Rethinking Our Beginning of the Year Read-alouds

Hello, all!

     As we're gearing up for another school year, I like many of you have been searching online for beginning of the year activities and read-alouds, thinking, "What should I keep from last year? What can I change to make the beginning of the year more successful for my students?"

     Looking through all of the back-to-school read-alouds, I was struck by something I honestly should have noticed long before this...they are all written by white authors with primarily white characters.  And I got to thinking, "Has the practice of beginning the year reading books depicting white students and authors given my students the impression that school success is for white students only?  Have I (whether consciously or unconsciously) been telling my students of color that my classroom, and maybe school in general, isn't really for them?"

     That's not to say that the books listed on the typical back-to-school read-aloud list aren't good books. Many of them are. I personally love First Day Jitters, The Recess Queen, Enemy Pie, and Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun. However, in the same way that high school literature teachers are looking to rethink the "classic" texts long thought of as required reading in order to include great literature written by women and authors of color (see #disrupt texts movement), shouldn't elementary school teachers also be rethinking what we consider to be "classic" read-alouds? 

     For myself, the answer is, of course, yes. I did a little digging online and in my local library and found some great beginning of the school year read-alouds featuring diverse characters brought to life by diverse authors.  (One of my pet peeves is "diverse" literature written by middle class white Americans. Just because we went on a mission trip in a different country, grew up in a diverse neighborhood, or have a spouse/best friend/other family member of color does not qualify us to write from their point of view or tell their stories. Sorry.)

    So, here are a few great stories that I will be adding to my repertoire of back-to-school read-alouds.  I hope you'll find a few that speak to you.  Diversity adds to all of our lives and opens us up to new experiences and different points of view that enrich our souls and help us better understand our fellow human beings.

 Click on the pictures to find out more about each:

                            

                                   

                                           

                                  

Enjoy!!  And best wishes for a successful start to the new school year!!

Jacquie  

Carmen Learns English

I have to admit, I did not love this book.  While I appreciate the author, Judy Cox's, intent, I am not a fan of multicultural books written by people who are not either a part of the ethnic group about which they are writing or embedded in that culture.  The illustrations in ink, watercolor and acrylics by Angela Dominguez, however, are engaging and full of emotion.


The story follows the experience of a Spanish speaking kindergartner named Carmen who is nervous about attending school in English.  The themes are pretty standard--she is nervous about speaking English in class, she misunderstands some of the words used in class and has trouble pronouncing others, a couple of times she is made fun of, ... The author attempts to use code-switching, but it is stilted and awkward--not at all natural.  The feelings experienced by the main character, Carmen, feel superficial and forced. 


The one element threaded throughout the story was that of Carmen going home and teaching her younger sister, Lupita, the little bit of English that she learned at school each day.  Had that been explored more and made the main focus of the story, I would have liked the book much more.

Some ideas for the ESL classroom: Students could discuss and journal about their first days of school and how they felt.   A comparison/contrast essay comparing the students' first days of school to Carmen's could be crafted using a Venn diagram as a pre-writing tool.  Students could also write about what they have taught their families at home after learning something fun at school.  Graphing could be explored using words that are hard for students to pronounce in English.  Teachers might pull some words from those that Carmen struggles with and add a few that their own students have difficulty saying.  A graph would be made on chart paper.  Then, students can vote using sticky notes for the top three most difficult words in English to pronounce.  Activities would then be based on the graph.

Happy reading!
Jacquie