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Reading the world: Reading Red Scarf Girl in a 9th grade English language arts class
Citation
Loh, C. E. (2009. April). Reading the world: Reading Red Scarf Girl in a 9th grade English language arts class [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA), San Diego, California, USA.
Abstract
This study examines how one teacher implemented the study of a multicultural literary text in a rural 9th grade English Language Arts classroom. Specifically, it examines the kinds of classrooms conversations that arose as a result of the study of Red Scarf Girl (1997), a memoir set during the Cultural Revolution in China. The findings show that the choice of a culturally distant text from another nation encouraged conversations about what it meant to be an American, and provided potential discursive spaces for discussion about self, nation, and world. However, there were also tendencies towards non-critical readings and thinking in problematic binaries. Implications for rethinking multicultural literature to include conversations about self, nation, and world are discussed. In thinking about text choice, I suggest that we need to begin to think about students both as Americans and global citizens in order to bring culturally relevant conversations into the classroom.
Date Issued
April 2009
Description
This paper was presented at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA), held in San Diego, California, USA from 13 – 17 Apr 2009