Week 3: "Esperanza Rising"

After reading Esperanza Rising, and the article by Yu Ren Dong, I have gained a better perspective on the importance of teaching multicultural literature to students. Esperanza Rising, along with the other books that we have read so far in this class work to convey the importance of representing many different cultures and writing styles in teaching a literature class. These books move students away from the traditionally “white” novels, and push their minds to expand and gain a better understanding of many different cultures.
Esperanza Rising moves away from the typical black and white cultures that are seen in most multicultural literature, and expands the children’s understanding of the Latino culture. Esperanza is a young girl that is faced with many different hardships which she must overcome, and ultimately serves as a beacon of hope for all children going through hard times. This novel is important to be taught in classrooms because it helps to give students a better grasp of the Latino culture and hardships that those people have had to endure. The more cultures that are represented in classrooms, the better students are able to relate to stories, as well as broaden their perspectives on life.
Yu Ren Dong’s article, “Bridging the Cultural Gap by Teaching Multicultural Literature”, serves to illustrate the importance of providing works spanning over a great assortment of cultures to students. I agree with Dong’s belief that the more diversity that students are exposed to, the greater and more informed their worldly views will be. Dong also makes a point of expressing the importance of the educators to be well informed themselves of different cultures, so as to better express the importance of cultural diversity to students. I believe that all of the novels and articles that we have read so far in this class have helped to better educated us in the importance of multicultural diversity and have expanded our worldly views as well.

Week 2: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" and "Twilight"

After reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Twilight, and the article by Brannon and Greene, I now have a better understanding of why I have read such a diverse spread of literary works so far this semester. The article by Brannon and Greene stresses the need for diversity in literary selection in classrooms. I agree with this viewpoint, and also agree that many teachers do not fully achieve this due to the difficulty in reconstructing their syllabi. I feel that it is very important for teachers to take the extra time and effort in order to better expose their students to a variety of literature. I firmly believe that what you read works to mold your outlook on the world, and the more diversity in literature that you are exposed to, the more open-minded your view on life will be.
In this class, we have already read some very contrasting pieces to the traditional literary selections. We began the class reading Sharon Draper’s novel The Copper Sun, which is meant to educate adolescents on the evils of slavery. This novel opens up students’ views to the world by educating them on slavery, a topic not widely covered in most classrooms due to its controversial and violent content. Another important reason for this novel to be taught in classrooms is that Sharon Draper is an African-American female writer, something not so common in the literary world full of old white men. I firmly believe that more teachers need to teach novels such as Draper’s to their students in order to broaden their perspectives on the issue of slavery and race.
This week, we have completed reading Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Meyer’s Twilight. Both of these novels are similar in many ways, such as their magical aspects, but they are also different in their purpose, as Twilight serves as a love story and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone serves as an adventure tale full of hope. I believe that the style of literature found in these works should be taught in school because it opens students up to a different style of literature than they have previously seen in past English courses. After completing my readings so far in this class, I agree with Brannon and Greene’s emphasis on improving the diversity of literature in their article.

Week 1: "Copper Sun"

After reading Sharon Draper’s novel, Copper Sun, I was able to come to the conclusion that she did a good job in presenting the harsh realities of slavery to her adolescent target audience. This book contained many different examples of the abuses that slaves underwent on a daily basis, and it was able to better instill in me the fact that slave-owners saw slaves as property and not as people. This book opened my eyes to the evils of slavery, and educated me on the fact that slave children were often used as gator bait in alligator hunting. The whole gator hunting seen where Tidbit is thrown into the water and barely escapes the powerful jaws of alligators several times for the sheer enjoyment of Clay Derby and his friends really struck me. I had always known that slaves were beaten, raped, and abused, but I never thought that human nature would allow somebody to endanger the lives of another person for the sheer enjoyment of the hunt. I have previously been well educated in the evils of slavery and strongly oppose any oppression to people of color, but this novel brought more shame to white people than I had previously known through the various examples of the tortures that slaves were put through. In the scene where Mr. Derby kills Noah and Mrs. Derby’s love child, I truly believe that the impressions of slave-owners as people and slaves as animals to be reversed. Mr. Derby murders a child that has done nothing in the world except taking its first breaths, and yet Mr. Derby feels the need to shoot the child. This book truly makes me more aware of the trials and tribulations that blacks have undergone in gaining freedom, and it has caused me to look at Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a different light. Previously, I had looked at it as simply a day off of school, but I now understand that he was fighting for hope and for freedom, just like his ancestors had before. This book has for me, and I expect that it has for the adolescent audience, opened my eyes to the abuses and struggles facing slaves at every moment of their lives, but has also showed me that there is hope in this world. This novel expresses the fact that no matter how difficult your situation is, there is always hope and the opportunity to make a better life for yourself.