Huang & Rohmer Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature ...ed-ubiquity.gsu.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/...The Longest Night: A Passover Story was written by Laurel Snyder. This book

Huang & Rohmer CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE CLASSROOM

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Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts,

Praxis Strand, Vol.4 No.1, Spring/Summer 2017, pp. 56-78

Ubiquity: http://ed-ubiquity.gsu.edu/wordpress/

ISSN: 2379-3007

The Culturally Responsive Classroom Supports Students’ Literacy Skills and Cultural

Understanding

© Suhua Huang

Midwestern State University

© Karissa Rohmer

Midway Elementary School

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Suhua Huang, 4100 Week

Park Ln. #295, Wichita Falls, TX 76308.

Contact: [email protected]

Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts, Praxis Strand, Vol.4 No.1,

Spring/Summer 2017

http://ed-ubiquity.gsu.edu/wordpress/

mailto:[email protected]


57

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to encourage creation of a culturally responsive classroom by

providing multicultural children’s books and teaching strategies to meet diverse learners’ needs.

To discuss how to form a culturally responsive classroom and how to be culturally responsive

teachers, eight multicultural picture books are selected and teaching demonstrations are also

included. Three major teaching approaches are presented in this article: structure-analysis

conversation, character study journals, and literature discussion and presentation.

Keywords: Multicultural, literacy, literature

Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature, Literacy, and the Arts, Praxis Strand, Vol.4 No.1,

Spring/Summer 2017


58

The Culturally Responsive Classroom Supports Students’ Literacy Skills and Cultural

Understanding

Introduction

We encounter many races, cultures, and languages in our classrooms (Huang &

Kowalick, 2014; Reutzel & Cooter, 2012; Sparza & Ahmad, 2006). As demographics change,

the number of minority children in the United States has grown rapidly (Matthew & Jang, 2007);

one in three Americans is now a member of a minority group (Cohn & Bahrampour, 2006). The

U.S. Department of Education (2013) further reports that nearly 10% of the U.S. student

population now comes from non-English speaking homes. The need for cross-cultural

understanding has greatly increased in the United States (Montgomery, 2000; Norton, 2009).

The K-12 English language arts and literacy curriculum has made significant changes due

to Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which stress even more that teachers need to

capitalize on the growing racial and ethnic diversity in their classroom (National Governors

Association, 2010). With the needs of the diverse student population and the CCSS requirements,

teachers not only face a tremendous change in today’s classroom, they are also expected to

become culturally responsive teachers to work with diverse races, ethnicities, and cultures in the

classroom (Jones-Goods, 2015).

Culturally responsive pedagogy covers three dimensions: institutional, personal, and

instructional. To build a culturally responsive class, the instructional dimension is most

important, as it directly relates to student achievement and includes the materials, strategies and

activities that teachers can implement on a daily basis (Gay, 2010). It is imperative for teachers

to select reading materials and to design effective strategies, teaching students to read and write

by using reading materials in which they see their own culture (Jones-Goods, 2015).


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To establish a culturally responsive classroom, we selected eight multicultural picture

books and implemented effective reading and writing strategies to help students understand the

texts and the culture presented in the texts. We selected these multicultural picture books based

on various languages and multicultural educators: Harada (1995), Harris (1991), and Pang,

Colvin, Tran, & Barba (1992). They recommend that high-quality multicultural literature

contain: (a) no stereotypes of particular cultural groups; (b) authentic illustrations; (c) pluralistic

themes to foster belief in cultural diversity in the USA; (d) high literary quality, including strong

plots and well-developed characterization; (e) reflections of the cultural values of the characters;

and (f) a variety of settings that build an accurate conception of the culturally diverse nature.

Additionally, books need to be published after 2009, as we have noticed new titles for

multicultural books are more available, presenting trends in the roles played by minority groups

in America.

The eight selected books for this article are: The Longest Night: A Passover Story by

Laurel Snyder (2013); The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman; Pemba Sherpa by Olga Cossi

(2009); Two Stories of Bravery Jeanette Winter (2014); Mirror by Jeannie Baker (2012); Fish for

Jimmy: Inspired by One Family’s Experience in a Japanese American Internment Camp by

Katie Yamasaki (2013); Pancho Rabbit and Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale by Duncan Tonatiuh

(2013); and Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-Lin Jiang (2013). The detailed information about each text

is listed in Table 1.


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Table 1

Detailed Information of Each Text

Text Summary

The Longest Night: A Passover Story was written by Laurel Snyder. This book is

based on traditional Jewish culture. It tells the story of Passover and explains what

the children were doing during the time the Jews were enslaved in Egypt 3,500 years

ago.

