The Bronx Masquerades Again

I have spent a good chunk of the last week pondering the book Bronx Masquerade and our class discussion of the format. One question that I have been wrestling with the most is why this book was able to make me enjoy the poetry when that is an aspect of Language Arts that I have truly disliked for most of my school career. The last time that I can remember even quasi liking poetry is when my high school freshman English class read Romeo and Juliet. In that case I loved the story and I was familiar enough with it that the poetry format of the writing was secondary to the romance. However, with the Bronx Masquerade the story is in a very different format and the poems were more traditional in style, but I looked forward to reading the poems. This did not change the fact that I still hate William Carlos William's Red Wheelbarrow poem with a passion, but I really enjoyed this set of work.
At first I thought it might be because I was able to connect with the characters when they gave their synopses about the thought processes and events leading up to the creation of the poem, but then I wondered how I was able to connect so strongly in just two to three pages of text. It seems like a contradiction that both of these were able to happen at the same time.
I want to figure out some answer to this question because I want to be able to help my future students to enjoy poetry in a way that I have rarely had the opportunity to. My teacher's taught me to hate poetry by forcing me to analyze it for every poetry unit I can remember. Maybe it's because I did not have the chance to make a connection with the author the way this book gave me a chance to (in the sense that the author of the book creates the authors of the individual poems that I so enjoyed). I want to give my future students the chance to love this form of literature, and to do this most effectively I think it would help to know how this book helped me to like it after so many years of dislike.

I Can't Think of a Good Enough Title. I'll Get Back to You on That.

For another class of mine we read the book Encounter by Jane Yolen. This book relates back to Christopher Columbus' landing in the 'new world' back in 1492. It is written from the perspective of a young Taino 'Indian' who had dreams about the bad events that would transpire if the Taino people welcomed Columbus and his crew. His warnings to his people went unheeded and the book ends with the protagonist as an old man regretting that adults did not listen to the words of a child, and recognizing that the ways of the Taino had been lost.

After finishing reading this book, my first thoughts were of the insider vs. outsider debate we had in class a few weeks ago. It is a book written by a white female about Indian people who lived centuries ago and whose culture is relatively unknown in today's society. There is no place in the book where Yolen discusses her research or how she found the information she used, although the fact that she did research is evident in her discussion of the Taino and what is known about them at the end of the story. However the fact that stood out the most for me was that the illustrator recognized in a note at the end of the book that his pictures are not completely accurate at least with regards to clothing. David Shannon, the illustrator, made the conscious decision to step away from the cultural accuracy of the probable nudity of the Taino people and dress them all in cloth and animal hide clothing, following the tradition of other tribes.

He clearly states that he made this choice because, "...I was faced with the problem of how to present them without offending those who object to nudity in a children's book" and I can understand why he made this decision. My question is then where is the line that differentiates the importance of cultural accuracy and the need for societal acceptance? Without an audience, a book will simply sit on a shelf, allowing for no impact or effect on any person anywhere. However, do we want a book to be widely circulated if the information is not culturally accurate and it can rejuvinate generalizations and stereotypes? I realize that this is by far not the least extreme example of information being misrepresented, but that does not change the fact that this is still an example.

Students have a need to see themselves in the books they read and in the characters of those books. They need to see cultural traditions and heritage that they can relate to. It does not matter the race, ethnicity, religion, social class, etc. the student belongs to. The reading will have little importance or impact if there is nothing for the kids to relate to. Because of this, we as teachers have the job of creating a diverse library for our classes and providing our students access to books that are likely to make them want to read in addition to discussing and integrating that literature into our classrooms. Likewise, the books are then available to students who belong to different social groups and who are interested in learning about people who are different from them in some way. But if we are not there to help kids recognize and process the misconceptions presented in books, or if parents do not help make those distinctions, where does that leave the kids? I could not, in good conscience, isolate kids from other cultures because the literature available is not perfect. Literature is rarely perfect regardless of who is the author or illustrator. But how do we avoid isolationism without perpetuating social stereotypes?

I know that we have discussed this in this class, as well as others, but it is something I have recently come more to terms with than I have previously. Before it was more abstract, but now that I am in a classroom that is filled with students of different races, religions, family set-ups, etc., it has really made me recognize the importance of a good diverse library. A lot of these students do not like to read because of the fact that it has nothing to do with them. Some kids have hated reading enough, consistently enough that they are several grade levels behind where they should be. I have talked to their teacher and to the kids and have figured out approximately how these trade books have been incorporated into previous classrooms, and I can't help but wonder if that might have been different if they had more exposure to a wider variety of books?

