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In my perspective, multicultural education should not focus only on minorities. All students are equally important, although different from each other.
I decided to use multicultural literature to
discuss the students’ cultural background
and how multicultural authors used
illustrations to represent their cultures. I
connect the learning experiences from the
Readers’ Workshop with the ones from the
Writer’s Workshop. I communicated my
idea to parents and as a learning
community, we were committed to embrace
culturally relevant learning experiences as
a part of our classroom culture. I invited
parents to come as guest speakers to share
about their cultural backgrounds. They
came to read books to the students that
depicted their cultures. The students were
welcome to bring their own books in which
they found characters with which they
related. The students became very
engaged and always asked to share with the
class about what they had learned.
During reading aloud, I read two books
and we created a Venn diagram to compare
and contrast the books. The students
commented about how the illustrations
represented a specific culture and how the
books related to their own lives. I gave the
students the opportunity to choose the
books they wanted to compare and
contrast. They did the same activity in small
groups, and the result was outstanding! It
was hard to believe that they were just in
first grade! Through this compare and
contrast activity, I was able to observe my
first graders assimilate important cultural
concept. “As they learn about themselves
and others around them, they see
differences and similarities and learn to
appreciate both their and other’s
cultures” (Lowery, & Sabis-Burns, 2010, p.
51). After reading the book Sit-in: How Four
Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down (Pinkney,
2010), I asked the students to write a note
to the characters. What would they ask the
four friends if they had the opportunity?
One of the kids wrote, “Thank you! Because
you were brave I can eat anywhere I want.”
Students were able to understand complex
social concepts, such as prejudice, equality,
and segregation.
The Writers’ Workshop project was to write their
own stories that somehow represented a culture
of their choice. It was a requirement that their
illustrations matched and added to their stories.
The students used the classroom iPads to take
pictures of the illustrations of the books that
represented the culture they chose. They used
the pictures as a base to their own illustrations.