There was an air of excitement and a fl urry of activity throughout the room as desks and chairs were pushed and pulled. The fourth graders in Mrs. Lynn’s1 English language arts class prepared to meet for literature circle discussion. These small student-led groups were organized in sharp contrast to the whole-class teacher-led reading instruction that had just ended.

The students loved the chance to talk with each other about what they were reading. Mia, JLo, Lu-pita, and Naila were meeting to read and discuss events in the second chapter of the story, Felita (Mohr, 1979). While the four girls in the literature circle knew each other, they were not all close friends. JLo self-identifi ed as Puerto Rican and African American, and Naila as African American, Both were profi cient in English and at beginning stages of Spanish profi ciency. Mia self-identifi ed as Mexican American and was profi cient in En-glish. Lupita, who also self-identifi ed as Mexican American, was more profi cient in Spanish.

In her role as discussion director, Mia waited patiently as the other girls fl ipped through their books to see who could fi nd the answer to her ques-tion fi rst. “I know, I know,” JLo stated enthusiasti-cally as she read the answer from a sentence in the story. “Correct,” stated Mia, “Now it’s Lupita’s turn to read.” Lupita read slowly, pausing occa-sionally to think about the pronunciation before reading the words aloud. She read what a neighbor was saying to Felita, “. . . so many colors in your family. What are you?” As the neighbors continued to show contempt toward Felita and her family, Lupita read, “Her mother is black and her father is white.” Lupita continued reading, “They ain’t white . . . just trying to pass.” She then read a word none of the girls had ever read before, “Niggers.”

The girls all gasped and ran to their teacher. Mrs. Lynn said, “It’s not a bad word, but it’s not a good word.”2 Although Lupita had read the word to her literature circle, she asked her teacher, “Do I have to say it?” and Mrs. Lynn reassured her she did not have to say it again. (From fi eld notes and audio transcription, 3/26/03)

Critical encounters emerge when a word, concept, or event in a story surprises, shocks, or frightens the reader or readers to such a degree that they seek to inquire further about the vocabulary or event selected by the author. Through our work, we have found that these encounters are pivotal moments that have transformative possibilities for student discussion and learning. Appleman (2000) uses the term critical encounters to stress how adolescents can learn to read critically by utiliz-ing multiple literary theories. In our work and in this article, we use the term critical encounters to address the specifi c moments in reading that dis-rupt the traditional social pattern of talk. In the example above, the girls’ reading was frozen by racist dialogue in their literature selection.

As Mia, Lupita, JLo, and Naila were reading the second chapter of Felita (Mohr, 1979), they were perplexed by the degree of discrimination the 10-year-old female protagonist, Felita, and her Puerto Rican family experienced when they moved to a new neighborhood. While reading aloud, Lupita’s voice expressed tension, and suddenly she had to decide what to do with the uncommon presence of a particularly pejorative word.

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Christina P. DeNicolo and Maria E. Franquiz

“Do I have to say it?”: Critical Encounters with Multicultural Children’s LiteratureLiterature discussion groups in a fourth-grade bilingual English language arts classroom identify a critical incident in a story that provides opportunities for students to examine personal beliefs and societal realities.

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2. Mrs. Lynn shared with us that she was aware of the controversial nature of the word as well as the historical meanings and varied uses that students may have been familiar with. She wanted students to understand that it was a word used to hurt. See Randall Kennedy (1999–2000; 2002) for an historical analysis of the word.

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We argue that quality multicultural children’s literature engages readers with critical encoun-ters of social (in)justice through its selective use of language, plot, and characterizations. As bilingual researchers, we recognize an important connection between multicultural literature and bilingual edu-cation, as do other literacy educators. For example, Dudley-Marling (2003) refers to the defi nition of multicultural literature that he used when he was teaching third grade: “[Multicultural literature is] literature by and about people who are members of groups considered to be out-side the socio-political main-stream” (Bishop, 1992, cited in Dudley-Marling p. 305). This defi nition was useful to us, as it was to Dudley-Marling, because it raises issues related to the insider/outsider authorial perspective in children’s literature, alludes to the types of opportunities that should be presented to children to see themselves authentically represented in the literacy curriculum, and points to the benefi ts of providing storylines wherein characters, and by extension students, are pushed to question negative stereotypes, discrim-inatory language, or unfair acts directed toward characters in stories.

As part of our larger interest in the develop-ment of literacies among bilingual students, we have documented and analyzed the talk of four girls regarding their critical encounter with racism in the novel Felita. Through our participation as bilingual researchers in the children’s classroom, we were able to document the powerful conversa-tions that occur in discussion groups in bilingual programs using multicultural literature. The con-text of the study was unique because the major-ity of participants were members of diverse ethnic groups, in this case Mexican American, African American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican. Some stu-dents self-identifi ed with two communities—Puerto Rican and Panamanian, Dominican and Salvadoran, Puerto Rican and Jamaican, Mexi-can American and Irish American. In this urban classroom context, the primary research question we considered was, how do students in literature discussion groups access cultural and linguis-tic resources to build collective understandings of multicultural literature? We propose that through the analysis of children’s talk, we can make vis-ible how meaning is mediated among teachers and students. In the following section, we discuss how sociocultural theory—functioning as a lens

for interpreting the ways student talk related to critical encounters in text—altered the format and content of student discussions.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Mrs. Lynn’s goal was to immerse all of her stu-dents in a process through which they would become full participants in the new literacy prac-tice of literature circles. She was informed by Daniels’s (1994) model of creating and sustain-ing literature circles, and valued its apprenticeship

potential (Lave & Wenger, 1991) for building commu-nity among her students. The notion that learning through apprenticeship is inseparable from becoming full partici-pants in the world of the class-

room is grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) primary tenet that higher psychological functions originate in human social and cultural activities.