In the heartfelt book The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman, the great-grandfather

tells his life story through mementos he has collected over the years, recounting how

he came from Italy to America. Each matchbox has its own story to share with new

generations.

Pemba Sherpa by Olga Cossi, is about Pemba and his young sister, Yang Ki, both

eager for roles as guides and porters to the high country of the Himalayas, but girls

are not accepted or encouraged to be porters or guides in Nepal.

Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-li Jiang describes Tai Shan’s experiences during the

Cultural Revolution period in China. Baba, the father, has devised a kite-

flying code for Tai Shan so they can send messages through their red and blue

kites when his father is in the labor camp.

Two Stories of Bravery was written by Jeanette Winter. The book is about two

children’s stories in one country: Pakistan. The two children are Malala Yousafzi and

Iqbal Mashih. Both have encouraged others to speak out and to reject unspeakable

violence.

Mirror by Jeannie Baker. It is a wordless picture book. There are two cultures and

two stories in this book. One family lives in a city in Australia and one lives in

Morocco, North Africa.

Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale by Duncan Tonatiuh is about

Pancho, a young rabbit, who sets out for the North to find his father, who did not

return home on the expected day. The author uses folkloric patterns to describe

“coyote” in Spanish, which means someone who smuggles people across the border

between Mexico and the United States

Fish for Jimmy: Inspired by One Family’s Experience in a Japanese American

Internment Camp by Katie Yamasaki is about Taro’s father, who is taken away for

questioning by the FBI. Taro, his mother, and his younger brother Jimmy are sent to

the internment camp.


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To start introducing these above-mentioned books, we created a multicultural week

exhibition in the hallway (See Figure 1). We implemented a three-week multicultural teaching

unit for third grade students to connect reading and writing across multiple content areas. Three

major teaching approaches are presented in this article: structure-analysis conversation, a

character-study journal, literature discussions, and presentations.

Figure 1. Multicultural Week exhibit. This poster represents the need all students have for a

positive and meaningful education experience in our classrooms regardless of background.

Diversity is the one true thing we have in common in the United States.

Structure-Analysis Conversation for Reading and Writing Activities

Before teaching these books, we started by introducing the background of each text, such

as the original country, language spoken, geographic location, customs, holidays, some food

items, and so on, to build up students’ prior knowledge about these books. Some video clips on

YouTube related to the countries in the texts were shown in order to enhance students’ interest in

these books. For example, one clip was Malala Yousafzai’s (Kumagai, 2015) speech at the UN,

“One teacher and one pen can change the whole world.”


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We created some discussion questions to probe students’ curiosity about the content of

the texts, such as “What do you think of the story?”, “What is your favorite part of the story?”,

“What are the main ideas of each text?”, and “Do you feel satisfied with the story’s end?” To

develop deeper understanding of the texts, “book talk” time was formed, and we asked students

to get into groups of five and read these texts together. We noticed that working in a small group

can help students to develop expansion of thought, a spirit of inquiry, and an exploration of the

texts. This activity can extend to teaching vocabulary. We selected key words from each text to

teach the meanings and word usages for terms such as “landslide,” “internment camp,” and

“Passover” by using graphic organizers. We also created some riddles for students to play with

words and to foster reading comprehension. For example, a riddle might ask questions such as “I

am very short and tiny. I live in a little house. I have the power to make things fizzling and

sparkling. Who am I?”

“Show and tell” was another fun activity that we created for learning vocabulary. We

asked students to select a word from the text and explain the meaning of the word, while other

students guessed what the word was. For example, students selected immigrant from the books

The Matchbox Diary (Fleischman, 2013) and Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale

(Tonatiuh, 2013). After the students were familiar with some of the words (have seen them,

heard them in context, and discussed them), we divided the class into teams, with no more than

five on a team. Then one vocabulary word was picked and the correct number of spaces for

letters was placed on the board (just like in hangman). Each team had one spokesman at a time

and the spokesman changed every round. The teammates discussed their letter guess (they had to

pick letters until at least one letter blank was filled in), and the spokesman either agreed with the

team or made his own guess. Each incorrect guess resulted in more of the person being drawn


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(like hangman). Circle map was another vocabulary strategy for this unit. We placed circle maps

on each table (five students per table), with four tables with four categories: “synonym,”

“antonym,” “root,” and “affix.” We had the students stand up and push their chairs in. We played

some music while they were traveling around the room. A leader dictated how they would travel

and all students needed to move in the same direction as the leader. When the music stopped,

they had to sit at a table and begin listing whatever their circle map said to list. For the “root,”

they needed to list other words that contained the same root. For the “affix,” they needed to

create other words with the same root as the original vocabulary word by exchanging prefixes

and suffixes. On “synonym” they listed synonyms of the vocabulary word, and on “antonyms,”

they listed antonyms of the vocabulary word. This was a playful and meaningful way to help

students learn new words and explore various meanings as well as assessing their understanding.

