Student Connections

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Refugee Waves and New Voices

By Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico and Junko Sakoi, Tucson Unified School District

In the last decade, Arizona consistently ranks among the top ten states with the number of refugee arrivals (Refugee Processing Center, 2018) with more than 15,400 refugees resettled in Arizona from 2012 through 2016. Accordingly, Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) received refugees since the late 1970s from the Southeast Asian countries, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Somalia and Sudan. Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi refugees have been the largest groups to arrive in Tucson in 2018 (Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program, 2018), in addition to fifty other countries with thirty-eight different languages. In the past five years, TUSD yearly enrollment has averaged around 900 refugee students across K-12 schools (Tucson Unified School District, 2018).

Refugee Waves and New Voices Continue reading →

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Indigenous Own Voices after Sherman Alexie

By Celeste Trimble, St. Martin’s University, Lacey, WA

I grew up on a steady diet of Island of the Blue Dolphins, Little House on the Prairie, Walk Two Moons, Julie of the Wolves, et cetera, stories with native content written by non-native authors. Before The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, I hadn’t read Cynthia Leitich Smith’s or Joseph Bruchac’s novels. But I had read Michael Dorris’ and Lousie Erdrich’s work for children, thanks to my love affair with Erdrich’s novels for adults. I hadn’t read any Indigenous Canadian authors writing for youth. Before The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, I offered my students and my children solely historical fiction about Indigenous identities and stories. Nothing contemporary, and so very little, sadly, Indigenous Own Voices.

Indigenous Own Voices Sherman Alexie Continue reading →

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Globalizing the Reading of Middle and High School Students

By Kathy Short, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Although the classics serve as the foundation of most secondary literature classrooms, their domination is challenged by the call for cultural perspectives that reflect the diversity of our global society. The classics are critiqued for their basis in Western mainstream perspectives, biases against women and people of color, and inclusion of dated language and confusing writing styles, such as obscure expressions and unfamiliar sentence constructions. In addition, few classics have teens as main characters, having been written for adult audiences, and so teens struggle to connect. Given that these canonical texts are usually mandated reading, one way that teachers can increase relevancy and globalize reading is to pair the required classics with young adult global literature. These pairings can bring more diverse literature into the curriculum and, at the same time, create a context for understanding the classic work and its relevance for middle and high school students.

Globalizing the Reading of Middle and High School Students Continue reading →

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Engaging K-5 Readers with Global Literature

by Kathy Short, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Our careful survey of global literature available for K-5 readers in the U.S. led us to concerns as well as possibilities. We searched for global literature that is currently in print and met our criteria for text complexity as well as usefulness within the school curriculum. This survey raised several concerns as well as provided possibilities for engagements with readers, especially around paired books.

The Red Pencil Continue reading →

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Filling the Gaps as Teachers to Teach More Completely

By Teri Davis, Jessica Baipho, Lori Deese, Kristel Gooding and Hope Robinson, Kershaw County School District, and Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina

A teacher must work to fill the gaps in their own knowledge in order to more effectively teach their students. These gaps extend to language similarities and differences between the student’s first language and English; cultural nuances that may be missing for a lesson; and religious considerations that may come up as part of teaching the whole child. Continue reading →

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Culturally Relevant Materials: Building Community In the Classroom

By Lauren Hunt, Lori Deese, & Lisa Stockdale, Kershaw County School District, Camden, SC, Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina

In The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano, Manzano captures the struggles that are often part of mother-daughter relationships. Yet, in the end, the three females (Evelyn, her mother, and her grandmother), all gain better perspectives of themselves and each other. This story would most likely resonate with many teenagers because of the struggles teens face as they move from adolescence to adulthood. This book could be potentially more powerful for English Learners (ELs) who struggle not only with this rite of passage, but also having to face it in a country that is not their first home. I especially think of the Dreamers whose parents came to America searching for better lives for their families. I wonder if these students have difficulty understanding their parents desires to hold tightly to the ways of their country while they are fervently seeking to become a part of American culture. As a teacher, I wonder how I can best meet these students’ unique needs. Continue reading →

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Girl Young Lords: Literature as Mirrors

By Teri Davis, Robin Sowell and Lisa Stockdale, Kershaw County School District, and Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina

Girl Young Lords!! Yes, for the first time, there were girl Young Lords.

This quote is the most relative to my classroom today. In The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano, Evelyn is almost set on fire for the revolution’s cause after seeing girls like her who were Young Lords. It gives her something greater to connect to other than the needs of her people. It gives her a “hero”, someone she relates to and admires. One general strategy for ELLs is to ensure our classrooms are welcoming places that represent all cultures. Having texts in my classroom to support ELLs is a positive and necessary part of my instruction. Continue reading →

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[Re]visiting Evelyn Serrano

By Elizabeth Burr, Kershaw County School District, Camden, SC, Julia López-Robertson, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, and Lisa Stockdale, Kershaw County School District

For the next month we, a university professor, a district ESL teacher and a classroom teacher taking a course on English Learner Assessment, invite you to join us as we think about and make connections to The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano. The story is about a young Puerto Rican girl, Evelyn, coming of age in Spanish Harlem, NYC, in the summer of 1969. A part of our class is reading young adult novels and making connections to the theories we read about and to our life experiences. Some of the cultures represented in these books are familiar to us but the majority are new. The new ones provide the opportunity for us to learn about a new culture and adapt it to the children in our classrooms. This first week, we present Elizabeth [Betsy] Burr’s, thoughts and connections to Evelyn Serrano. Then, we provide a mini-text set for your consideration. We welcome your responses and connections to our post!

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano by Sonia Manzano Continue reading →

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Truth Behind Stories in I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

By Dorea Kleker, The University of Arizona

This month’s WOW Currents focuses on four books whose authors will present at the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, When Dimple Met Rishi, The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus and In the Shadow of the Sun.

Daniel Geffre reads I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez Continue reading →

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Sixth-Grade Fans’ Best Manga Choices

By Junko Sakoi, Tucson Unified School District and Yoo Kyung Sung, University of New Mexico

We continue with favorite popular manga authors and their work and introduce popular manga titles the sixth-graders selected. Interestingly, four out of five titles are boys’ manga, though the three manga fans are girls. The gender classification practice of manga isn’t necessarily ruling criteria. Perhaps manga producers need “target reader” categories more than young readers. For example, contemporary realistic fiction with a high school setting seems to interest sixth-graders. Japanese high school may differ from sixth-grade classrooms, or the authors might make school exotic yet universally empathetic to sixth-graders. Readers identify with the characters’ concerns and issues, relationships with families and siblings, music and sports, school lives and peer cultures.

popular manga 1 Continue reading →