Analyzing Multicultural Literature

LIB 617 Readings and Research in Young Adult Literature

Fall 2011

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Why analyze literature?

To discover the full spectrum of the content

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A little Newtonian physicsIsaac 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

Real

Invented

SMiley face

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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 (even when they’re not “people”?

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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 (not necessarily “artificial,” rather, is it fiction)?

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Smiley Face?

Does it seem generic, impersonal?

Two Continuums

Real Invented

Personal SMiley Face

Put ‘em together!

Personal

SMiley

Real

Invented

Application to Literature???

. . . and Indians????

Top Left Sector of Matrix14

Up close and personal—and real!Real

Personal

Folklore: consists of culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. (Wikipedia) Invented

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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

• See also Mike Fink: an American anti-hero

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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.

Bottom Left Sector of Matrix17

Invented, but personal and believable RealP

ersonal Invented

Quality literature, sometimes adaptations, or else original

writing, with universal appeal and meaning for everyman and

everywoman

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A personal, if invented YA story

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie– The National Book Award-winning novel THE

ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie is such a magnanimous stew of reality and hope --- and the particular traumatic existence of a reservation teen in contemporary America --- that you can't possibly put it down, no matter how sad, disgusted or freaked out it makes you. • Reviewed by Jana Siciliano

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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 Prairie

Real Smileys!

Top Right of the Matrix20

Real

Recognizable stories, but unoriginal and shallow

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A real smiley?My Heart Is On the Ground

Ann Rinaldi– The book adds to the great body of

misinformation about Native life and struggle in the United States and Canada. This one book epitomizes the utter lack of sensitivity and respect that has come to characterize the vast majority of children's books about Native Americans. Non-Native readers of My Heart Is On the Ground will continue to be validated in whatever feelings of superiority they may have; Native children will continue to be humiliated.• Review in Oyate. See also the accompanying essay

“Literary License” or “Mutated Plagiarism”? and Fiction Posing As Truth

Invented smileys [perhaps contrived?]

Bottom Right of the Matrix22

Invented

Generic, unoriginal, impersonal, shallow

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A stilted example?

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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 resources