Vygotskian-inspired research (Moll, 2001) advances the idea that there are cognitive bene-fi ts to an individual when engaging in a meaning-ful apprentice-type social activity. Students are seen as knowledgeable beings with their own the-ories of the world (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Smith, 1975) and are invited to bring their own, and build on each other’s, prior knowledge. We agree with Freire (1983) who espoused the the-ory that literacy instruction must include the use of culturally relevant reading materials in the dia-logic interaction of a community of practice. The success of literacy also requires that teachers act as sociocultural mediators by organizing “learn-ing aimed at the potential and not at the devel-opmental level of the children” (Díaz & Flores, 2001, p. 30).

Accordingly, sociocultural theory suggests some factors that must be present to foster liter-acy development—an environment in which par-ticipants can build a community of practice, in this case with the help of a sociocultural media-tor; availability of textual tools that are culturally relevant, in this case through quality multicul-tural literature; and literacy events that provide an abundance of interactional opportunities between and among classroom members, in this case through literature circles. Unfortunately, national policies have led to language arts programs where discrete skills and scripted instructional strate-gies all too often take precedence over literacy La

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How do students in literature discussion groups access cultural and linguistic resources to build

collective understandings of multicultural literature?

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program designs that are more sensitive to local histories, teacher knowledge, and students’ full participation in learning.

CONTEXT OF THE STUDY

Mrs. Lynn’s English language arts classroom was a rich context for our semester-long (Janu-ary 2003 to June 2003) qualitative study of the implementation of literature circles using qual-ity multicultural children’s literature. The class-room was located in a bilingual elementary school of a large Midwestern city with a growing Latina/o community. In this urban school, native lan-guage reading instruction was provided for both Spanish- and English-dominant students from kindergarten through third grade. At the time of the study, beginning in the fourth grade, students received English language arts instruction and Spanish language arts instruction. In addition, the school district had mandated the use of a highly scripted language arts curriculum, Open Court. Programs such as Open Court are widely used in urban school districts with bilingual populations (Cadiero-Kaplan, 2004) and prioritize the acquisi-tion of skills and profi ciency in English over criti-cal reading practices (Gutiérrez, 2001).

Mrs. Lynn constructed her lesson plans in accor-dance with the Open Court program, conducting whole-class lessons using the order and class con-fi guration outlined in the teacher guide. Mrs. Lynn coordinated with the Spanish language arts teacher who used the Spanish language version of the Open Court program, Foro Abierto, for instruction. They alternated sto-ries within each theme so that students were never receiving instruction on the same story in both lan-guages. The total required language arts time was divided between the two classes. Mrs. Lynn pro-vided approximately one hour and forty-fi ve min-utes of English language arts instruction to each fourth-grade class daily.

At the start of the 2002–2003 school year, Mrs. Lynn was searching for ways to support the stu-dents assigned to her class who were in the pro-cess of transitioning from Spanish to English reading. In addition, she noticed that students were not forming relationships across languages as prior classes had, possibly due to students’ dif-fering levels of English language profi ciency. Some students felt more comfortable speaking in

Spanish, which contributed to their more frequent association with peers who shared their language preference. In consultation with the researchers, she decided that discussion groups with quality multicultural literature could address many of her concerns.

Using ethnographic methods to collect and analyze the data, we sought to understand how lit-erature discussion groups infl uence English lan-guage learners who speak a different language or language variety in their homes. We utilized classroom ethnographic methods through system-atic collection of fi eld notes, interviews, audio- and videotapes, and student-produced artifacts in order to provide an in-depth account (Trueba, 1993) of the classroom culture (Dixon, Frank, & Green, 1999). Artifacts included student role sheets, evaluations, and written responses.

Mrs. Lynn communicated her enthusiasm for literature circles to her fourth-grade bilingual community. Prior to implementing literature cir-cles, class time was dedicated to preparing stu-dents for using specifi c roles in the discussions. Daniels (1994) recommends using roles such as: discussion director, connector, summarizer, vocabulary enricher, and illustrator. These labels/functions served as temporary scaffolds to support the development of discussion skills during liter-ature discussion circles. The discussion director

thinks of questions to promote discussion; the vocabulary enricher chooses interesting or perplexing words or phrases to pose to the group; the connec-tor supplies connections with other texts, fi lm, or personal experiences; the summarizer

provides a summary of the section read; and the illustrator represents visually his or her thoughts related to the reading. In Ms. Lynn’s class, stu-dents used “role sheets” with prompts created by Daniels (1994) to remind them of their roles dur-ing discussions.

