Troubling the Narratives

School (Reilly)

I.

In the recent issue of Horn Book, Christopher Myers, writes about the importance of story (Young Dreamers). Myers writes:

Literature is a place for imagination and intellect, for stretching the boundaries of our own narrow lives, for contextualizing the facts of our nonfictions within constellations of understanding that we would not be able to experience from the ground, for bringing our dreams and fictions into detail, clarity, and focus. '

Myers is commenting on the value of literature to disrupt misinformed beliefs about self and other...To broaden narrow understandings.   He wonders:

if the man who killed Trayvon Martin had read A Snowy Day as a kid, would it have been as easy for him to see a seventeen-year-old in a hoodie, pockets full of rainbow candies and sweet tea, as a threat? What might have been different if images of round-headed Peter and his red hood and his snow angels were already dancing in his head?

Against such value, Myers tells us that children's book authors of color are sorely underrepresented.  In 2012 about 5% of the 5000 published children's books were authored by people of color as reported by CCBC. The likelihood of classrooms stocked with such books becomes increasingly less likely.

As a visual artist and writer, Myers tells us that his job is:

To make images, to tell stories, to trouble the narratives that pervade so many people’s secret hearts and minds. 

I love that: trouble the narratives and I wonder if that responsibility doesn't extend beyond the writer, the artist. Don't all of us need to trouble those waters? How representative are the classrooms where you work? How can children learn to trouble the narratives they have been taught, if the very books they are fed fail to broaden, deepen, and complicate their lives?

II.

My friend Jane Gangi is all about troubling narratives, such as the CCSS that informs text selection and reading method in an enormous number of schools in the US. With its easy formulas aimed at diminishing the amount of "permitted" literature to be read at school, while increasing the percentage of informational texts to be read-- and its exceedingly (and embarrassingly) poor selection of text exemplars that continue to privilege the stories of the privileged, I can't help but wonder if this combination won't limit the in class possibility to see *other* depicted in books as beautiful, not threatening.  Lessen the stories read alongside the exemplars to be read and we see power is maintained, not troubled. 

Jane has been outspoken on these matters.  She and the college students she teaches have been busy all spring, putting together a new collection of exemplars that is far more representative for those who remain in charge of the CCSS who recognized the narrowness of the original list.  Look for that new set of exemplars in fall.   Its a step in a better direction, and one that I hope will help curriculum developers, principals, and teachers to make better informed and inclusive book decisions about texts in classrooms. 

Literature is an aesthetic act (unless we reduce it to information retrieval) that we embody.  Through engagements with stories, especially those that help us to become (other)wise and in doing so to trouble the narratives we hold as truths. 

250+ Children's Books Featuring Black Boys and Men

Guest Blog: Jane M. Gangi
 
This post is authored by a friend, colleague and coauthor of Deepening Literacy Learning, Jane M. Gangi.  In this post, Jane is sharing a PowerPoint slideshow that she will be using at the Summit: Building a Bridge to Literacy for African American Male Youth: A Call to Action for the Library Community at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on June 3-5, 2012 that features more than 250 children's books depicting Black males. 

 Jane's article, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Literacy Instruction: Realizing the Implications of the Proficient Reader Research"(MC Review, 2008) offers an important critique of racial representation in the literacy textbooks for teachers and teacher candidates. I encourage you to read it.  She and I have also reviewed professional literacy textbooks from 2004 through 2008 and the news is not good.  Here's  a link to a post Jane did at the end of 2010.

Books depicting black males slide show -sandra may 25 230pm

View more presentations from Mary Ann Reilly / Blueprints for Learning, Inc..

Guest Blog: Children of Color and the Poor Left Way Behind in the National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs Common Core State Standards Initiative: “Text Exemplars” for Kindergarten through 5th Grade

Jane M. Gangi

 This week's guest blog is authored by a friend, colleague and coauthor of Deepening Literacy Learning, Jane M. Gangi.  In this post, Jane analyzes the K-5 text exemplars recommended in the Common Core State Standards in order to see the racial representation of the texts. It always disappoints me and angers me that limited representation of African American, Asian, Latino/a, and Native American people in the texts offered as exemplars is so often done. Jane's article, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Literacy Instruction: Realizing the Implications of the Proficient Reader Research"(MC Review, 2008) referenced in this blog post offers an important critique of racial representation in the literacy textbooks for teachers and teacher candidates.

