Standard 2: Literacy and Reading:
2.3.1. Respect for Diversity: Candidates demonstrate the ability to develop a collection of reading and information materials in print and digital formats that support the diverse developmental, cultural, social, and linguistic needs of P-12 students and their communities.
Artifacts:
Reading Web: Sunrise Over Fallujah
Curricular Integration Project: 10th Grade and Cults
I had previously known practically nothing about cults. I’ll admit it. The extent to which I understood the cult mentality stemmed from an article I read about the Waco, Texas disaster and a single episode from the Jennifer Garner show Alias. My knowledge of cults all changed, however, when I took Young Adult Literature.
We were assigned two thematic bibliography assignments: The Curricular Integration project and the Reading Web. By the end of both projects, my ability to develop comprehensive lists of reading and information materials grew tremendously, especially in developing a range of texts for students of differing abilities and cultural backgrounds.
While we had complete freedom to choose our initial book for the Reading Web, our professor had us blindly choose a grade-level and topic for the Curricular Integration project. She began with grade levels; I pulled tenth grade. I thought, okay, I can work with tenth grade – it’s a grade level I teach. Next, she came around with the topics. Other students chose topics like the Holocaust, the Civil War, nutrition, careers: all solid topics. I reached in and pulled out…cults. Cults?
Despite the reservations I had about my ability to find enough cult texts (let along cult books appropriate for sixteen year-olds), I successfully compiled a list of 10 items, including two DVDs. The protagonists in my bibliography’s texts cover a wide range of ages, from fourteen to adulthood and come from varying stationary or nomadic cult lifestyles in both remote areas and cities. The two DVDs are documentaries, and along with a collective biography of a number of cult leaders, provide rich and detailed background on the history of cults. One of the DVDs focuses specifically on the Peoples Temple in Jonestown while the other covers a range of cults throughout history and cultures. The other titles are fictional, except for two: one memoir, Cartwheels in a Sari: a Memoir of Growing Up Cult, and a book of interviews by a police chief, Deadly Cults: the Crimes of True Believers. Both books, in addition to the pieces of fiction, provide insight into how different and similar cults can be to one another. All of the texts are appropriate selections for high school students because the books occur at the stage in teenagers’ lives where they develop their identities and learn how to break free from cult mentalities.
I used quite a few selection tools to compile this list. While there are countless resources about cults, many of them are inappropriate for sophomores or lack positive reviews. I used School Library Journal, Booklist, and VOYA as primary selection sources. I also spent a long time with Reality Rules!: A Guide to Teen Nonfiction Reading Interests. After I finished my selection of texts, I revisited my topic and asked myself: do teenagers need to learn about the psychological damage and religious fanaticism linked with the cult lifestyle? I live and teach in a rural-suburban community, and to my knowledge, no cults or communes exist nearby. Yet, the student members of my community need exposure to these lifestyles because they do exist somewhere; cults are the extreme of the worshipful ways groups of teenagers sometimes act towards one another. By examining cults through movies, nonfiction, and fiction, students who live in communities free from the constraints of cult activity, experience and understand the psychological hardships that cult members face and apply this knowledge to their own peer relationships.
While my Reading Web focuses on a different subject matter, the themes I identified are not any less serious or less relevant to teenagers’ understanding than cults. As aforementioned, we were free to choose the book for the focal point of our web. I chose Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers, a novel that follows a young American soldier in Iraq. I compiled a webbed list of 42 digital and print resources (both fiction and nonfiction) that pertain to various elements within Sunrise Over Fallujah (see list below). Again, I used VOYA and Reality Rules, but I also accessed a database entitled Fabulous Films for Young Adults in addition to other print selection tools such as Books in Print. I categorized each title into one of the elements addressed in Sunrise: Culture Conflict, Teens and the Military, Psychological Aspects of War, Middle East Conflicts, Terrorists, African-Americans in the Military, Islam, Classic Young Adult War Novels, Political Awareness–War, and Walter Dean Myers’ novels. The concept of modern warfare especially addresses a developmentally-diverse student audience. Throughout history, young adults have been an integral part of the military. The variety of books on my Reading Web detailing teenagers’ experiences during wartime addresses the diversity of teenagers who may show an interest in reading about war but who are at different stages of development and who come from a multitude of social and cultural backgrounds.
We were assigned two thematic bibliography assignments: The Curricular Integration project and the Reading Web. By the end of both projects, my ability to develop comprehensive lists of reading and information materials grew tremendously, especially in developing a range of texts for students of differing abilities and cultural backgrounds.