Mrs. Lynn was explicit about upholding a prin-ciple of reading and writing that would create “our own theories and ways of understanding the world” (Wenger, Pea, Brown, & Heath, 1999, p. 48). She reminded students daily of the respon-sibility they each had as members of coopera-tive groups. As recommended by Wenger et al., her goal was to make students “aware of their interdependence in making the job possible and

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Mrs. Lynn was searching for ways to support the students assigned

to her class who were in the process of transitioning from Spanish to English reading.

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the atmosphere pleasant” (p. 47). Mrs. Lynn made explicit the social values of both listening intently when others read and encouraging the use of Spanish and English in order to ensure that everyone understood what was being read and discussed.

The development of a new, shared practice entailed a process of gradual release of specifi c responsibilities—selecting materials to read, lead-ing discussion, navigating multiple perspectives, deciding next steps—from the teacher to the stu-dents (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983). As well as additional responsibilities, the shared practice required a different style of participation than was expected in the Open Court program. For this rea-son, supplementing language arts instruction with literature circles provided students with opportuni-ties to take up increased respon-sibility as well as access multiple linguistic codes in making mean-ing of text. For Mrs. Lynn, this meant organizing instruction to effectively support students in both the teacher-directed format of Open Court reading instruction and the mode of participation required for the new practice of liter-ature discussions.

MRS. LYNN: “I TEACH FOR LIFE.” Díaz & Flores (2001) argue that as sociocultural mediators, teachers must set up optimal environ-ments for students to engage in and succeed with school-based reading and writing practices. With demands to meet requirements of a mandated lan-guage arts curriculum such as Open Court, this means teachers who value critical encounters with literature must make a case for the inclusion of quality multicultural children’s literature to sup-plement the prescribed curriculum. Mrs. Lynn strove to create a space in her English language arts class to include literature that represented the cultural diversity of her students. This decision was a refl ection of her commitment to assist her students in the development of their academic as well as socio-emotional capacities.

As an African American woman, born and raised in the city where the school was located, Mrs. Lynn embraced the demographic shifts that were occurring, mainly a growing Latino popu-lation. Her decisions, such as supplementing the scripted reading program with literature circles, were grounded in her desire for her Latina/o stu-

dents to have an equitable education. For approx-imately ten years, she had been active in the bilingual school—as parent, community liaison, teaching English as a second language, and as a fourth-grade English language arts teacher. She was learning Spanish as a second language and was enthusiastically immersed in the multilingual environment of the school and wider community. She was determined to provide all of her students with an education that enabled them to develop pride in themselves and their culture, and respect for one another.

Mrs. Lynn’s interest in extending beyond her own African American community speaks to her personal values and the potential these beliefs have for learning about and developing respect for lives across ethnic borders. She conveyed

that her choices at times were questioned. For example, it was not uncommon for Afri-can American teachers who chose to work in areas of the city that were predominantly Latino to sense disapproval

from the wider community for not “working with their own.” Mrs. Lynn’s solid belief in her role as a sociocultural mediator in and outside of her classroom is of utmost importance today. African American and Latina/o communities are increasingly brought together to inhabit simi-lar spaces, often set up to vie for resources rather than learning to share. Thus, she stated, “I teach for life.”

Teachers like Mrs. Lynn who accept and understand teaching as a sociopolitical role have extremely high standards and expectations for their students (Foster, 1997; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Such teachers are not shy about provid-ing opportunities for students to question oral and written language, unjust policies and unfair acts in former or present times, or in monocultural or multicultural texts. Additionally, the strong com-mitment to validate students’ language and lived experiences is not dependent on being a member of their students’ ethnic/racial community or hav-ing profi ciency in their native language (Fránquiz & Reyes, 1998; Fránquiz, 2002; Fránquiz & Sala-zar, 2004). The way that literacy was co-constructed in Mrs. Lynn’s classroom, then, pro-vides an illustration of ways her personal val-ues and political stances paved possible avenues for all students to participate in learning within a bilingual community of practice.

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[Mrs. Lynn] was learning Spanish as a second language and was

enthusiastically immersed in the multilingual environment of the

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Mrs. Lynn was explicit in setting guidelines for participation in the discussion groups to ensure that all students shared their thoughts and contributed to discussions regardless of their degree of English language profi ciency. At the start of one discus-sion group, she stated, “I want you all to respect each other’s opinions and respect each other in the groups. I don’t want to hear of anybody making fun of anyone if they use a word wrong, or, you know, because of their accent or whatever. I don’t want to see any of that. It’s hurtful . . . your group is your family. If a family member is having problems, what do you do?” (Audio transcription, 3/17/03). This statement brought to the forefront an ideological stance in which literary response is a space for disagreements, and it reinforced the premise that media-tion is expected in this community of practice when a class member is having a problem.

QUALITY MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Given Mrs. Lynn’s orientation toward teaching, she was interested in providing students with lit-erature selections that connected them with and deepened their understanding of social issues, such as race relations, health traditions, and fam-ily mobility, among others. The variety of multi-cultural books Mrs. Lynn selected for the literature circles was intended to provide her students with a more complex understanding of the survival theme they were studying in the Open Court lan-guage arts program. For this theme, the Open Court program had a series of literature selections that addressed surviving natural disasters, politi-cal turmoil, and religious differences. The Open Court student anthology contained only segments of stories rather than entire literature selections, and while a few selections centered on the experi-ences of people of color, they did not represent the cultural diversity of the classroom. For these rea-sons, the multicultural literature Mrs. Lynn ulti-mately selected to complement the Open Court themes was grade-level appropriate, contained main characters representative of the students’ age and racial/cultural backgrounds, and in some cases, were available in Spanish (see Table 1). In the following section, we take a closer look at the approach for choosing the stories to implement the

new social practice of literature circles, with spe-cifi c focus on the story, Felita (Mohr, 1979).

