By Andrea García, Hofstra University
During the weekend of March 8 and 9, 2013, Tucson will host one of the biggest gatherings of children’s authors and illustrators during the Tucson Festival of Books. In thinking about writing the last blog entry for the month of February, and in keeping with the idea of cultivating relationships with readers and books, we cannot forget the importance of meeting authors and illustrators as part of our lives as readers. Continue reading
By Andrea García, Hofstra University
Every November, I look forward to attending the Annual Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English, and browsing books at the exhibits in order to build my professional and personal Spanish-English bilingual children’s library. I know that I am always able to find interesting new books after visiting Cinco Puntos Press , or Arte Público Press. This past November, I also visited West End Discovery Press and found a couple of wonderful books I couldn’t wait to share with my students and my family. Continue reading
By Andrea García, Hofstra University
One of the graduate courses I teach in Literacy Studies is an introductory course in bilingualism and biliteracy for teachers who are seeking certification as Literacy Specialist. While this course provides a broad overview of many aspects of language and literacy development in multilingual contexts, it also offers opportunities for in-service teachers to consider issues of cultural and linguistic identity, race, and power, as experienced by immigrant and transnational families. Continue reading
By Andrea García, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
As we begin the month of February, it is difficult to escape the constant push for celebrating friends and loved ones with chocolates and diamond hearts. And in thinking about the idea of appreciating the important relationships in our lives, I decided that celebrating our relationships as readers can offer an alternative for framing the conversation. For this reason, I have selected to focus this month’s blog on inviting you to celebrate the relationships we forge as readers through our sharing of books and stories. As Giorgis, Bedford, and Fabbi (2008) describe, “Literature can… provide an impetus for strengthening relationships-such as that between a parent and child, or a teacher and student, or within a community of learners. Additionally, many readers form instant and lifelong connections to books, returning to these texts and re-reading them throughout their lives” (p. 5). Continue reading
by Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona
The Common Core State Standards put a major emphasis on the close reading of texts, recommending that students find and cite evidence in the text as they discuss key ideas and details, craft and structure, and knowledge and ideas. Text analysis is viewed as bringing rigor to reading with an emphasis on higher level critical reading skills. Any text read to or by students is used for instructional purposes, to teach something. If students respond to a text by talking about what it reminds them of from their lives, teachers are to steer students back to the task and ask them to talk about what the story is about—to get the details and to support their statements by citing evidence in the text. Text-dependent questions and evidence, not connection, are valued. Continue reading
By Kathy Short, Director of Worlds of Words
One aspect of the Common Core State Standards that has received a great deal of attention is the increased focus on informational texts. The CCSS document calls for 50/50 split between informational and literary texts in kindergarten, gradually increasing to a 70/30 split in high school.
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By Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona
The Common Core State Standards have focused attention on text complexity, arguing that students need to engage with texts that gradually increase in difficulty of ideas and textual structures, based on the belief that schools have not been rigorous in providing difficult texts. This focus on rigor in reading is based on the goal that students understand the level of texts necessary for success in college and careers by the time they graduate from high school. The problem is that decisions about text complexity in schools are often based in misconceptions.
by Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona
CCSS Text Exemplars for K-1 Stories & A contemporary text set of K-1 Stories
The Common Core State Standards are currently having a tremendous impact on materials and instruction in K-12 classrooms. As with any new initiative, a range of interpretations are swirling about, leading to concerns and misconceptions. My focus is on misconceptions related to these standards as they connect to children’s and adolescent literature and each week I will focus on a different misconception. Continue reading
by Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Often I think my English accent is like a cultural microchip that contains my cultural and linguistic DNA. That microchip reflects the local and global contexts from several different U. S. and international environments in which I have lived. My personal aesthetic responses in my literature reviews reflect the salient insights of both my views of diversity and of contemporary global connections as they relate to multiculturalism in the U. S. Continue reading
by Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
Korea’s traditional beauty is mirrored in its architectures, symbols, pottery, and ancient palaces and make up most of the common “Korean” postcard faces I encountered when I visited one of the most popular and largest bookstores in Seoul, Kyobo books. I mumbled, “interesting,” and felt and tasted a kind of betrayal. I felt I have fought consistently for a postcolonial non-Eurocentric portrayal of Asian and Korean cultures in my children’s literature studies, yet such traditional subjectivity is produced and consumed internally in Korea as a mark of Koreanness. Tradition is like a double edged sword providing rich cultural facets and, concurrently, glaringly flawed over-representations of a culture, producing a “tunnel vision” (Scott,1998, p.47) of narrow understanding of that culture.
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