Books by Glasgow and Rice, Hadaway and McKenna, Hinton and Dickinson, and Wood

by Beth Munger

In his poignant foreword to this compelling new book that highlights African literature, Allan Stratton (Chandra’s Secrets, 2004, Children’s Africana Award) writes that “Literature has an important role to play in breaking down this [media-generated] barrier to empathy. Its focus on the human condition links contemporary issues to timeless themes, opening within us unique portals to understanding. How? By getting under our skin. By becoming a part of us―of the way we think and feel” (xiii).

Ohio University professors Jacqueline Glasgow and Linda Rice address the explicit and intuitive impact of having literature get “under our skin” in ways that can help high school teachers set up and encourage adolescents to be generative thinkers and global citizens. The focus of this powerful collection of African literature and the accompanying novel guides is on the significance of the African people, history, and culture. The literature selections include lively, corresponding, and detailed reading and writing activities that target the awakening global and human rights awareness of adolescent students.  Classroom activities include a broad range of possibilities; for example, students can create sketchbook journals; make, research, and present African masks; examine African history through film media; and participate in preparing and talking about the five staple foods in African countries.

Glasgow and Rice are eloquent and resourceful in their approach to multicultural awareness, detailing in their book important subject matter relevant on a global front: “from slavery to freedom,” “the struggle of Arab women to lead self-determining lives,” “conflicts in rituals and politics,”  “rites of passage for young girls,” “connections and communication across the continents,” “exploitation through child labor and animal poaching,” “racial tensions, injustice, and harmony,” and “the struggles for human rights.” Within context, each of these book chapters connects socially relevant and contemporary African literature selections to the specific individual and world challenge and issue. What’s phenomenal and of note about these chapters collectively, however, is the bigger picture they present. In other words, while all thirteen chapters aim to explore the intricacies and history of African life (Rwandan genocide, pre- and post-colonial Zimbabwe, nineteenth-century South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Darfur), together they embrace a universal picture. 

Breaking Boundaries with Global Literature: Celebrating Diversity in K-12 Classrooms by Nancy L. Hadaway and Marian J. McKenna, Editors (International Reading Association, Newark, DE, 2007)

Breaking Boundaries with Global Literature opens with a selection of teacher reflections and research-based data that both create and analyze the big-picture view of the past decade’s national and international young adult literature. The book is strategically divided into three, reader-friendly parts― “Diverse Perspectives in Literature,” “Themes of Diversity in Global Literature,” and “Strategies for Using Literature to Promote Global Awareness.” The part titles themselves suggest that this is a book that is broad in its scope, as are its definitions of diversity and multiculturalism, “terms that would seem to indicate a focus on cultures only,” but that “are increasingly being used . . . as ‘umbrella’ terms to encompass socioeconomic, gender, language, and religious issues, sexual orientation, and physical and intellectual ability in addition to race, ethnicity, and culture.”

Based on the annually published list “Notable Books for a Global Society,” this compendium considers Notable Books from 1996 to 2005 and lists, analyzes, and sorts specific K-12 text selections into themes, issues, topics, and reading and writing activities. The titles include multigenre and international texts, and share in common a celebration of and voice for global diversity, all the while promoting “building bridges to understanding” within our K-12 classrooms. An online supplement, which can be easily used to plan genre, author, or culture units, provides the complete list of and full annotations for all 249 Notable Books. Teachers will find help here in locating books for their own class library, for read-aloud options, and for independent reading suggestions.

Integrating Multicultural Literature in Libraries and Classrooms in Secondary Schools by Kaavonia Hinton and Gail K. Dickinson (Linworth Publishing, Columbus, OH, 2007)

Aimed principally at middle and high school teachers and librarians, Integrating Multicultural Literature in Libraries and Classrooms in Secondary School is filled with some terrific resources and specific suggestions for using those resources in the secondary classroom. Of special note is the “Read Alike” feature, a common text box included throughout most of the chapters that will help teachers and librarians direct students to a similar book they might enjoy reading. Each “Read Alike” box features an easy-to-follow suggestion; for example, ”If you like The Heart of a Chief (Dial, 1998) by Joseph Bruchac, try Who Will Tell My Brother? (Hyperion, 2002) by Marlene Carvell.”

Additionally, educators will find it easy to be guided in their choice of books and resources since Hinton and Dickinson have included several key features common to each of the chapters that focus on multicultural literature. An “Integrating Multiple Texts” feature will help teachers and librarians bridge texts from different genres; a “Select Awards & Honors” feature showcases important adolescent literature selected to correspond with chapter topics (race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religion, socioeconomics, geographic orientation, and language/country of origin); a list of “Additional Titles” provides annotations for and bibliographic information about other multicultural literature relevant to the study and research of the chapter topics; and an “In the Research” feature serves to highlight research and literary analyses, particularly those conducted by librarians and teachers, as well as other scholarly materials that focus on teaching and exploring multicultural literature (interviews with diverse authors, for example). In addition, teachers and librarians will take delight in the “Suggestions for Classroom Use,” as these guidelines embrace best practice, variety, and multiple literacies.

Living Voices: Multicultural Poetry in the Middle School Classroom by Jaime R. Wood (National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL, 2006)

Author and middle school teacher Jaime Wood focuses exclusively on just a few poems from each of three living poets―Nikki Giovanni, Li-Young Lee, and Pat Mora―in order to explore some specific literary concepts and ways to present this poetry to middle school students. The author points out that each of these three poets has a cultural background that parallels many of the lives of our students, though what she addresses in her book is predominantly of a literary nature: (1) universal themes (loving too much, choices, and habits, for example); (2) interdisciplinary connections (Nikki Giovanni’s poem “The Funeral of Martin Luther King Jr.” is paired with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Pat Mora’s “Still Life” presents an art lesson, and Li-Young Lee’s “Mnemonic” serves as the basis for learning about how memory functions in the brain in a biology lesson); and (3) poetry terms and concepts (the Appendix includes a host of reproducible graphic organizers on such specifics as identifying the speaker, a bio web, metaphorical meaning, and personification).

As Wood explains in her introduction, how middle school teachers will want to use this book depends upon their focus. Teaching all five chapters consecutively will enable middle school students to gain access to the poetry concepts introduced: persona, literary technique, metaphors and similes, visualizing, sensory imagery, theme, and personification. Another option for using the book might be studying one author at a time in order to allow students to really get to know each poet. Or teachers might combine lessons from different chapters that teach related topics to help students learn poetry concepts.

Beth Munger teaches composition, reading, and American literature at Ohio Dominican University. She has also taught composition and literature at Ohio State University and Columbus State Community College. Munger holds a bachelor of arts degree from Ohio Wesleyan University, where she majored in English and history, and a master of arts degree from Ohio State University in the field of rhetoric and composition. She has worked on several ORC projects, including Advancing Literacy Instruction Together (AdLIT), Ohio Writing Institute Network for Success (OhioWINS), and the English Language Arts Program Models.

Return to top