In multicultural literature for upper elementary students, all aspects of culture, language, beliefs, and attitudes are conveyed through literary ele-ments presented in chapters. Multicultural litera-ture highlights characters that participate within and across multiple cultures to differing degrees (Bishop, 1997) and honors the dynamic nature of

authentic communication that can be accessed for different pur-poses in the real world. Multicul-tural literature also tells historical accounts that may be absent from the school curriculum and pres-ents alternatives to stereotypical representations of culturally and linguistically diverse communi-ties (Harris, 2003). Thus, multi-cultural literature seeks to teach via cultural images, characters, languages, and dialects. Bishop (1992) identifi ed three catego-ries of multicultural books. These classifi cations are dependent on

the degree of cultural understanding they afford the reader. Culturally neutral books portray char-acters of color but contain no real cultural content. Culturally generic books focus on characters repre-senting a specifi c cultural group (through a name, a location, or perhaps a few non-English words), but do not provide culturally specifi c information, such as extensive use of language and its relation-ship to the characters’ attitude toward their sense of belonging in their home or community. Books like Felita (Mohr, 1979) are culturally specifi c books because they incorporate details that help defi ne the main characters as members of a particular cultural group, in this case Puerto Rican.

Felita was a character created over 25 years ago. The author, Nicholasa Mohr, weaves mem-ories of her childhood experiences growing up Puerto Rican in New York City. Like the author, the main character, Felita Maldonado, is Puerto Rican. According to Anderson (2006), the reader shares the hurt and anxiety young Felita experi-ences when her family moves “from El Barrio to what they believe is a better neighborhood and school district for their children. Instead of the better future that her father promised, the children are faced with racism and hatred” (p. 229). Abue-lita (Grandmother) is the confi dante who encour-ages Felita to be proud of her heritage. She helps

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Felita with feelings such as missing her old neigh-borhood and friends and dealing with unexpected and unwelcome racist taunts from both children and adults in the new neighborhood.

In the story, Nicholasa Mohr represents the Puerto Rican community in New York across dif-ferent eras with recognizable accuracy. The story contains several strong themes that are still rel-evant today—moving to a new neighborhood, confronting racism, and losing a beloved grand-mother. According to Nieto (1997), while there exists great diversity within the Puerto Rican culture, there are several themes that represent commonalities within the broad Puerto Rican community, such as the centrality of family and personal resilience in the face of adversity. These are both present in the characters of the story and may account for the relevancy of this cultural tool so many years after publication.

While some of the titles promoted more discus-sion than others, Felita was the text that promoted the most in-depth and complex discourse among students regarding critical encounters. In other transcript segments, the focus of critical encoun-ters included examining one another’s perspectives on curanderismo or traditional healing practices as represented in The Circuit (Jiménez, 1997), the danger and causes of fi res in Felita (Mohr, 1979), and overcoming feelings of fear and anger in My Name Is María Isabel (Ada, 1995).

LITERATURE CIRCLES In addition to providing quality multicultural lit-erature that refl ected the students’ cultural back-grounds, Mrs. Lynn wanted her fourth graders to have the opportunity to select and talk about lit-

erature in small-group, student-led literature dis-cussions. In this way, the act of reading becomes a purposeful meaning-making activity for devel-oping multiple (Daniels, 1994) rather than single interpretations. Additionally, research indicates that literature discussions are exemplary for stim-ulating inquiry (Short & Harste, with Burke, 1995), promoting inferential reasoning (Jewell & Pratt, 1999), mediating understanding of diffi -cult social issues (Möller & Allen, 2000; Möller, 2002), and facilitating risk-taking among sec-ond-language learners of English (Peralta-Nash & Dutch, 2000). In fact, McMahon (1997) states that elementary school students can help one another construct meaning and also “fi ll in miss-ing background knowledge, analyze and synthe-size information, and solve problems” (p. 90). However, research also indicates that such inter-active response-centered discussions sometimes require the teacher to take a role as facilitator, par-ticipant, mediator, or active listener in the liter-ature circle discussion (Short, Kaufman, Kaser, Kahn, & Crawford, 1999). Overall, proponents of literature circles agree that student discussion requires robust social interaction and the willing-ness of teacher and students to (re)position their roles while layering meanings by building on each other’s responses to the selected literature.

The interactions and communication involved in literature discussion have additional purposes for bilingual classrooms. In these classrooms, peers often serve in the role of the more expert other, particularly as language models, when par-ticipating in the reading and discussing of selected literature. Hearing a native speaker of Spanish or English read or talk about events in a story can serve as a powerful model for the development of

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Mi Nombre es María Isabel Alma Flor Ada Moving/ Maintaining Identity SpanishMy Name Is María Isabel English

Locomotion Jacqueline Woodson Loss/Change English

Cajas de Cartón: Relato de la Francisco Jiménez Moving/Migrating Spanishvida peregrina de un niño campesino EnglishThe Circuit: Stories from the life of a migrant child

Song of the Trees Mildred Taylor Racism/Environmental English Danger/Depression Era

How Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay Julia Álvarez Moving/Adapting to Change English

Table 1. Multicultural children’s literature on the theme of “Survival”

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the target language. This modeling becomes even more effective when students have the opportu-nity to expand their existing schema to the topic of the story (Escamilla, 1997) based on the con-tributions of their peers across literature circle meetings. It is also possible for a teacher and stu-dents to assist each other in making sense of sad, painful, and complex social issues, such as racial injustice (Möller, 2002), by using all textual and linguistic resources available from members of the class (Enciso, 2003).

