Media Mania
How can the media center better serve our schools in today's modern world?
As the demographic makeup of our student populations change, our library collections and ELA curriculums need to pivot to match that change. When I built my first collection, I wanted kids from all backgrounds to find themselves reflected in the pages they were reading. I will say that curriculums have come a long way since I was reading The Scarlet Letter in high school. Now they are reading The Other Wes Moore and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. Books like these act as mirrors to students with similar backgrounds to the characters. When I say "mirrors", I mean that the student can see themselves in the protagonist. Books like I am Malala and Night offer windows into lives and cultures we would not get the opportunity to see or learn about with books. Diversity in literature is a way for kids to see themselves in a book AND offers views into new cultures and lives of people different from them. This can translate into understanding and tolerance. Ok, so we know having a diverse collection of literature for students is important. Check! But one of the challenges lies in the limited variety of protagonist of color as well as authors of color. The Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison documents and tracks "aspects of diversity and representation in children’s and young adult literature as well, including LGBTQ+, disability, and religion." Below are statistics from the last 3 years of books written about and/or by people of color. Here is a link to more diversity resources complied by the CCBC:
https://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/literature-resources/diversity-resources-multicultural-literature/ Connecting the Dots: You can find my Diversity Lesson here. I designed it to go with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, but it could go with another book written by and/or about a person of color.
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April A. WaldenI am a mom, a wife, and a brand new Librarian. Living that Media Specialist life while learning all the things! Archives |