To enhance students’ understanding of the texts, we used some customs in these books to

create reading comprehension strategies such as a story taco. A story taco has several layers with

different colors, and each color has its own different function, such as topic, characters, plot, and

setting. An example of a story Taco is listed in Figure 2. Students were asked to use supportive

hand strategy (Opitz, Rubin, & Erekson, 2011). Students individually traced their hands on

construction paper, wrote five major ideas from each book on the five fingers, and the title of the

book on the palm. An example of the Supported Hand is shown in Figure 3. To further enhance

the students’ comprehension skills, students were asked to respond to five “W questions,” plus

“how” such as, who is the main character? What is the story about? Where and when did the

story take place? Why do you think the author chose to begin the story in that way? How did the

main character develop problem solving skills?


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Figure 2. A Story Taco. Tacos represent one type of Mexican food. Tacos normally have three

layers (vegetable, cheese, and meat) and we used the idea to teach students about the structure of

the story: topic, characters, plots, and setting.


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W Questions

Who was the main character of the book?

What happened to Jimmy’s family?

Where was the Internment camp?

When did the story take place?

Why did Jimmy need to find fish for his brother?

Figure 3. A Supported Hand. An example of a supported hand is shown by using Fish for

Jimmy: Inspired by One Family’s Experience in a Japanese American Internment Camp

(Yamasaki, 2013).


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To integrate writing into the multicultural unit, using a wordless picture book helped

students see how a storyline flows and how imagination can be used so that they can use their

own writing skills by creating what is occurring within the story. The wordless book, Mirror

(Baker, 2012), was selected to practice writing. Students were asked what they saw from two of

the texts and what images they had for two families that live in two different countries. Then

students wrote two stories about two families and students were asked to share their writing

about what they saw in these books.

These eight texts were written in either present or past tense, so we started to introduce

grammar skills by selecting present-tense verbs and the past tenses of regular and irregular verbs.

Explaining what present and past tenses are and providing some examples from these texts was

crucial for students to understand the basic English grammar. Especially, some other language

learners, such as Chinese, do not use present and past verbs in their own language. We selected

sentences from each text, created sentence strips with present-and past-tense verbs, and asked

students to read through the sentence strips. To assess students’ knowledge of present and past

sentence structures, the VKVS foldable activity (Zike, 2009) was implemented. We selected

some verb tenses from the texts in two categories, and used different-colored lines drawn across

the center to show correct verbs or phrases. Some sentences were selected from these texts, such

as “He walks to the factory before the sun comes up” (Winter, 2014, p. 6) and “Our neighbors on

the ship bought bananas and gave my family one” (Fleischman, 2013, p. 20). When students

were able to select present and past tense words and sentences for their own foldable, they

showed improvement in their writing skills and sentence structures. An example of the VKVS

foldable activity is shown in Figure 5.


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Figure 4. VKVS foldable. The VKVS foldable is an organized instruction to teach past and

present tenses. The foldable has two strips, one word with past tense and another word with

present tense.

At the same time, students were taught how to use three different writing strategies:

Fishies in the Sea, sentence builder, and poetry writing. Fishies in the Sea is in conjunction with

the past and present tense verb section of student papers. Providing the amount of index cards

needed, some index cards had one verb in present tense, and other index cards had the past tense

of the verb. Randomly shuffled and passed out, one index card was given to each student. The

students had to “swim” around the room (silently like fish) and find their match. Once they

found their match, the pair (or group of three) sat down. Students could be seated when they

found the correct match. Once everyone was correctly matched, they worked together with their

partners to create sentences using the words. After finishing the Fishies in the Sea writing

strategy, we wrote sentences and posted them all over the room on poster boards, leaving a blank

for the word and having the students rotate around. They needed to read all of the sentences to

determine whether the sentences were done correctly. The sentences were read when students

finished to see if they made sense. Corrections were made when necessary. These two strategies


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not only enhanced students’ writing skills, they also taught more accurately the use of past and

present tenses.