Jane M. Gangi, Ph.D.

December 11, 2010

Despite comprising 40% of the population in the United States (and 70% of the world’s), in the K-5 Text Exemplars in the National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs Common Core State Standards Initiative, children of color are represented in just 21% of the selections. Decades of research have taught us that, to become proficient readers, children must be able to make text-to-self connections; they must be able to activate their prior knowledge. When the books we offer children represent mostly European American and middle-class children, European American middle-class children are hugely advantaged.

I analyzed the 88 books in the categories of K-1 stories, poetry, read-aloud stories, and read-aloud poetry; Grades 2-3 stories, poetry, read-aloud stories, and read-aloud poetry; and Grades 4-5 stories, poetry, read-aloud stories, and read-aloud poetry. Of the authors represented 69 were European American; 10 were African American; 3 were Asian American; 5 were Latino; and 1 was American Indian (see Table 1). Of the 88 books, 6 focused on poor and working class children: 7%, at a time when 21% of America’s children live in poverty—about 13 million children. Yet, in many of the stories and poems they find in school, the world is portrayed as white, middle-to-upper-class, and happy. (The informational texts recommended also looked mostly white.)

This pattern continues patterns documented elsewhere—patterns that, taken as an aggregate—persistently marginalize children of color and the poor. For a summary of the  treatment of children of color and the poor in classroom collections, book fairs and book order forms, awards, book lists, children’s literature and literacy text and professional books (the books that teach teachers how to teach), see Hughes-Hassell, Barkley, & Koehler (2010) at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrcontents/volume12/hughes_hassell.cfm ,and my article (Gangi, 2008), “The Unbearable Whiteness of Literacy Instruction,” at http://www.mcreview.com/members_login/2008/Spring/whitenessofliteracy_article2.pdf .

The Grade 6 and up “Text Exemplars” seem more multicultural than those for Kindergarten through 5^th grade—but there are six long years before grade 6 when children can learn they don’t belong, don’t count, don’t have a voice, and that they are “deficient” or “substandard.” When we wonder why so many children of color and the poor drop out of high school, perhaps we should look at our classrooms for the ways we invite children in—or not. And perhaps we should listen to Stephen Krashen and David Berliner who repeatedly illuminate the international comparisons in which the U. S. takes a trouncing: When American students who live in districts with less than 10% poverty are compared internationally, the United States does just as well as Finland, which has a 3% poverty rate, compared to our 21% poverty rate. The National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs Common Core State Standards Initiative Text Exemplars ensures that the status quo will remain the status quo.

The good news is that there are many wonderful multicultural books and authors. Please visit my website for multiple resources at: http://www.wcsu.edu/sps/fbiojgangi.asp. Or email me at gangij@wcsu.edu.

TABLE 1

K-5 “Text Exemplars” Authors and Poets

	European American (EA)	African American (Af A)	Asian American (As A)	Latino (L)	American Indian (A I)	Total	%
K-1 Stories	8	0	0	0	0	8	100% EA 0% Af A 0% As A 0% L 0% AI
K-1 Poetry	7	4	0	1	0	13*	54% EA 31% Af A 0% As A 8% L 0% A O
K-1 Read-Aloud Stories	7	0	1	2	0	10	70% EA 0% Af A 10% As A 20% L 0% A I
K-1 Read-Aloud Poetry	3	1	0	0	0	5*	60% EA 20% Af A 0% As A 0% L 0% AI
2-3 Stories	13	0	0	0	0	13	100% EA 0% Af A 0% As I 0% L 0% A I
2-3 Poetry	7	2	0	1	0	10	70% EA 20% Af A 0% As A 10% L 0% A I
2-3 Read-Aloud Stories	5	1	1	0	0	7	71% EA 14%% Af A 14% % As A 0% L 0% A I
2-3 Read-Aloud Poetry	5	0	0	0	0	5	100% EA 0% Af A 0% As A 0 % L 0% A I
Grades 4-5 Stories	6	2	1	0	1	10	60% EA 20% Af A 10% As A 10% A I
Grades 4-5 Poetry	8	0	0	1	0	9	89% EA 0% Af A 0% As A 11% L 0% A I
Total	69	10	3	5	1	88	78% EA 11% Af A 3% As A 6% L 1% A I

*1 author was anonymous