For this week’s blog post I will be focusing on the
Stallworth Article that we were asked to read. Its focus is on using multicultural
texts in the classroom from the teacher’s perspective. In reading this article
it didn’t change much on how I perceived teaching Young Adult Literature. In
fact it made me even more confident to teach it. The reason being is because in
the article it states how it’s the teacher’s job to incorporate texts that allow
for students to “respect” and “understand” the background origins and heritage of
the diverse groups in the classroom. This is something I have been incorporating
in my lesson plans already and after reading that it is a standard that needs
to be met, it reassures myself I am on the right track for my teaching career.
I also was impressed with how in the article how it brought up the issue of “good
literature” is “classic literature.” However, as we have talked about in class
it’s harder for students to relate to some of those texts so it makes the
current Young Adult literature novels we are reading more relevant to them
which in conclusion make for “good literature,” because the students are
actually gaining something out of it. The article backs up my point when it
states that “good literature” is a mixture of traditional and non-traditional
texts. This reminds me that in my classroom I need to have a solid balance and
not strain and focus on just one. Another teaching tip I gained from this
article was how it explained by case study of the classics evolving. It goes
into depth on how certain books overtime have become a classic; this reminds me
that I need to be aware of changing trends in the texts I provide in the
classroom (Once again going back to the point of having balance between
traditional and non-traditional texts). Another theme that I gained a lot from
reading was the hardships that may occur while trying to incorporate
multicultural texts. When talking about lack of resources it really shows how
sad it is that students are not getting the full educational experience based
off of lack of materials. This is something as a teacher that is going to be a
hard obstacle to overcome and is now something I need to start thinking about
when making lesson plans (Especially with YA literature because most schools
only carry the traditional texts). The last point I would like to touch on for
this post is the preparation factor. In the text a teacher believed she wasn’t
qualified to teach Euro Classics because she wasn’t a historian, however I see
this as a cop out. It’s the teacher’s duty to put in time outside of the
classroom just as the students do to become masters of the work they are
teaching. If it takes a weekend to analyze and go over the text then it needs
to be done. There should be no excuse for a piece of text to not be taught
because of this excuse, I don’t have the best background with some of these
historical texts we read, but with a little research on the topic, author and
novel creation it can be taught and be taught thoroughly. This article overall
made me even more excited to teach YA literature because it opened my eyes to a
lot of different areas that I had never explored before.
