The Missouri Reader Vol. 40, Issue 3 | Page 30

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In my perspective, multicultural education should not focus only on minorities. All students are equally important, although different from each other.

I decided to use multicultural literature to

discuss the students’ cultural background

and how multicultural authors used

illustrations to represent their cultures. I

connect the learning experiences from the

Readers’ Workshop with the ones from the

Writer’s Workshop. I communicated my

idea to parents and as a learning

community, we were committed to embrace

culturally relevant learning experiences as

a part of our classroom culture. I invited

parents to come as guest speakers to share

about their cultural backgrounds. They

came to read books to the students that

depicted their cultures. The students were

welcome to bring their own books in which

they found characters with which they

related. The students became very

engaged and always asked to share with the

class about what they had learned.

During reading aloud, I read two books

and we created a Venn diagram to compare

and contrast the books. The students

commented about how the illustrations

represented a specific culture and how the

books related to their own lives. I gave the

students the opportunity to choose the

books they wanted to compare and

contrast. They did the same activity in small

groups, and the result was outstanding! It

was hard to believe that they were just in

first grade! Through this compare and

contrast activity, I was able to observe my

first graders assimilate important cultural

concept. “As they learn about themselves

and others around them, they see

differences and similarities and learn to

appreciate both their and other’s

cultures” (Lowery, & Sabis-Burns, 2010, p.

51). After reading the book Sit-in: How Four

Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down (Pinkney,

2010), I asked the students to write a note

to the characters. What would they ask the

four friends if they had the opportunity?

One of the kids wrote, “Thank you! Because

you were brave I can eat anywhere I want.”

Students were able to understand complex

social concepts, such as prejudice, equality,

and segregation.

The Writers’ Workshop project was to write their

own stories that somehow represented a culture

of their choice. It was a requirement that their

illustrations matched and added to their stories.

The students used the classroom iPads to take

pictures of the illustrations of the books that

represented the culture they chose. They used

the pictures as a base to their own illustrations.