It doesn’t matter how many stories with diverse characters you bring into your classroom if all of those stories portray the same narrative. #WLBookAudit #teach4ic
Yes. We want to diversify our book shelves, but if our attempts only introduce students to a single story, we may be doing more harm than good.
“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
So when looking at your books, take note of not only the diversity of characters, but also diversity of narratives. Do all your stories of Colombia feature drugs or violence? What single story does that create for our students? What can you do to fix that?
One way to fix that is to bring more #authres into your classroom. What stories do these cultures tell about themselves? I doubt you’ll find a single story.
Think #authres isn’t comprehensible? Try harder. Look what has been done with MovieTalks to help bring an authentic video clip to students in a comprehensible way. Can you apply the same principles and approaches to newspaper articles? Short stories? Music?
Support #ownvoices authors from our field: @veganadri @DiegoOjeda66 @profeklein @klasekastellano Margarita Perez Garcia
And finally, learn from other communities who are doing this work. Check out the #ownvoices movement. Listen to and learn from #disrupttexts. Follow people who discuss this often: @triciaebarvia @nenagerman @juliaerin80 @TchKimPossible @booktoss @debreese