Poetry writing was another good strategy to enhance student writing and comprehension

skills because students can learn poetic language through wordplay (Larrick, 1991). For

example, acrostic poems could possibly foster students’ reading comprehension: students can

write a book title, a key word, a phrase, a character’s name, and an event to complete the poem.

Or, they could be asked to create a poem with one word, like “Passover” from The Longest

Night: A Passover Story (Snyder, 2013). We created the following poem for teaching purposes:

Prepared food

Ahead

Sweater for cold winter

Somewhere never seen before

Overcome uncertain events

Vital experience

Errors happened, but

Relate to each other

Character-Study Journals

To help students understand a character’s experiences, feelings, emotions, and situations,

as well as evaluating the role of the character in the text, students were asked to select one of the

characters they would like to “report” about. Some questions could assist students as they

reported on the character from their own perspectives, such as What kind of person is the

character? How does the author help you to understand this character’s personality and feelings?

Can you find words the author uses to show what the character is like? Are any of the characters


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in the story like people you know or like characters you have read about in other stories? Does

the character change during the story? How is she/he different?

It is important to guide students to grasp how story characters might feel, think, and

respond. We used the stories “Malala: A Brave Girl from Pakistan” and “Iqbal: A brave boy

from Pakistan” (Winter, 2014). Students responded to questions such as

• Why did Malala need to fight for education and freedom of speech?

• What were her feelings when she was shot?

• What were Iqbal's feelings while he was a labor slave?

• What did he feel when he was being freed?

• How did Iqbal help children as a labor slave?

Through contemplating the characters’ situations, students become more personally involved

with the characters’ problems and experiences or respond to significant events that occur during

a character’s life. Students could reach a deeper level of involvement and engagement and

become able to think beyond the text (Vieira & Grantham, 2011).

After students finished the primary character journal writing, we asked students to

review each other’s character journals by using checklists based on four criteria (I have circled

the words that might be misspelled; I have checked that all sentences begin with capital letters; I

have checked that all sentences end with punctuation marks; I have checked that all proper nouns

begin with a capital letter) (Tompkins, 2014). The process of peer review provided us more

accurate information about each student’s writing level, increased cooperative learning and

communication skills that focused on students’ strengths and styles, and enhanced positive social

relationships.


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To help readers connect all texts with a comprehensive understanding, we had students

make connections among story structure, plot, character, and consequences. For instance,

students could explain the sequence of the story Pemba Sherpa (Cossi, 2009) by answering

questions such as, Why did Pemba need to collect firewood for school? Where did Pemba fall?

How did Yang Ki rescue her brother? What tools did Yang Ki use to rescue her brother? How

did the story end? We asked students to use Venn diagram graphic organizers (McKenna, 2002)

to compare two characters from the books. Having students compare and contrast two characters’

situations, adventures, and problem-solving skills could assist students as they compared Tai

Shan’s life experience (Red Kite, Blue Kite, Jiang, 2013) and Pancho’s journey across the border

(Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote: A Migrant’s Tale, Tonatiuh, 2013), or Malala Yousafzai’s

educational experiences (Malala: A Brave Girl from Pakistan) and Yang Ki’s learning journey

(Pemba Sherpa, Cossi, 2009). An example of a Venn diagram is listed in Figure 5.


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Figure 5. Venn Diagram. Students were asked to compare and contrast two different girls in

different texts. The Venn diagram helped students to identity that the two girls had same and

different characters regardless of their cultures and languages.

Interview a Character was an interesting strategy that students liked to play with the

character they selected. We had students work in pairs. One partner asked the other one

questions and the one being interviewed must answer as the character. Dressing like the

character is also recommended. Students dressed as the character based on the text they read.

The students enjoyed doing that because the project helped them to be part of the story. In the

meantime, students could perceive more of what the character has been through.

Literature Discussions and Presentations

To aid students in understanding a literary heritage that comes from diverse backgrounds,

we asked students to work in small groups to discuss the events, the culture, and the country in

• Brave/ Strong

Girls

• Determined

to pursue

their goals

and dreams

• Freedom to

make choices

Malala

• Pakistan

• Girl

Education

• The right to

speak out –

Every girl

needs to

receive

education

Yang Ki

• Nepal

• Porter

• Go beyond

traditional

boundaries

that say

girls cannot

be porters


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the texts. We provided questions for students to discuss or that would lead students to search for

more information about the culture or the country in the text, such as What are some features

(language, location, architecture, food, religion, or educational systems, etc.) of the country?

What are some characteristics of the culture? What are similarities and differences between your

culture and theirs? What would you like to see if you have an opportunity to visit the country?

Why?

