Humanity is a Muddy Prism

Effective multicultural studies are so imperative in today's classrooms, and something that is very close to my heart.

My ideal classroom is an environment in which students can be real.  I want my students to feel comfortable expressing raw thoughts because it is through this honesty that real reflection, discussion, and questioning will flourish.  The English classroom should not be safe or complacent; it should challenge and stretch students.

Overall, I agree with Daniel D. Hade's ideas about teaching multiculturalism.  He defines multiculturalism as a movement instead of a standard of stocking the bookshelves with diverse authors.  "Multiculturalism disappears without the challenge of critique...  Challenging assumptions . . . must be at the core of multicultural education" (252).

Why is multiculturalism important in the classroom?  Because it is a study of humanity and since we all live together, we must strive to understand each other. 

There are a multitude of texts that have the potential to spark real discussions about race, class and gender (which are the three areas that Hade focuses on).  I would further add sexual orientation and disability as focus areas in his discussion of multicultural studies.  In this class alone, we have read American Born Chinese and To Kill a Mockingbird.  Both novels explore themes of race and identity, as do many others.  I am also currently reading Native Son (by Richard Wright), which was a novel that I read paired with Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in high school.  Other novels that come to mind include The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros), the curious incident of the dog in the night (Mark Haddon), and Exile and Pride (Eli Clare).  Although at first glance it appears to be a children's book, Susan Jeffers's Brother Eagle, Sister Sky contains a mature message that explores friction between the values of two cultures.  All of these texts have revealed preconceptions that I have harbored and, primarily through class discussions, have encouraged me to challenge thoughts that I now recognize as "western" assumptions.

Again, I want to reiterate Hade's thought that multiculturalism is not enough if its goal is merely to raise awareness and appreciation for diversity.  Multiculturalism needs to "challenge the domination of assumptions . . . [and is] the challenge of living with each other in a world of difference . . . based on equity and justice" (240).

I dispute arguments that the culture of prejudices that killed Tom Robinson is not present in the public anymore.  Three years ago, while one of my friends (who is an Indian American) was taking the scaffold apart after marching band practice, another student walked by and yelled: "Watch out.  A----- is taking down the tower!"  Two years ago, there was a race riot at my high school that resulted in a few police officers being placed under investigation because of questionable violence.  Last year, after kicking a student out of class, the teacher proceeded to tell the class that the student (who was a student affected by poverty who permeated the area around him with the scent of smoke) was a "dirty good-for-nothing that just sits around and smokes all day."

The value of multiculturalism and incorporating texts that further multicultural studies is that they open these kinds of situations up to an honest discussion.  A bit ago, there was a controversy regarding the censorship of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.  The most impactful statement that I gathered from that argument is from one of the scholars in the video that Shannon provides on D2L.  He said that the censorship offers an opportunity to talk about why people react the way they do to the term "nigger."  He argues that if the term and censorship of the term can provoke such strong reactions, then it is something that needs to be talked about!

A slightly humorous but very serious questioning of censorship:

That is what multiculturalism needs to express to students.  We need to discuss things that cause conflict or make us uncomfortable or that we don't understand in order to understand them.  We need to be able to challenge our assumptions and thoughts and be willing to accept that maybe we do not know as much as we assume.  No one ever knows the full story of anyone else, and we must listen to others to begin to fill in that gap (which is something that the Brown Eye/Blue Eye experiment did successfully).

Once we join this movement, we will be able to "become readers not just of the word but also of the world" (241).

Comic Relief

I suppose I have always assumed a stuffy superiority to graphic novels.  Thirteen years in my English classrooms had conditioned me to segregate them into the minuscule group of literature.  In fact, American Born Chinese is the first graphic novel that I have ever read.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Actually, I was shocked to see how engaging it is.  I read it in two sittings; I could not put it down!

