A response to Lynne Wiltse’s article “Why is it important to consider cultural diversity in relation to text selection?”

This article can be found in:

James, K., Dobson, T., Leggo, C., eds. English in Middle and Secondary Classrooms: Creative and Critical Advice from Canada’s Teacher Educators. Toronto: Pearson, 2012.

What stuck with me after reading Wiltse’s article was the notion that choosing classroom texts that positively represented students in the class provided them with “cultural affirmation,” or the process of making a student feel proud of their culture by giving their culture value in the context of a class lesson.

When we think of a multicultural Canadian classroom, many students in that class come from families that practice cultures that are significantly different from the mainstream. In order to fit in with other students at school, however, students tend to merge their behaviour to match the mainstream, because this is what is seen as “normal” or “typical.” By giving students a chance to read something that is outside the mainstream tradition, not only is the teacher affirming the cultures of those students represented in the text, but he/she is also giving the mainstream students a chance to understand that there are other ways of living, and that these ways are equally valuable as their own.

As a reader, my favourite books are those that tend to drop me into someone else’s reality in another place in the world. Some memorable narratives include Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club.