The Bronx Masquerade Discussion

Today in class we discussed the book "Bronx Masquerade". After reading the book on my own, I felt the book was a great read for students because it not only discussed issues of diversity but it also discussed issues that teens encounter no matter what their ethnicity. After reading Nikki Grimes' website, I found out some reasons why she wrote the book. She stated, "I knew people like Raynard, and Sheila, and all the rest. The characters in Bronx Masquerade are my peeps! So, while these characters are all fictional, they come from someplace real. (There is one real person in the book, though: Mr. Ward. That character is based on a teacher and poet I am honored to call my friend.)" I felt this said a lot about being an insider to the book because she did experience the issues she wrote about.
People in class today talked about how this book might have portrayed negative stereotypes because it put an issue with a certain ethnicity. I do agree with this point of view, but I also see how she wrote about these ethnicity's with these certain issues because they were real stories. In her website she wrote about the book "Each small story has its own theme, or core idea. However, the overriding theme of the novel is the power of poetry, specifically the power of poetry, the power of poetry as a means of self-expression, as a strategy for shaping community, and as a tool for teaching us that we are all alike beneath the skin. We all bleed when cut, and when everything else is stripped away, the greatest common denominator is the human heart." After I read this I realized that that explains the whole story. Grimes wanted her readers to see how every individual has a voice and you can't judge someone by looking at them from the outside.
When talking in my discussion group we discussed how this book would even bee a good book to pick apart as a teacher and make copies of certain poems for class discussion without even having your students read the book. This way as a teacher you could make sure these stereotypes are discussed in a positive way without leaving students feeling mad about what they read.

Vikki Grimes website :http://www.nikkigrimes.com/bronx/bronx1.html

Habibi: Book Debate

After our discussion on the book Habibi the other day in class, I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind. We read an article about the book and how it was banned in West Bloomfield school district. The article stated that they felt this book portrayed negative stereotypes and was one-sided. They felt is was a bad book to use for what they were trying to teach.
However, I felt the book was a good read for young adults. When I was in school I was never exposed to Arab or Jewish literature before. I felt this story was very interesting and kept my attention throughout the entire novel. I never felt that it was very one sided, I just felt that since it was written about an Arab girl, I was going to get more Arab history rather than Jewish history.
West Bloomfield is known for having a large Jewish community. I understand that when they read this book they might have felt betrayed because it did not represent their history very well. However, I believe that choosing this book to read in your classroom could turn it into something positive. I believe that this could lead the teacher to lead a discussion on the Histories of the two groups and really dig into the stereotypes of both groups. I believe this book would be a good introduction to the unit to sprout the students' interest in the Histories.

I wish I would have been exposed to culturally diverse books growing up as a child. I believe if there is always going to be debates over books like these then teachers are going to give up on picking a culturally diverse book in fear that they will be criticized for picking the wrong one. This fear is what has stopped discussion in classrooms. I believe teachers need to use books like Habibi, whether they are 100% correct or not, just to allow students to begin to think about topics dealing with cultures and religions different from their own.

How is blogging going?

I think blogging is a great addition to use in the classroom. For our TE 448 class, it is useful for us because we can look at responses from our classmates and see their opinions and insights about topics we have discussed in class. I know personally, I checked out many of my classmates blogs about the insider/outsider debate. Before writing my own blog I wanted to see where everyone else stood so I could get ideas because I was very undecided about the debate. Also, it allows the teacher to read their students responses on certain issues so they can figure out what needs to be discussed in class.
Before taking TE 448, I had never blogged before. I always heard of people blogging but I never knew how you could read blogs or how you could create your own. I was even kind of confused about what a blog contained. Now, I know that anyone can create a blog, and can write and anything in their blog. I really like that freedom that blogs have. People are allowed to state their own opinions and are able to receive others opinions. I am sure this creates some controversy, but it also allows for everyone to have a voice.
Most of us in our TE 448 class are going to be teachers one day. I believe blogs would be an excellent source to use in our own classrooms. If I will be working in a district where most students have internet access at home I think creating a classroom blog would be a great idea. I could do daily posts where I write what we did during the day, and post homework for the night. That way parents could know what is going on, along with students being able to look up their homework if they forgot what was due the next day. I believe communication is very important in a classroom, and I believe if parents are well-informed about what is going on in their child's classroom there will be a very positive atmosphere for the year. I know as first year teachers parents are skeptible and fear that the teacher isn't ready. Blogs would maby lessen this fear and allow for positive feedback from parents.

Group B discussion

Today I led the discussion on the book Habibi. I was nervous going into this discussion because I felt this paper was difficult to write. My question was: Did Poppy move his family to Palestine to allow them to challenge stereotypes? The members in my group had a lot of good information to add to my topic allowing me to make my discussion easy. I really liked the other question in my group because it discussed why Poppy did not prepare Liyana's Uncle that Omer was Jewish when he came to dinner with the family at the end of the book. Her Uncle was surpirsed that he was allowed in their home. This led our group to discuss the issue of stereotypes and how different generations are more accepting of other cultures. We then related it to our personal lives and talked about how different people in our families accept other cultures. After discussing this book, I realized that there were so many questions that I could have used for my paper. Our discussion also allowed me to look at my furture role as a teacher and see what types of questions are good for group discussion.

Insider/Ousider debate

I believe the insider outsider debate is an interesting topic to discuss being a future teacher. On the one hand, I believe that the best kind of book to have in my classroom would be a book written by an insider's perspective. My mom used to always say to me, "You don't know what it feels like until you are in that person's shoes". Most often, being the insider you have experienced first hand what you are writing about and have created a story to educate others about. The knowledge an insider is sharing can be trusted to the average reader because it was part of their culture and lifestyle growing up. The tone and language used in the story sometimes even feels more authentic coming for an author who is an insider. An insider will create real illustrations in their books and not the "fake" "stereotype" drawings. To think about it logically, it is much easier to tell someone a story about yourself then to tell a story about someone that you heard about. More often than not, the story that you tell about someone else will get altered every time you tell it.

However, on the other hand I do not think it is wrong for an outsider to write a story either. I believe that if they research what they are writing about thoroughly then that outside author can create a story which appears to be very authentic and accurate. By doing this research, an outsider can create these "real" illustrations, and not the "fake" "stereotypical" ones. The outsider just needs to make sure that they are not making a story that give a false sense to its readers. It is not fair to the children/teenagers/adults who are reading the story to lie to them and given them a false portrayal of what they are reading about. If outsiders continue to write books that misrepresent what they are writing about, then as a society, we are going to continue to receive false information.

As future teachers, we need to make sure every book that we have in our classroom is a good story to have our students reading. I know when I was growing up, I read many books that now seem so inaccurate to me. I do not want my students getting these false impressions.

I would like to explore more children's books authors who are insiders and outsiders. I would like to compare books written about the same things with these authors and see their strengths and weaknesses of their writing and illustrations.