The greatest asset of graphic novels is that they meet students where they are.  Frey and Fisher discuss multiple literacies, which translates to the fact that we live in a very visual world.  (I absolutely love the concept of a "visual vocabulary" that they introduced.)  I was talking about blogging with a friend the other day, and she told me that she preferred Tumblr because it allowed her to express herself with videos and pictures as opposed to words.  She told me: "I'm better at expressing myself with pictures and music than words."  This idea still astounds me.  My thoughts are always the most free and complete when I put them into words, and until very recently I believed that was the same case for everyone (except for super talented artists and musicians).  I was telling another friend of mine about how we are going to learn to teach graphic novels in our future classrooms, and I showed him American Born Chinese.  He opened the novel and read it right then in one sitting!  These two examples show how this generation is already engaged in multiple literacies outside of the classroom.  (So then, why don't we bring what they enjoy outside of the classroom into the classroom?  Just a thought that I have picked up through the readings.)

The readings this week were very informative for thinking about how to graphic novels in the classroom.  Frey and Fisher discussed how they studied "techniques the artist had used to convey meaning" and "brainstormed descriptive vocabulary."  The Shades of Meaning activity was awesome, and definitely something that I want to try with my students.  I also really respect the way they engaged student imagination, by allowing them to determine the endings of stories and creating the illustrated stories.  These activities model that graphic novels can inspire critical thought.  I see myself using most (if not all) of these techniques in my own classroom.

I never thought about the depth contained in the style of graphic novels.  The "gutter" is probably the style with the most potential for student engagement out of all of the mediums that I am aware of in terms of independent responses to a story.  To illustrate this: I believe that television is at the bottom of the chart because the imagination does not have to work very hard; the picture is clearly set before the viewer.  Written vocabulary novels stimulate the imagination, but the picture is still provided.  The reader simply needs to translate words into images.  However, the concept of the "gutter" in graphic novels demands the most imaginative exercise because it requires the reader to be a "silent accomplice" in the creation of the story.  This is active reading at its best!

One concern that I have about teaching mediums such as graphic novels is fielding resistance from parents and administration.  Frey and Fisher stated: "[h]aving begun with the idea that graphic novels were comic books at best and a waste of time at worst, we now realize the power they have for engaging students in authentic writing."  Indeed, the examples of student writing found in their article is more creative than a lot of the responsive writing that I remember doing in my English classes.  The results Frey and Fisher found should require English education communities to seriously consider literacy beyond "words and language" in the classroom.  The two friends I referenced earlier demonstrate that culture has already embraced this shift to multiple literacies.  It is time for our classrooms to follow suit, but will the parents and leaders outside of the classroom agree?

Radical Revolution

"Why do we have to read this?"

Perhaps the most dreaded question in the English classroom.  I have heard it countless times during my experience as a student in the American public school system.  And I admit that I have begun to brainstorm defenses of the literary value of certain texts that I expect to teach.

But Jeffrey D. Wilhelm has opened my eyes to a new classroom order.  English classrooms do not need to be battlefields in which the teacher fires literary expertise at an army of dozing soldiers.

Granted, I knew this.  Upon my first step onto this university, I was inspired by both the successes and failures of my former English teachers as well as the possibilities of my own lofty idealistic plans for my future classroom.

However, in Wilhelm's You Gotta BE the Book, I was introduced to some very radical ideas about how to effectively teach reading in a 21st English classroom that showed me that the very ideas that I esteemed two years ago are merely extensions of the same dull methods that some of my former teachers espoused.

"Reading is . . . an intensely human pursuit with intensely human purposes that must be foregrounded.  Reading, instead of a complex set of skills, becomes a social practice and a search for meaning" (24).  Wilhelm discussed the current structure of the majority of English classrooms, which is the New Criticism school of thought of the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text!  While memorizing vocabulary lists and listing literary techniques, students outline the author's intent on worksheets rife with leading questions.  This classroom is the direct opposite of the process of reading that Wilhelm described.  The current system is lifeless.  Wilhelm's vision is invigorating!

