Tuesday, February 16, 2010

beach article

This article mainly discusses how to introduce multicultural literature to adolescents in the classroom.

"While high school students may have difficulty understanding how individuals' identities and social practices are constituted by their participation in institutional systems or social worlds, they can vicariously gain experience of institutional forces through responding to literature portraying the effects of race, class, and gender systems on characters' lives (Beach, 3)."

The idea of subtly getting students to look at the bigger picture of why cultures behave the way they do is a huge task to overcome. I feel that A Single Shard is one of the better examples of a book that crosses the gender, class and racial gap that many teachers are hesitant to approach. A Single Shard tells of an orphaned, homeless, lower class boy who overcomes adversity and proves himself to be of value and who is worthy to be considered a human being. Students have the ability here to research and understand the customs of 12th century Korea. By doing research, and having class discussions, students can relate to the character for what the character is experiencing, rather than what the student has experienced. By challenging the student to think outside of their religion, class, race and family upbringing, the student can make proper evaluations of characters in A Single Shard, instead of saying that Tree-ear was a thief and Craneman was lazy. This article gives a teacher methods to prompt the student to have reach a revelation about other cultures. Students can have class discussions, quick writes, research papers, and activities that place themselves in the character's shoes. A student could understand the idea of Tree-ear and Craneman gleaning fields, of why Craneman was afraid of a fox, or why Tree-ear never talks back to Ajima or Min through the reinforcement of there social customs in Korea; all of these situations are directly influenced by what society expects of them. For a student to understand different concepts of living, and to see the bigger picture, they can then put together the reasons behind why Tree-ear has to scavenge for food, and why Craneman can't work. By using this book, we can potentially see students grasping the idea of learning about a culture, before making a judgment on them.

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