In their research on literature discussion groups in a fi rst-grade bilingual classroom, Martínez-Roldán and López-Robertson (1999) purposely chose picture books with provocative themes. The Spanish-speaking students in their Arizona class-room were imaginative storytellers during liter-ature group discussions. Similarly, the Trackton students in the seminal study conducted by Heath (1983) in the Carolina Piedmonts displayed creative storytelling abilities, yet had diffi culty understand-ing school’s ways with words. They encountered a contrast in language socialization between ways with words in their homes and schools. According to Martínez-Roldán and López-Robertson (1999), the Spanish-speaking students who engaged in storytelling in their fi rst-grade classroom displayed their dif-fi culty with the school’s ways with words by missing important story details in the picture books. In contrast, their English-speak-ing counterparts remembered discrete details but seemed either less interested in or less adept at using their imaginations to elaborate on the story line. In Heath’s study, the middle-class children also were able to recount discrete details and less able to be creative storytellers. Interestingly, both studies show that socioeconomic class and language differ-ences infl uence participation structures in classroom events. Such fi ndings suggest that a variety of lan-guage arts activities are necessary for providing stu-dents with equitable opportunities to learn.

Literature circles in Mrs. Lynn’s classroom were not dependent on Spanish or English reading level/profi ciency and presented new opportunities for the fourth graders to read and discuss quality mul-ticultural literature with each other. Many formats are used for literature discussion in classrooms; for example, in the study by Martinez-Roldán and López-Robertson (1999), the students had books read to them at home, then came together to dis-

cuss them at school. The fourth-grade students in Peralta-Nash and Dutch’s (2000) study of liter-ature circles read in the discussion groups. Mrs. Lynn chose to have students read with their groups to ensure that they would have support when they came across challenges in the text. The students were encouraged to read silently; however, they would often choose to read “round robin” style, where each took a turn reading aloud to the group while the others followed along in their books.

The new way of discussing literature invited students to use their life experiences as linguis-tic and cultural tools for personal understanding and for bringing about understanding in others. Concretely, this meant that students transitioning from Spanish to English were provided practice in using receptive and productive language as well as positive reinforcement in the strategies of lis-tening, using context clues for guessing at mean-ing of story events, listening for known elements and key words, differentiating between major and minor points of information, and initiating con-

versations. Thus, in literature circles, Felita was not only a story that served to mediate prior experiences and under-standings about the effects of racism in ordinary lives, but also served as an appropriate text for developing confi dence among second language learn-

ers of English as they further developed their oral language skills.

DO I HAVE TO SAY IT?In the vignette presented at the opening of the article, Mia, Naila, JLo, and Lupita were surprised and saddened by the violence that Felita experi-enced in her new neighborhood. They were par-ticularly shocked by the word that symbolized that violence. After informing Mrs. Lynn of what they had read, the researcher stepped into their lit-erature circle and asked them to share their under-standing of the events that led up to the critical encounter. In the story, Felita and her family had just moved, and she was playing with her new friends in front of her apartment building. Sev-eral adults gathered outside and called for the girls playing with Felita to join them. The adults began questioning the girls in hushed voices while staring at Felita. As Felita tried to go up the stairs to her apartment, the girls blocked her path and began using discriminatory and racist taunts.

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Felita pushed through the girls as they hit and punched her, until she fi nally made it home.

As other researchers have found, literacy learn-ing casts children as “social actors” who must position themselves and each other (Heath, 1983; Luke, 1994; Larson, 2003) in relation to racialized beliefs. Research that promotes making race visible (Greene & Abt-Perkins, 2003) claims that through reader positionings, or what we refer to as critical encounters, students are provided opportunities to learn how racism, classism, sex-ism, ablism, or linguicism func-tion in order to work against its effects. In the following tran-script segment, Mia begins the discussion by explaining her understanding of the bad word.

Researcher: Why is this a bad word?

Mia: Because you can’t make fun of somebody for being that way. That’s how God made them and that’s my true feelings.

Researcher: Yeah, but this word in particular, was it used to make what people . . .

Naila: Impression.

Researcher: An impression.

JLo: Or talk down Puerto Ricans and Black people.

Researcher: . . . and Black people. So, be-cause it’s in this book doesn’t mean it’s an okay word. Are sometimes people mean to other people?

Naila: Yes.

Researcher: So, they called her that name. Then they called her Spic and so what did she do?

Mia: She yelled. [Reads from the book] She said, “Let me through!” She screamed.

Researcher: Why don’t you guys talk for a few minutes: what would you do, what would you have done if you were Felita?

