Curriculum Presentation

EDL 318E B
Creating a Diverse Classroom Library (ECE)
Teacher Leaders
Ashley Kemper, Maria Bischel,
Tiffany Knipe, Grace Olsson, and Sarah Rhoades
Rationale

Throughout our field experiences we have observed that the majority of classroom

libraries, in our opinion, are inadequate, disorganized, and seldom used. The library does not

seem to be important to the students; they are not connected to it. We think the reason for this is

because the books are not an accurate representation of the students. This is a huge problem

because it creates an impediment to student learning. Lack of relevant literature discourages

students from reading, omitting the possibility of students seeing themselves in literature. This

leads to both academic and social emotional problems; producing struggling readers and not

providing students with the opportunity to ask, “Who am I?” As Tatum states in ​Teacher

Leadership for Social Justice, ​“ The process of integrating component parts of our self-definition

is indeed a lifelong journey.” (TLSJ, pg. 43) As teachers it is our duty to help our students find

themselves and their sense of identity. We can work towards this goal directly through literature

as they form connections with the stories. How can we expect children to fall in love with

reading, if they can not personally relate to the material?

This curriculum will focus on creating diverse classroom libraries. This will ensure all

students feel represented in their community and will learn to respect others’ differences. With

this in mind, it is important to consider the many different forms diversity comes in. This is

known as the “seven categories of ‘otherness’”, which include race or ethnicity, gender, religion,

sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, and physical and mental ability (Teacher

Leadership For Social Justice, pg.43). By acknowledging these categories, teachers are taking the
first step in truly understanding their students and their needs. After this realization occurs, it is

important for educators to take the next step, and incorporate corresponding literature in the

classroom library.

Since there are many diverse children in a classroom, they all come to school with

different backgrounds. We wanted to stress the idea that teachers must keep this in mind when

selecting books that cater towards all students. This can be done by making sure that the books

selected represent and respect their personal and cultural values.

“Not learning tends to take place when someone has to deal with unavoidable

challenges to his or her personal and family loyalties, integrity and identity. In

such situations there are forced choices and no apparent middle ground. To

agree to learn from a stranger who does not respect your integrity causes a

major loss of self. The only alternative is to not learn and reject their world.”

(TLSJ, pg. 46)

If all children are expected to learn, then they should be exposed to appropriate forms of

literature that correlate with who they are.

We believe that incorporating diverse literature into the classroom will not only address

the needs of our students as individuals, but it will also teach our students to think of those

around them. Too often when we think of the difference of others, we fall into the common

problem of criticizing these others and their differences. The idea of our curriculum project is to

hopefully break this cycle. As we build a classroom library, we must be dedicated to guiding our

students away from this way of thinking. We can teach them that, just as we want to be valued

and recognize for who we are, so do others. We must all work together to create a classroom

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community that respect others’ differences. This can then spill over into the larger community of

our school, our town, and our country.

When diverse cultural groups are not represented in children’s literature, it leads to a lack

of understanding and acceptance of minority cultures. We believe that today’s classrooms do not

have a good representation of diverse literature, therefore, they do not represent our students. In

order to fix this problem, teachers need to incorporate diverse literature into their classrooms. We

hope that through this curriculum, we can create an environment where students love reading.

Description

The purpose of our curriculum is to create a library in our classroom that is relevant and

useful to our students. We want our students to be constantly reading, to take advantage of the

books that are around them, and to practice their literacy development. We also want reading and

learning about these topics to help them develop an understanding and appreciation for diversity.

They will see themselves and things about them represented in literature and they will see others.

This way they will learn how to value diversity and be introduced to multiculturalism. In

addition to this understanding the students and teacher work to develop as a class, we believe

that allowing students the opportunity to engage in reading and pursue their interests individually

is important as well. They can then take advantage of this in their free time. Because of this, the

teacher will provide one shelf of books, the “exploratory library,” at the very beginning of the

year. A second bookshelf will be initially empty. As a class we will work to develop this into our

“meaningfully diverse library.”

For our diverse classroom library, our goal is to include literature that may be provided

from various sources. If a student, for example, mentions a book that they are interested in, then

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the teacher should look into ways to obtain it. Students and teachers may take advantage of

school book fairs to increase the amount of literature in the classroom. Having the children

research reading material on multiple websites is another way to find out about topics and books

that may be included in the library. The class may also grow the collection of diverse literature

by transferring books to it from the already existing exploratory library. This will often be

initiated by the teacher when she reads one of these books to the class as a whole group. Students

may also propose to include books from the exploratory library. Donations of books from

families is another possible source to provide books. Finally, taking field trips to a local library,

or even spending time in the school library, is a great way to get the students interested in

increasing the amount of literature in the classroom. This provides children with the opportunity

to see all of the different books that they might want to include.

For a book to be incorporated into the library, it must first be approved by the teacher.

This is due to the fact that sometimes literature contains inappropriate and/or inaccurate material,

even though it could seem completely fine at first glance. Educators need to be cautious of this,

and thoroughly read the books. In addition, the student who chooses a book should be able to

explain why the piece they found would benefit the class; specifically, they must describe how it

relates to social justice and how it includes diversity. After the student (or the teacher) presents a

book to be included, the class will then decide as a group if the book should be a part of the

library.

Because we want our students to have a constant connection to literature, this curriculum

will extend across the entire year. The curriculum will be flexible and therefore, it will take on

different appearances. Initially, as in our first lesson, it will consist of a lesson and a book

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reading. These types of lessons will happen on a weekly basis throughout the year, as the teacher

introduces books to be considered for the class library. Other times the curriculum will be

centered around student-directed sessions wherein they must brainstorm and problem solve.