After students found out more information about the culture and customs in the text, they

were required to do some specific jobs within their small group activity. Each group needed to

have one person in charge of each category related to the texts. Responsibilities included food

(students researched and found recipes for class), clothing (students researched and recreated

native clothing), history (timeline of people and events), geography (maps, pictures, or a

topography shadowbox), language (teach the class words or phrases of a different language).

This activity helped students see how these cultures work, be aware of differences in cultures

other than their own, and become more familiar with the rich heritage of stories in each text.

Students shall gain opportunities to enrich and refine their understanding of the cultures and also

to review their own interpretations in light of the interpretations of others.

To develop students’ awareness about their surroundings and to explore larger social and

cultural issues beyond the texts, students were asked to compare characters’ situations to their

own lives or their communities: How do new immigrants cope with language and culture

barriers? How does your community support children in need (such as hungry children)? What

support could we provide for children who need education? This activity not only supported the

idea that reading and discussing books helped students to be aware of a variety of culturally

relevant social issues, but also made positive multicultural connections in our classroom and


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society. To make connections between texts and community service, we had the class brainstorm

a specific charity or organization, and students came up with some meaningful fundraising

activities.

To stimulate thinking beyond the texts, students were asked to create a way to share their

childhood memories about literacy learning (e.g., signs, animals, people, books, etc.) or

important people who had an impact on their early literacy development (who taught them how

to read and write). The goal for a literacy theater was to allow students to think and to reflect on

their own literacy journey, to encourage meaningful and critical talk. When students were able to

compare with other counterparts’ learning experiences in these texts such as in Pakistan, they

could not only reflect on their literacy development journey, but also appreciated their literary

experiences.

Concluding Remarks

When high-quality books are selected and aligned with well-structured lessons and events

in the classrooms, students should directly relate to characters and situations that reflect their

own cultures and the cultures of others (Heflin & Barksdale-Ladd, 2001). Creating a culturally

responsive classroom as a multicultural and multi-social community is necessary in today’s

multicultural classrooms. That should be part of the literacy curriculum at the elementary school

level. Furthermore, culturally responsive teachers shall have a great impact on students’ literacy

acquisition and development of cultural awareness and understanding.

The focus of the current project has led students to embrace an array of powerful

diversities in this world and has also provided a great support so diverse learners can build

necessary literacy skill, knowledge, and understanding of other people. Students experienced

cultural differences through reading multicultural children's literature, which helped them reflect


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on their own cultural diversity, and exposed them to cultural differences. Students have also

improved comprehension and reading skills as well as increased vocabulary usage.

This project made students connect reading and writing in different content areas.

Teaching reading and writing should go hand in hand in a culturally responsive classroom

(Graves, Graves, Juel, Grave, & Dewitz, 2011; Opitz et al., 2011; Reutzel & Cooter, 2012;

Vacca et al., 2015). Effective reading and writing strategies offer more opportunities for students

to engage in literacy-learning activities and expand their reading horizons. When culturally

responsive teachers integrate reading and writing into their daily teaching routine, students not

only comprehend the meanings of different genres and experiment with different languages and

cultures, but are also inspired to appreciate different life experiences and to accept differences.


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Author Bio: Dr. Suhua Huang received a Ph.D. in Reading Education from the University of

Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. Currently, she is an Associate Professor at Midwestern State

University, where she teaches children’s and adolescent literature, reading diagnosis, and ESL

methods for both undergraduate and graduate courses. Her research interests are reading

motivation, reading instruction, and reading assessment. Dr. Huang has published two books and

several articles have been published in respected journals such as Reading Research Quarterly,

Reading Psychology, and Language Teaching Research. Dr. Huang is also engaged in a research

study about college students’ reading interests and habits. The article was not only published

in Reading Psychology, but it was also highlighted in the Chronicle of Higher Education on May

1, 2013 in the article, “Students May be Reading Plenty, but not for class.” The topic has

received much attention in higher education circles. Dr. Huang also received several internal and

external grants to support her research agenda and teaching practices.

Author Bio: Karissa Rohmer graduated from high school in Bowie, Texas, and from

Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. She and Dr. Suhua Huang conducted

several literacy research studies together while she was working on her master degree in Reading

Education at Midwestern State University. She currently lives with her husband, dogs, and

horses in rural Clay County, Texas. She also teaches 2nd Grade at Midway School.

Why

Documents

Huang & Rohmer Ubiquity: The Journal of Literature ...ed-ubiquity.gsu.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/...The Longest Night: A Passover Story was written by Laurel Snyder. This book