In the excerpt above, Mia referred to race as a God-given characteristic, while Naila and JLo agreed that racial slurs are used to impress, hurt, or “talk down” Black and Puerto Rican people. Interestingly, Mia directed her attention to the task and read on to fi nd out what happened to Felita. The researcher stepped out of the literature circle at this point in order to provide students with the opportunity to position themselves in relation to the discriminatory words hurled at Felita. In this way, they could make connections between their

multiple social worlds and Felita’s dilemma. The teacher and researcher expected the girls to serve as mediators for one another by engaging in dis-course that would offer different ways to solve Felita’s problem.

Mia had been leading the discussions using a teacher-like question-and-answer format. At the onset of the next transcript segment, however, she briefl y relinquished her role as discussion director to JLo. While her immediate response

was to resolve Felita’s prob-lem with violence, JLo and Lupita were struggling to imagine different resolutions. These reactions illustrate the

powerful role that literacy can play. As Ladson-Billings describes, “Literacy serves as a site for racial struggle and potentially racial understand-ing” (2003, p. ix). The tension and struggle are evident in the dialogue that ensued.

JLo: Mia, what would you do if you were Felita?

Mia: Well JLo, I would get all my friends and beat ’em up and try to solve the problem. Even though I would want to beat them up so bad and I’d just try to solve the problem and live with it or else if they keep doing it, they getting beat down.

JLo: Okay, how do you feel Lupita, about it?

Lupita: I feel bad because, ’cause if that, because if that was me, I would be really sad because they didn’t let us, me pass to my house. Okay, what’s your name? What would you do, JLo?

JLo: I would feel bad, ’cause they are talk-ing about talking down Black people and Puerto Ricans and Mexicans like that and I feel bad or Black people or American people, or Black people or Puerto Rican or other people like that, they’re talking down about them.

Mia: What would you say, Naila?

Naila: I think it would be rude to do that, that’s why I wouldn’t do it.

Mia: But what would you do like, what would you do if you were in that situation?

Naila: Punch ’em in the face [laughter].

Mia: I can’t believe you just said that and Lupita wants to say something.

Lupita: I think punching her in the face or fi ghting with her is not going to solve the problem.La

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JLo and Lupita were struggling to imagine different resolutions.

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Mia: What do you have to say about that?

Naila: Well I think . . . I think that’s just kind of right but if I was really, really mad, I would just knocked her out.

Although the girls began to temporarily suspend the literature circle roles, allowing for a conver-sation with each person speaking longer than usual, Mia resumed her role as discussion direc-tor, asking Naila what she would say. When Naila responds that she would not behave in a similar manner as the girls that Felita encountered, Mia prods her further. This time Naila responds humor-ously and says, “Punch ’em in the face.” Lupita doesn’t laugh and explicitly reminds the group that violence is not an effec-tive answer. Without concern for Naila’s pronunciation or word choice, Lupita tells the group, “I think punching her in the face or fi ghting is not going to solve the problem.” Naila partially agrees with Lupita, but still feels that the situation may warrant fi ght-ing. Mia, unsure of how to respond even though she also had wanted to resolve the problem with violence, returns to her role as director and looks to JLo for another alternative.

Mia: What would you do again, JLo?

JLo: I would get my friend or the Adopt-A-COP3 and solve the problem between us.

Mia: Very good answer and Lupita again, . . .

The girls talk it over but do not reach a con-sensus. Mia looks for additional solutions and JLo says she would look to a friend or police offi cer to mediate and solve the problem. The group strug-gles to express feelings of anger regarding the racism that Felita encountered as they continue to negotiate possible solutions. Medina (2001) pro-vides an explanation from her research for the type of conversation that took place among the girls related to the critical encounter with racism in the story. She writes, “Traditionally classrooms are oriented toward ‘objective’ and ‘neutral’ dis-courses where there is no space for either violence or emotional attachment. Both violence and emo-tions became central to the exploration of aspects

of a social reality lived by Latinas/os, and more specifi cally, the U.S./Mexico border community. When the students are presented with narratives that represent some form of oppression, it is hard to approach it without emotion or maybe even violence” (p. 203).

As the girls continued in the literature dis-cussion, Lupita provided additional prompts to encourage Mia and Naila to reconsider their stances.

Lupita: I would say if you fi ght with them that would make the problem worser, worse and you should have talk about it.

Mia: Hold on, here’s Naila again.

Naila: I would stop fi ghting and then just say, ‘You want me to bring my parents here so they can take care of the problem?’ and if you push my parents around I’ll have them call the police.

Lupita: Mia, I got a question for you, what else will you do instead of punching and fi ghting?

Mia: Even though I wanted to beat them up and stuff I wouldn’t ’cause you know that is wrong. If you live that way scared of these what-ever they are, these kids then you know that’s not going to solve anything. You got to stand up for yourself and tell somebody, all right!

A profound change occurred in the litera-ture discussion group after the critical encounter with a racially loaded social label. The four girls engaged in a different type of dialogue about what they were reading. Prior to the encounter, they took turns looking for small details about char-acters, events, and the evolving story lines. After the encounter, literature circle roles were aban-doned for the most part and all members of the group constructed meaning by becoming active participants in the discussion. The girls expressed agreements and disagreements. Mia’s talk indi-cated she believed violence was a viable option as a response towards people who made rac-ist remarks. However, in the course of the talk, the other girls offered different solutions, includ-ing bringing parents, calling police, telling some-one. Interestingly, Lupita, the least profi cient English speaker, did not waver and refuted the opinions of her peers, Mia and Naila, by stating, “I would say if you fi ght with them that would

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The critical encounter gave her the ability to use language, not just for its surface features, but

also for communicating thoughts, taking positions, and questioning

the inferential reasoning of others.