Wilhelm's students attested that their English classes sucked the fun out of reading.  Consider the paradox!  Wilhelm finally determined that this is because most English classes do not try to engage the reader with the text.  Often, students are given a text and the text controls the experience.  The students passively drag meaning out of it under the direction of the teacher.  I remember an English class that I took where I would come into class having done the assigned reading and prepared with questions and discussion points, only to sit for an hour each day to listen to the teacher lecture about what the author meant and how she chose to express it.  There was no room for my own experience with the novel, and I quickly lost interest in the class.

Wilhelm argues that reading should be a relationship between the reader and the text.  My role as a teacher is not to "define a narrow and exclusive view of 'literature,'" but to encourage students to engage personal experiences, prior knowledge, and interpretations of the text in order for it to come alive for them.  I need to be able to motivate them to see meaning in the text.

Wilhelm offered a number of strategies in order to foster student engagement in the text.  He highly recommended providing the students with an essential question - some way for them to begin to organize and structure their response to the text.  Another thought was the idea of developing a literary text as opposed to a literary canon for the English classroom.  Wilhelm defines a literary text as "any text that provides a particular reader with a deeply engaging aesthetic experience" (47).  This includes graphic novels, which is a form of literature that I actually vowed never to teach in my classroom without ever reading a single graphic novel.  (I am thankful to say that my thoughts were reversed; I am excited to see how I can include graphic novels in the classroom.)  Wilhelm also suggested that by starting students with a text that they are comfortable with and that they can connect with, a flame will ignite the students' interests to expand their literary repertoire to include a variety of texts.  A few of the students that Wilhelm studied in his classroom confirmed that they did not want to read the same things; they wanted to be introduced to new texts. 

This is the ultimate success of an English teacher: to develop individuals who are able to think and read, and create meaning in both of these processes.  Wilhelm further acknowledges that this requires the teacher to assume a "new role" (47).  To engage a classroom of readers, of thinkers, of meaning-seekers, the teacher must dispose of prescribed textbook readings and guided questions and design a classroom that explores literature in a way that allows students to immerse themselves into new worlds because it is interesting and, as Wilhelm cites, "life-changing" (51).  This new role means that the teacher will need to commit to engaging herself in the classroom in new ways.  "To effect meaningful change, we must know our own goals and ask what methods and materials are most effective in meeting them" (34).  It will not be easy to change the status quo, but the reward of a classroom of readers is invaluable.

Wilhelm both confirmed and challenged my standing teaching philosophy.  My most engaging English classrooms have been centered around discussions, debates, and freewriting.  I want my classroom to emulate these same methods.  However, I have always imagined myself teaching the same texts that I was taught.  These are the works defined as "Literature," including authors such as Dickens, Melville, and Shakespeare.  I remember being astounded even in high school to hear my classmates expressing (often quite vividly) their hate for the readings that we had to do.  I had resolved to become an English teacher that could encourage students to appreciate, if not love, the works with the same passion that I have.

However, Wilhelm has challenged me to change my perspective.  Instead of trying to change how students are taught, what if I also try to change what students are taught?  Could a student pass through four years of high school without opening a single Shakespearean play and still graduate as an independent thinker?  Or, I am tempted to teach Romeo and Juliet using solely the graphic novel.  How will I incorporate art and technology into the classroom beyond the standard collages and PowerPoint presentations?  Wilhelm is daring me to move into uncharted territory.  I am thinking about teaching in ways that I have never seen in any of the classrooms that I have been in.  It is a little uncomfortable.  I hesitate to fully embrace the idea of using art as a viable response to literature in the classroom; it is much easier to revert to the writing exercises that I experienced.

However, as Shannon reminded us last week in class, I am not going to be teaching a classroom of students like me.  Therefore, I must be willing to adapt so that I am a successful English teacher in the 21st century with a diverse group of students and learning styles.  I must join this radical revolution.