Providing Culturally Relevant Texts
from NCTE INBOX 4-15-08

April 30 is El Día de Los Niños/El Día de Los Libros (Children's Day/Book Day) (G), an event that focuses on providing children with books in many languages and making reading an integral part of their lives. Plan your celebration by tapping these ideas and resources suggested in the following articles.

In "From a Writer's Perspective: Recreating Images of Community in Multicultural Children's Books" (E) from the latest issue of Language Arts, Monica Brown, an author of bilingual children's books, encourages and models for students the opportunity to work from a vantage point that affirms their cultural heritage rather than tames or shames their personal stories.

The Voices from the Middle article "'Stuck in the Middle': Helping Students Begin New Literacy Lives" (M) discusses five principles that help students succeed after years of failure. The steps include creating literacy-rich environments, connecting readers to text, and supporting readers with strategic literacy instruction.

For details on books that you can place in the hands of young adult readers, check out the English Journal article "The Ever-Expanding Mexican American YA Canon" (S) from the "Bold Books for Teenagers" column. The article includes reviews of several recently published novels, poetry collections, and nonfiction works.

The review essay "Learning to Read as Continuing Education" (C-TE), from College Composition and Communication, works to convince readers that college composition instruction can capitalize on (and improve) students' high school reading experiences if instructors and program administrators think carefully about where their students are starting as readers and where they want them to get by the end of the course.

NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this INBOX is provided for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 4-15-08.

Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary, M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, TE=Teacher Education, G=General).

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