3. Adopt-A-COP is a program where police offi cers men-tor young people. COP stands for Community Organized Participation.

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make the problem worser.” Although Mia was the one accustomed to asking the questions to move the conversation, it was Lupita who asked, “What would you do, JLo?” and “Mia, I got a question for you, what else will you do instead of fi ght-ing?” As Lupita pressed Mia to change her origi-nal position, she was also asking her to refl ect on her inferential reasoning. Lupita suspected Mia’s deductions were fl awed and worthy of rethink-ing. Ultimately, Mia did admit she still felt like beating up people who used racist language, but she acknowledged this as wrong and not the only solution for “standing up for yourself.”

In our estimation, Lupita made a particu-larly powerful transition because she had partic-ipated the least in prior discussions. The critical encounter gave her the ability to use language, not just for its surface features, but also for com-municating thoughts, taking positions, and ques-tioning the inferential reasoning of others. The dialogue between Lupita and her fellow group members is evidence that students who are in the process of developing their profi ciency in English can provide valuable support to their peers. Additionally, the girls produced extended discourse because it was a topic of interest. Short et al. (1999) also found that students engaged in extended discussion when they encountered experiences in books that related directly to their lives through topics such as “name call-ing, abuse, baseball, the homeless, racism, and summer camp” (p. 383). Research on second language acquisition has shown that students acquiring a second language gain oral fl uency and confi dence from opportunities to engage in periods of extended discourse (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short, 1999). This critical encounter provided a purpose for that kind of elaborated talk.

PEER MEDIATION AND DISCUSSION FORMAT

In bilingual classrooms, success in supporting students requires the will-ing assistance of knowledgeable mem-bers of the community. Sociocultural theory has informed our understanding of social mediation as a way to support students in becoming full participants in a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990). In Fig-ure 1, we show the pattern of talk used during the discussion meetings before

the critical encounter with the racist label Felita’s neighbors ascribed to her family.

Mia was a confi dent reader, English profi cient, and in charge. In the role of discussion director, she thought of questions to ask Lupita, Naila, and JLo. The types of questions the girls were asked by Mia required locating and re-reading parts of the story. Little inferential reasoning was neces-sary. Figure 2 shows questions written on the dis-cussion director role sheet created by Daniels (1994) prior to meeting in literature circles. Ques-tions such as these addressed surface features of the text Felita (Mohr, 1979).

After the critical encounter described above, the types of questions and participation guidelines had changed. In Figure 3, we show how the for-mat for talk among the four girls was altered in the discussion meetings after the critical encoun-ter with the racist label. In the new confi gura-tion as demonstrated through the children’s talk, the four literature circle roles are on equal foot-ing. It did not matter that some of the girls were reading at a higher level in English because they were more profi cient in the use of this code. The change in power distribution had to do with the willingness of second language learners of English, such as Lupita, to risk questioning the inferential reasoning of the discussion director. All the girls could make connections with the story and the protagonist. However, until they shared the same repulsion toward racist words and

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Figure 1. Discussion format before critical encounter

Discussion Director Mia

Connector Lupita

Vocabulary Enricher Naila

Illustrator JLo

Figure 2. Discussion director role sheet

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acts, they did not cross the boundaries described on their participation role sheets. The critical encounter and the researcher’s question—“What would you have done if you were Felita?”—pro-vided the catalyst for positioning themselves in a more equal and fl uid conversation during lit-erature circles. By asking the students what they would have done, the researcher functioned as mediator (Short et al., 1999), and the question redirected the students back into the story and the unjust events. They had to probe deeper regarding Felita’s problem and struggle to fi nd meaningful solutions. The students’ interest in understand-ing the story and meaningful solutions motivated them to prioritize voice over roles, listen to one another, and identify their own reactions. Lupita took up the role of mediator by posing ques-tions that forced Mia and Naila to reconsider their responses to Felita’s problem.

CRITICAL LITERACY—REFLECTING ON SELF AND OTHERS

The girls reading Felita reported that they had changed as a result of participation in the new classroom practice of literature circles. Figure 4 is a sample of an evaluation of the literature circle

process. In the statement, Mia describes how her perception of herself and of other students was altered by the experience.

I learned how to become a better group and share everything and discuss like a group, do everything as a group, but mostly I learned how to connect with them if they took things seriously or if they would be hurt inside if I laughed or some-thing. (Student evaluation, 4/28/03)

Our fi ndings indicate that Mia and the other three girls in the literature circle engaged in “grand con-versations” instead of “gentle inquisitions” (Eeds & Wells, 1989). Initially, Mia’s interactions with members of her group mimicked a teacher-cen-tered style. After the critical encounter and Lupi-ta’s persistent stance, Mia was able to reposition her original view and role in the group. It is as if she came to understand that a student-centered style did not mean taking on a teacher-centered format. She learned that one individual did not have to maintain control of the conversation and participants’ feelings; voices of all group members were important for understanding the details of the story. It is this continuous cycle of communi-cational tension and resolution (Stone, 1998) that has been identifi ed as an authentic and meaningful way to scaffold critical literacy development.