Several weeks into the school year, the teacher will introduce the problem of where the money

used to buy the books will come from. This conversation should occur at the beginning of the

year, because the class will then have enough time to develop plans and implement them. Often,

teachers are expected to purchase literature for their classrooms out of pocket. However,

although some books will be obtained this way, coming up with ideas as a whole class to figure

out how to to get the rest of the books we want would be a great real-world learning experience

for children. In addition, this presents an opportunity to engage the students with the community

while building the library. They might have fundraisers, write letters to different people in the

community or visit local companies to ask for donations. Teachers and students should not

hesitate to reach out to their community and even to their school for funding, as these places

should want to foster reading growth for children. Only by brainstorming how to access these

resources will the teacher and students be able to build their classroom library.

Throughout the year, and especially at the end of the year, the teachers and students

should celebrate new additions to their library, as well as its growth. A way to do this, could be a

book party or a themed book party. Putting new literature on display would be a good idea,

because it would draw a child’s attention. The teacher could then quickly introduce books,

explain what they are about, and even introduce books together that focus on the same topic. At

the end of the year, this celebration of the books and the importance of critically building a

diverse classroom library will culminate in an open house presentation of their library.

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Concept Map

Example of Curriculum in Practice

To introduce the lesson to our class, we would start with an “I am____” activity. This

activity was taken directly from ​Teacher Leadership for Social Justice​; introduced in Tatum’s

chapter titled ​Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? ​In this activity, the

teacher gave each student 60 seconds to write down words that they felt described them. We

would model the exact same scenario by talking with our students about ways they can describe

themselves. We would not give our students any examples of what to put down in order for them

to be able to take their writing where they want to and not be limited to following the examples.

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At the end of the 60 seconds we will ask the students to put their pencils down and reflect on

what they have written.

After they have finished writing, we would have a discussion based on the ideas that we

all have characteristics that make us the same. Then, we would discuss the characteristics that

make us unique from one another. These characteristics, similar and different, are what brings us

together as a group and what makes our class a community of diverse learners. Next, we will

introduce the book ​The Last Stop on Market Street ​by Matt de la Pena, which is a story that gives

perspective on diversity of lifestyle and socioeconomic status. We will open the class up to the

ideas that, while reading, they should pay attention to the characters and situations they see in the

book. We will emphasize the idea that they might see themselves or their friends represented in

the characters.

As we are reading, we will stop periodically and open the discussion for what the

students see in the book and what observations they have made while reading. They will have

opportunities to ask questions or bring up ideas that might concern them. This section will be

very informal and will tailor to the needs to the students as the discussion progresses. We want

these ideas to be entirely for our students, the library, and ideas they would like to learn about.

After the book is finished we will have a whole group discussion with the class. In this

time period students will be able to address any continuing questions or concerns about the book,

or things they saw. We believe that by opening up the discussion, students will be able form

connections with the literature and will feel that they are in a safe environment with room for

open discussions throughout the school year. We will collect writing samples from the students

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about their ideas and rationale as to why we should include the book in our classroom library.

These expectations and guidelines are addressed in more detail in the assessment section.

We know that by opening up these type of discussions, we are opening room for unkind

words and ideas to spread. As we continue these lessons and ideas we will continue to go over

clear guidelines over classroom expectations and rules in regards to how we treat others and how

students will interact with each other. If any issues come up or these expectations are not met by

students, these students will be removed from the activities and given an explanation as to why

certain behaviors were not appropriate. We want our students to feel comfortable and at home in

the classroom and that requires full cooperation and respect from all students.

These guidelines that we will set for our classroom will explicitly taught on the first day

of school. We will touch base on these guidelines as needed throughout the remainder of the

lesson. The rules will be made with the class as we ask them how they will treat others and how

they want others to be treated throughout the lessons. We will make sure to add in ideas about

respect and kindness. It is very important for us that if students chose to bring something up in

class or to share a personal anecdote they know that what they say will only be used to further

student learning and will not travel outside of our class environment.

Assessment

There will be formative and summative assessments conducted throughout the year using

a variety of different methods. During the discussions after each book that is introduced to the

class, the teacher will be observing and taking notes on students’ ideas to see their thinking

progress and change throughout the year. Over the course of the year, each student will have to

find four books that they want to add to our classroom library; they can get these books from the

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school or local library and then, if the class decides it should be added, the book will be

purchased through the funding the class raised or by the teacher. For two of the books, students

will have to provide written rationales for why they want the book to be added to the library.

These rationales will be evaluated based on the quality of the writing and inclusion of details

from the book, along with the amount of support and explanation the student has provided as to

why they want the book added to the classroom library.

For all four of the books, the students will have to give a brief oral presentation to their

classmates that touches on the main points of why they want the book to be added. The oral

portions will also be evaluated based on quality, but mostly based on how well the student can

convey the aspects of diversity in the book that will make it a good addition to the library. After

the student’s brief oral presentation, the class will vote and decide whether or not they believe it

is a valuable addition. This will be a small informal assessment, because the teacher can ask a

few students to explain why they voted for or against adding the book.

At the end of the year, the students will invite parents and teachers, as well as other

community members who may have helped them, to a presentation of the library they were able

to build. As a groups, the students will articulate the process and sources they used to grow the

library. They will present some of the books they especially like and several students will read

books from the library. Finally, they will discuss why the process of building a library was

important (rather than just having a unexamined collection of books) and each student will talk

about something they learned.