the form of poems, short
fiction, essays, and a play. The grade levels for which the
curriculum units are intended in this volume range from
kindergarten through secondary school. The website provides
rich, practical, and ready-to-go resources for K-12 classroom
teachers who are interested in incorporating multicultural
literature into their language arts lessons.
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