Habibi: A Starting Point in my Internet Inqiry

I have recently finished reading Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye, and it got me thinking about a lot more than plot lines and character development. I realized after I turned the last page that I had not heard much information in a long time about events in the Israel/Palestine conflicts of the Middle East. I know that I avoid the news to a certain extent because it is usually depressing, but I keep myself updated on the world's major events, or at least I try to, by scanning headlines and doing online searches. I decided to look up what has been going on, what I have missed.

What surprised me most was that when I plugged in the words "Israel Palestine conflict" into the google search engine, what first came up was not recent news. There were a lot of websites about the history of events and past leaders for both sides, but I had to run about four different searches and finally include the words "current news" to find any semblance of a current event from that part of the world. My searches with only the words "Israel" or "Palestine" did not return any relevant information. Even once I found some, the first websites to show up were from other countries, such as the BBC network, or they were solely online news websites. I scrolled nearly to the end of the first page before I found a site that was affiliated with a well known newspaper. Once I did find a website (again, not in the first five links that showed up), I found that there was news of a ceasefire following three weeks of active fighting. There was a call for help to try and get innocent civilians out of the areas caught in the middle of the fighting. These events happened less than two days ago, and I had to run four internet seaches looking specifically for this information to find anything.

I know that this is not the only area of the world that is in the middle of active conflict, fighting, and injured/killed innocent bystanders, but why is it that when I went to find any sort of current, relevant information it was hard to come by? Are American newspapers along with television stations and websites bored with these stories? Are they not interesting enough anymore? Are we all so focused on our own troubles in Iraq (which, don't get me wrong I am absolutely interested in, especially with regards to the welfare of everyone involved) that we can't look outside our own box sometimes and look at what other people are going through? Yes, the United States is involved in a conflict of its own, but it is not the only conflict in the world. Nor should conflict be the only focus of the news.

With these thoughts in mind I ran another search. I looked for "today's headlines" and right there in the first three links on the New York Times website was a headline about the ongoing election in Israel, sandwiched between two articles with details on a potential federal bailout and investors making bad decisions. And a little farther down there was another link with informaiton about Palestinians accusing some Israeli soldiers of 'violating the rules of war'. These articles both represent an area of disagreement in that area. Nowhere in this paper's website's headlines could I find any information about the ceasefire or the recent active fighting. Now I have even more questions for the news agencies. Why is the information available so varied? Why don't the newspapers print make some of the more hopeful news, like the ceasefire, more prominent? Why does the news always have to focus on the bleak and dreary aspects of the human race? I am an optimist by nature, and I think that hope can have a much bigger effect than despair.

I am not sure if this post has a real direction, and I'm not sure how I ended up where I did, but these are some questions that I would love to have answered. If anyone feels like they can help me with any, please let me know.

Insider vs. Outsider

The question that I believe is at the heart of this debate is whether or not a person who is not an 'official' member of a particular racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, or any other group of people can authentically represent a story that reflects the true nature of the group in question. Can a white person write a story about blacks, Native Americans, Chinese? Can a Christian write an authentic narrative of a Jewish family, or Islamic?
I believe that it is probably more likely for a member of the particular group to write a story that is true to the nature of his/her culture, religion, etc. They have grown up experiencing that way of life, and it is a part of them. It would in all likelihood require little to no research, at least regarding the generalities, and the author knows for a fact that the information is authentic, at least for themselves. I also believe that it is not impossible for a person outside of that particular group to accomplish the same task. It would take more effort, more research, and more time, but it is a possible feat.
I am not saying that every piece of literature written by a minority author is automatically a high quality story, and before a book should be used in a classroom the teacher needs to consider the both the authenticity as well as the literary value. Ideally, both would be high enough that exposing the kids to it is not even in question for both cultural and academic purposes. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. It is possible for a non-member of a group to write a book that is just as authentic a story as a member, and that the quality of the book is higher. The contrary is also true. And sometimes a lower quality piece of diverse literature can be effectively incorporated into a curriculum, although how this is accomplished should be carefully scrutinized by the teacher so that no major misconceptions are formed, and so that there is still academic benefit to the students.
I think that to automatically exclude a piece of literature because the author is not an exact representation of the characters would deprive us as teachers, as well as our students of many pieces of quality, authentic literature. Cynthia Smith discusses this issue in her article titled, "Spotlight on CLA Social Justice Workshop" with specific references to Native Americans when she says, "I'm not suggesting that only Indians can write about Indians. To reflect today's intertribal and interracial population, any writer would have to stretchcross-culturally. In addition, a number of non-Indian writers hav etakn to heart their homework and giftedus with treasured works"(p. 8). Also, I am curious how the availability of books relating to minority ethnicities, races, etc. would change if books by non-relatable authors were removed from library collections. I have a feeling that those sections of books would diminish in size, and the chances that those books provided for children to be exposed to people not like them would be erased.