Using Counter-Storytelling In The Classroom

As a culturally responsive teacher, it is important to create an inclusive learning environment one in which diverse students feel comfortable, safe and not afraid to be themselves. Hughes-Hassell (2013) suggests using counter-storytelling. Counter-storytelling gives voices to ethnic groups who are often unheard, shedding new light on old stories. Adichie (2009) discusses her experience as being African and encountering the single story while in college with a roommate. Adichie (2009) explained, “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 – the definitive story of a people” (Ted Talk). Entire ethnicities are being stereotyped because of one story. Allowing students to see themselves in a different light, whether it is in a math, science and/or social studies lessons. Multicultural literature can change the way we see each other.

A single story is when one story is told again and again without the person telling it having experienced the place or seen the people first hand. It creates bias opinions and stereotypical points of views. Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks powerfully about rejecting the single story, so we may create a “balance of stories.” (Adichie, 3) She believes that once we realize there is no single story, we can empower, humanize and repair broken dignities “to regain paradise.” (Adichie, 4) I strongly agree with Adichie’s opinion because if we only listen to a single story; stereotypes are created, leading us to believe untrue and incomplete opinions. Stereotypes of which ultimately become someone else’s story, or at least, our

Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig

I teach fourth grade language arts where my main focus is to prepare my students to write a personal narrative for the Nebraska State Writing Test in January. Reading and writing are intertwined in my area of professional responsibility as I motivate my students to write a well-organized, creative personal narrative. As I have taught writing, I have found reading, writing, speaking, and listening go hand in hand when composing a personal narrative (Bruning, 2011, p. 299).

It can be quite a shock to confront the possibility that reading, writing, and talking exercise almost none of the powers we regularly attribute to them in our favorite stories. The dark night of the soul for literacy workers comes with the realization that training students to read, write, and talk in more critical and self- reflective ways cannot protect them from the violent changes our culture is undergoing.

(Postman 1996) Postman describes narratives as being essential in the education world because they provide explanations that cannot be known, sense of community life and personal identity, and a guideline for moral conduct. (Postman

Having students read multicultural books are not only a great way to expand there knowledge, but it's also a great way to teach them important history periods by reading a book with a story. Giving students specific books to read will give them the opportunity to learn specific events without having to teach them with a textbook or lectures. In source D it explains about how children with the knowledge of multicultural books have better skills of their language and intensify their imagination skills.. It says, “For past three decades, researchers have continued to affirm that culturally authentic children's literature engages the imagination and enhances the language skills.” (source D).

Critical pedagogy, influenced by Paulo Freire and Michael Apple, sees students become participants in their learning, where topics are relatable and relevant to their lives. Critical literacy refers to the use of text and other communication to challenge the rules governing the societal norms of everyday life (Luke, 2012, p.5). Asking students to interrogate a text and question the use of language, allows them to form a critical observation about what the author wants the readers to know, for example, when studying Australian First Contact, allowing students to draw conclusions about the treatment of Indigenous people from a text which glosses over the details, ensures students look at the topic from multiple angles and apply their sociocultural knowledge to the discussion. The introduction of multimodal tools into literacy teaching, acknowledges that a

Entering in this class it did not know what I did not know. Walking in on the first day of class I had no doubt in my mind that I had a lot to learn. Never in my educational career had I been introduced to the topic of African American literature. Sure, history teachers would talk about slavery and our evolution as a society but never had I looked in depth on the first-hand view of the whole experience. Reading literature from the people who experienced these events truly opened up my eyes. The difference between reading a semi bias history book vs reading a piece of writing by someone who experienced the event gives one a whole other perspective that I had not thought of.

Because many of these students are reading on levels below the 8th grade band the texts selected have slightly lower Lexile scores than you might expect to see in an 8th grade classroom. The themes in these texts are consistent with the theme of the unit and range from novels about students who face mistreatment due to prejudice to articles about certain groups in the United States who routinely face discrimination based on their identity. The different topics these texts cover, all centered around the same general theme, are sure to engage students because the issues they deal with are something that they can likely identify in their own lives and experiences.

When kids read, they can lose themselves in imaginary worlds and zone out half way though what there reading, kids should read more historical texts because they need to know what happened in the past and how we got to where we are because t levels the playing field. Some kids come to class with a deep background knowledge to draw upon, while others have just shallow reservoirs. Reading historical fiction promotes academic equity because comparing books from one unit to the next provides kids with equal opportunities to develop historical analogies.,

Everyone knows the classics. Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, the novels of white characters in Western settings commonly read in high school English classes. Lost in the backrooms of school libraries, The House on Mango Street and Uncle Tom’s Cabin are hidden away, stories of minorities boxed in by cardboard and majority rule. While America’s student body becomes increasingly diverse (and schools rush to adapt), some say curriculum has stayed monochromatic by regularly painting the story of the white majority while failing to represent minority backgrounds and experiences fairly and leaving minority students struggling to relate to texts presented in the classroom. Others say the American curriculum should

The stories that the students were reading were fun and easy reads for the students. The stories were all relatable to the students as well which was nice that the students were able to have some background knowledge about the stories they are reading. The story that the students read represented authentic types of text and it accommodated to all the different needs of the students.

My main goal for my students in an English course is to feel that their story matters and that they matter. I have found through classroom observation, personal experience, and coursework that the majority of students do not enjoy reading and writing. I think it has become less of an outlet or an exploration of ideas and more of a “because I have to” task. I plan to begin my courses instilling the importance of story. I aim to show them that the way a novel, poem, or short story is set up is key to the message. I will seek to have them question what the author is showing versus what the author is telling. I then plan to funnel

Reading stories against stereotypes will convey knowledge and also motivate the interest and critical thought of the children.