Analyzing Multicultural Literature

ELE 616 Readings and Research in Children‟s Literature

Fall 2009

Why analyze literature?

To discover the full spectrum of

the content

Analyzing Multicultural Literature

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A little Newtonian physics

Isaac Newton first used the word

spectrum (Latin for “appearance” or

“apparition”) in print in 1671 in

describing his experiments in optics.

Newton observed that, when a narrow

beam of white sunlight strikes the face of a

glass prism at an angle, some is reflected

and some of the beam passes into and

through the glass, emerging

as different colored bands.

– NationMaster Encyclopedia

> Visible light

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Spectrum requires a prism

Estonian composer

Arvo Pärt:– I could compare my music to white

light which contains all colours. Only a

prism can divide the colours and make

them appear; this prism could be the

spirit of the listener.

• about his music: Alina

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Prism as a filter

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin:

– The biographer finds that the

past is not simply the past, but a

prism through which the subject

filters his own changing self-

image. • Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1979).

„„Angles of Vision‟‟, in:

Mark Pachter (Ed.), Telling Lives: the

biographer‘s art. Washington, DC: New

Republic Books. Cited in Debate and

Reflection: How to Write Journalism

History

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A prism to view the full spectrum of literature

Personal

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Real

Invented

SMiley face

Personal?

Do you feel as if you‘re involved;

part of the action?– That these are real people we‟re dealing

with—some identifiable personalities

September Analyzing Multicultural Literature

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Real?

Is there something that makes you

feel that this could have happened? – Even when it couldn‟t in real life?

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Invented?

Is this story invented, created by

one or more authors?

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Smiley Face?

Does it seem generic, impersonal?

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Two Continuums

Real Invented

Personal SMiley Face

Put ‗em together!

P

e

r

s

o

n

a

l

SM

i

l

e

y

Real

Invented

Application to Literature???

. . . and Indians????

Top Left Sector of Matrix14

Up close and personal—and

real!

Real

P

e

r

s

o

n

a

l

Folklore: Folklore is the body of

expressive culture, including tales,

music, dance, legends, oral history,

proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs,

customs, material culture, and so forth,

common to a particular population,

comprising the traditions (including

oral traditions) of that culture,

subculture, or group. (Wikipedia)

Invented

A rival to Paul Bunyan and John Henry

Fink, Mike, 1770?–1823?– American border hero, whose exploits have been so

elaborated in legend that the actual facts of his life are

difficult to discover. He was born probably at the frontier

post of Pittsburgh, took part in the wars against the

Native Americans of the Ohio region, and subsequently

became a keelboatman on the flatboats of the Ohio and

Mississippi rivers. He later turned to trapping.

• “Mike Fink.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008.

Retrieved September 17, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Fink-Mik.html

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Mike Fink taleBy ―the then beautiful village of

Louisville‖

– Among [a] band of [Indian] outcasts was a

Cherokee, who bore the name of Proud Joe . . .

Joe still wore, with Indian dignity, his scalplock;

he ornamented it with taste, and cherished it, as

report said, until some Indian messenger of

vengeance should tear it from his head, as

expiatory of his numerous crimes. Mike had

noticed this peculiarity; and, reaching out his

hand, plucked from the revered scalplock a

hawk's feather. . . . [Mike‟s] ball had cut it clear

from his head; the cord around the root, in which

were placed feathers and other ornaments, still

held it together; the concussion had merely

stunned its owner; farther - he had escaped all

bodily harm!

• “Mike Fink, the Keel-boatman” in Thorpe, T.B.

(1854). The Hive of ―The Bee Hunter.‖ A Repository of

Sketches, Including Peculiar American Character,

Scenery, and Rural Sports.

September Analyzing Multicultural Literature

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Bottom Left Sector of Matrix17

Invented, but Personal Real

P

e

r

s

o

n

a

l Invented

Quality literature, sometimes

adaptations, or else original

writing, with universal appeal and

meaning for everyman and

everywoman

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Personal, invented and more controversial

The ―Little House‖ series– If Pa Ingalls had built his little house on

the periphery of an antebellum southern

mansion and Mrs. Wilder had described its

Black slaves in the same terms she depicted the Osage

Indians, her book long ago would have been barred

from children‟s eyes, or at least sanitized like some

editions of Mark Twain‟s The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn. Mrs. Wilder‟s book even contains

the popular variation of General Sheridan‟s

racist remark about what constitutes a good

Indian.

• Dennis McAuliffe, Jr., Little House on the Osage Prairie

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Real Smileys!

Top Right of the Matrix20

Real

Recognizable stories,

but unoriginal and

shallow

A real smiley?

Wargin, Kathy Jo

The Legend of the Petoskey Stone

Sleeping Bear Press, 2004

– The Legend of the Petosky Stone

purports to be a legend about a Native

American chief from a community on

the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. It

also purports to tell the origin of the name of the

northwest Michigan town of Petoskey, as well as the

transfer of that name to a fossilized coral that was made

the official state stone. There is absolutely nothing

factual or traditional in this book. The language

pronunciation guides, the explanations, the

translations, are all false.

• Review by Lois Beardslee, Oyate

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Invented smileys [perhaps contrived?]

Bottom Right of the Matrix22

Invented

Generic, unoriginal,

impersonal, shallow

A stilted example?– This title presents a mishmash of Indian cultural snippets,

alphabetically and in rhyme, paired with side panels that purport to

offer more information about each topic. Abysmally written, with trite

error-laden rhymes and boring yet confusing “informational” text, the

poor attempts at iambic pentameter highlight this cockamamie piece of

dreck . . .

• Review by Beverly Slapin in Oyate

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Comment by Debbie Reese in her blog

Functions of multicultural literature

Rudine Sims Bishop:– provide knowledge or information

– expand how students view the world by offering

varying perspectives

– promote or develop an appreciation for diversity

– give rise to critical inquiry

– illuminate human experience• In Using Multiethnic Literature in the K–8 Classroom (ed. Harris,

V.J. (1997)), cited by Debbie Reese in Native Americans Today, a

ReadWriteThink lesson from NCTE and the International

Reading Association

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Useful resources25