By Jeanne Gilliam Fain & Christina Davidson

We waited anxiously for a response on Facebook and promptly learned that Julia Alvarez requested a letter sent in the mail. Julia Alvarez graciously answered many of the students’ questions. As educators, it was our goal for the students to step outside of their local world and think globally about their presence within the world. We hope that students learn to understand, question, and improve the world. For us, literature helped the students to see disruption of their views, multiple viewpoints, the sociopolitical, and how their actions can make a difference in their world. Continue reading →

By Jeanne Gilliam Fain & Christina Davidson

As the fourth grade students move toward the end of the book, they begin to discover that the definitions of citizen, American, Mexican, immigrant, and illegal have multiple interpretations. The discussions include a look into Mari’s life, her status as an immigrant, and the lack of power that she has over her life. Fourth graders thoughtfully tackle the issue of immigration as they moved to think about the consequences of breaking the law within the United States. They begin to question the depiction of the border and implications of following and breaking the law. Continue reading →

We experienced a temporary sense of accomplishment in our attempts to grapple with literature critically in the classroom. After an in-depth discussion of the term, immigrant, many fourth graders wholeheartedly agreed that immigrants are terrorists. For this group of students, this was the dominant idea as troubling as it was for us, we reflected upon the reasoning for such views. Continue reading →