The Worlds of Words Center, in partnership with Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL), presents Global Literacy Communities: Creating Curriculum That Is Intercultural by Cynthia K. Ryman and Kathy G. Short. This publication provides examples of how PreK-12 teachers worked together to integrate global literature into their classrooms, particularly around a curriculum framework that encourages students to develop intercultural understanding. The guide includes links to teacher vignettes that provide rich details of classroom engagements and books that encourage intercultural perspectives.

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This publication features the work of Global Literacy Communities of teachers and teacher educators over a three-year period who each developed projects and study groups in their settings to broaden their understandings about global cultures and meet the unique needs of their school community. At the end of each year, the literacy communities wrote vignettes to share the insights, engagements, and books that were significant in their contexts with students. These vignettes are published in WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom between Fall 2020 and Fall 2022.

This guide highlights how these Global Literacy Communities worked to build intercultural understanding through inquiry around personal cultural identities, cross-cultural studies, integration of intercultural perspectives, and inquiries into global issues within a lens of critically reading the world and the word. In this guide, the brief discussions of each community’s work is linked to the published vignettes in WOW Stories so that educators can access the details of classroom engagements and global books that are of most interest.

The WOW Center appreciates the support of CERCLL in supporting these communities and publishing Global Literacy Communities: Creating Curriculum that is Intercultural.