Week 6: "A Single Shard"

The article, High School Students Responses to Alternative Value Stances Associated with the Study of Multicultural Literature by Beach et al really relates the cultural divide that most students face when analyzing multicultural literature. The article gives multiple students’ reactions to cultural issues in various books to further demonstrate the need for students to be better informed in matters that people from other cultural backgrounds are facing. This article stresses the need for teachers to help children broaden their worldly views by exposing them to multicultural literature and providing background information before they read the literature so that they have a better understanding of the issues exposed in the literature. This book directly relates to the book Fresh Girl that we have read in this class because without prior knowledge about the Haitian culture, students would not be able to fully grasp the messages in the story. In the story, Marti faces a lot of discrimination for her Haitian heritage, even though she is American in nationality. The students in the book fail to understand Marti and make fun of her accent and clothes. Although I am older, and more educated culturally than the target middle school audience of this novel, I had a hard time connecting with Marti’s feelings and experiences of being discriminated against. Like many students who have read this book, I have not been physically exposed to many people from Haiti and other countries, thus making it hard for me to completely connect with Marti’s issues early on in the novel. I agree with the article when it suggests that students need to be better educated culturally in order to better understand the cultural issues addressed in many multicultural books.