Multicultural Writing

“Stories of death and loss are not uncommon in urban classrooms. Too often they elicit merely stock responses and expressions of sympathy (20).”

This quote brought me straight back to my student teaching experience. One of my fifth grade students was talking about how her uncle was killed. She went on to tell us how she found his body in a bag after she could not find him when they were out in the city together. She had lost him when she went with her brother into the fountain. I was in pure shock and did not know what I should say or do. All of the thoughts and emotions that I believe I would have felt and thought came flooding into my head. This student had a straight face while telling this particular story. The other students had similar expressions and some even went on to tell their own stories, much of which were similar to this young girls.

This experience was extremely eye opening for me because I did not believe that these fifth graders knew and had witnessed as much as they did. It made me think of how innocent I was when I was that age. I also thought about how privileged I was for being able to have my innocents intact. I think that as teachers, it is our job to try to keep our students innocents. While doing this, we need to realize all that these students have been exposed to and that this does not stop them from being children.

Immigrant Students and Literacy: Read, Writing, and Remembering, made me evaluate how I use multiculturalism as a teacher. In all of my classes we have talked about celebrating diversity as well as how important it is to teach a variety of cultures (especially those of students within your classroom). I do think this is important but this book showed me how much we can learn about cultures from our students.

As teachers, it is important that we have students share their cultures and their stories with fellow students, as well as ourselves. A great way to do this is through writing. We can introduce new genres and as we do this, have students do a piece of writing. The writing should be in the format of the genre but the topics should revolve around their live and their experiences. Students can share their pieces so that others can learn from them. This process ultimately shows students that their writing has a purpose. Even bigger than this, it shows students that their life has a purpose. I ultimately believe that students are going to learn more about culture from talking to their fellow students as well as feel empowered by being able to share their stories.