While we had complete freedom to choose our initial book for the Reading Web, our professor had us blindly choose a grade-level and topic for the Curricular Integration project. She began with grade levels; I pulled tenth grade. I thought, okay, I can work with tenth grade – it’s a grade level I teach. Next, she came around with the topics. Other students chose topics like the Holocaust, the Civil War, nutrition, careers: all solid topics. I reached in and pulled out…cults. Cults?
Despite the reservations I had about my ability to find enough cult texts (let along cult books appropriate for sixteen year-olds), I successfully compiled a list of 10 items, including two DVDs. The protagonists in my bibliography’s texts cover a wide range of ages, from fourteen to adulthood and come from varying stationary or nomadic cult lifestyles in both remote areas and cities. The two DVDs are documentaries, and along with a collective biography of a number of cult leaders, provide rich and detailed background on the history of cults. One of the DVDs focuses specifically on the Peoples Temple in Jonestown while the other covers a range of cults throughout history and cultures. The other titles are fictional, except for two: one memoir, Cartwheels in a Sari: a Memoir of Growing Up Cult, and a book of interviews by a police chief, Deadly Cults: the Crimes of True Believers. Both books, in addition to the pieces of fiction, provide insight into how different and similar cults can be to one another. All of the texts are appropriate selections for high school students because the books occur at the stage in teenagers’ lives where they develop their identities and learn how to break free from cult mentalities.
I used quite a few selection tools to compile this list. While there are countless resources about cults, many of them are inappropriate for sophomores or lack positive reviews. I used School Library Journal, Booklist, and VOYA as primary selection sources. I also spent a long time with Reality Rules!: A Guide to Teen Nonfiction Reading Interests. After I finished my selection of texts, I revisited my topic and asked myself: do teenagers need to learn about the psychological damage and religious fanaticism linked with the cult lifestyle? I live and teach in a rural-suburban community, and to my knowledge, no cults or communes exist nearby. Yet, the student members of my community need exposure to these lifestyles because they do exist somewhere; cults are the extreme of the worshipful ways groups of teenagers sometimes act towards one another. By examining cults through movies, nonfiction, and fiction, students who live in communities free from the constraints of cult activity, experience and understand the psychological hardships that cult members face and apply this knowledge to their own peer relationships.
While my Reading Web focuses on a different subject matter, the themes I identified are not any less serious or less relevant to teenagers’ understanding than cults. As aforementioned, we were free to choose the book for the focal point of our web. I chose Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers, a novel that follows a young American soldier in Iraq. I compiled a webbed list of 42 digital and print resources (both fiction and nonfiction) that pertain to various elements within Sunrise Over Fallujah (see list below). Again, I used VOYA and Reality Rules, but I also accessed a database entitled Fabulous Films for Young Adults in addition to other print selection tools such as Books in Print. I categorized each title into one of the elements addressed in Sunrise: Culture Conflict, Teens and the Military, Psychological Aspects of War, Middle East Conflicts, Terrorists, African-Americans in the Military, Islam, Classic Young Adult War Novels, Political Awareness–War, and Walter Dean Myers’ novels. The concept of modern warfare especially addresses a developmentally-diverse student audience. Throughout history, young adults have been an integral part of the military. The variety of books on my Reading Web detailing teenagers’ experiences during wartime addresses the diversity of teenagers who may show an interest in reading about war but who are at different stages of development and who come from a multitude of social and cultural backgrounds.
Despite the developmental and cultural diversity both of these projects address, one area the lists are lacking is the linguistic piece. If I were to go back through and enhance either of my projects, I would first add texts written in different languages to address ESOL students’ needs. However, I am positive that as I grow as a librarian and use my selection tool knowledge to build more of these lists, I will have a difficult time not addressing the linguistic element because of the time I have spent with Latino students in both of my previous high schools. Often students who speak English as a second language are voracious readers with a love of knowledge.
As a school librarian, I plan to create a number of curricular bibliographies and reading webs for teachers. If nothing else, the lists are great tools to simply hand to students who have just finished books and want more. I had a student last year (a student who is a hesitant reader) who loved Sunrise Over Fallujah. I was honored to hand over the reading web I had created, especially when he told me later that he had checked out a number of the texts in the school library! Lists and webs like these should be published for the community. A Reading Web is an invaluable resource for parents, especially as the summer months approach. And a curricular integration unit is something that teachers can give to students and parents for summer reading to prepare for the coming classes in the Fall semester. |