The transformation of the literature discus-sion group after reading about the racism encoun-tered by the main character, Felita, enabled all four girls to participate in the discussion as equals and utilize a wide variety of essential skills such as listening, responding, reading, and imagin-ing (Rosenblatt, 1995). Quality multicultural chil-dren’s literature provided students with multiple opportunities to explore societal issues and under-stand diverse perspectives. Collaborating to make sense of the critical encounters presented in Felita,

the students functioned as media-tors for one another. The four girls moved through feelings of anger to seek viable solutions to the discrim-inatory act they had read together. The incidences of peer media-tion provided class members with a broader awareness of each oth-er’s knowledge and abilities. As Naila stated in one evaluation, “I learned with my group that none of us are dumb” (student evaluation, 4/23/03).

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Figure 3. Discussion format after critical encounter

Discussion Director Mia

Connector Lupita

Vocabulary Enricher Naila

Illustrator JLo

Figure 4. Literature discussion evaluation

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CONCLUSION

In this article, we examined the literature circle experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse students and a teacher who has established a per-manent relationship of advocacy for and with them. Like Stanton-Salazar and Spina (2003), we believe in learning contexts for students that promote posi-tive relationships with supportive adults and peers. We agree that these key relationships with resource-ful and caring adults constitute “the social capital to protect them from risk behaviors and forms of alienation and despair” (p. 233, emphasis in original). At times, we were as hesitant as Lupita in making visible how students associated their racial identities and corresponding beliefs in and through talk in literature circles. As bilingual Latina researchers, we chose not to ignore the differential relations of power that come into play when a dominant cur-riculum and the hegemony of English (Shannon, 1995) “talk down” the legitimacy of multicultural literature, African American vernacular, or Span-ish in U.S. schools.

Another objective in this article was to under-stand students’ evolving understanding about cultures, languages, and perspectives through quality multicultural literature that was cultur-ally specifi c. Reading and deep discussion of literature instills in children a love of reading, develops vocabulary, and assists reading fl u-ency, among many other skills. Literature that refl ects students’ lived realities offers additional benefi ts to the language arts classroom because it raises questions about literature and teach-ing as a racially neutral process. When students are able to see their own lives in a text, they are more likely to identify critical encounters in their reading outside the classroom. These moments that are shocking, frightening, or of extreme interest to children transform the level of stu-dent interaction with what they are reading and discussing. Social mediation enables students to negotiate the meaning of these encounters across languages by accessing all linguistic resources. When reading practices promote social media-tion, students support one another in the devel-opment of a critical lens—the examination of values, beliefs, and events in personal and col-lective lives, and the recognition of literacy as

an empowering rather than silencing force in classrooms.

As the Latina/o population in the United States increases within the current political con-text, so will the possibility for tension and mis-understanding to develop between communities. These tensions will be played out in schools, either in the classroom or in interactions occur-ring in informal spaces, such as the lunchroom or playground. Multicultural literature in conjunc-tion with teacher facilitation and modeling can support students’ understanding of these tensions

and what they mean. Through the reading of realistic narra-tives such as Felita, students are provided with opportuni-ties to refl ect on a variety of solutions to critical encoun-ters about thorny social issues.

Our analysis suggests that engagement in and persistence with reading and discussing depends on the degree to which students are allowed to delve into uncomfortable issues, share their con-fusions and concerns, question the author’s per-spective, and fi gure out collaboratively what perspectives make sense to them. With the oppor-tunity to examine the historical relevance of specifi c words, and with the time in literature cir-cles to consider multiple perspectives regarding unjust events, we found that elementary bilingual students were able to think critically about the imprint of racism on children their age, a topic that ought to be discussed with more frequency in English language arts classrooms of the 21st century.

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Christina P. DeNicolo is assistant professor of Curricu-lum & Instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. María E. Fránquiz is associate professor of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at The University of Texas at San Antonio.

JAMES STRICKLAND—2006 CEL EXEMPLARY LEADER AWARD RECIPIENT

James Strickland is recognized nationally as an instructional leader and as a distinguished author of several books, including The Subject Is Writing (edited with the late Wendy Bishop), Engaged in Learning: Teaching English 6–12 (coauthored with Kathleen Strickland), and From Disk to Hard Copy: Teaching Writing with Computers, among others.

James has also coauthored other books with Kathleen, including Making Assessment Elementary; Refl ections on Assessment: Its Purposes, Methods, and Effects on Learning; and Un-Covering the Curriculum: Whole Language in the Secondary and Postsecondary Classroom. Strickland has edited more than 20 books for Heinemann Educational Publishers.

During the last seven years, Strickland has delivered at least 10 keynote addresses. He is currently Professor of English at Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania. James Strickland continues to serve as a mentor, teacher, author, and editor, and he embodies all the values and ideals of leadership that qualify him to receive this year’s CEL Exemplary Leadership Award.

Don’t miss James Strickland’s presentation, “‘Do It Write’: Some Thoughts on the Importance of Writing Instruction,” Monday, November 20, 2006, during the Conference on English Leadership (CEL), Nashville, Tennessee.

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