Controversial Books in the Middle School: Can They Make a Difference?
The Stonewall riots, a series of violent conflicts between homosexuals and New York City police in 1969, marked the advent of the gay rights movement and led to a dramatic increase in gay and lesbian visibility. Efforts to acknowledge this movement were made by a number of groups including the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Round Table (American Library Association, 2006). This group, since 1971, has given an annual Stonewall Book Award honoring both fiction and nonfiction literature for exceptional merit relating to the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered experience. Academia has formed departments or programs dedicated to lesbian and gay studies, and the general public has achieved a better understanding of sexual differences. Public schools, however, have continued to resist such acknowledgement, leaving homosexual students in middle and secondary schools unrecognized and often the targets of discrimination. Galley (1999) reported the results of a national survey that found 91% of homosexual students had encountered anti
Best Not Forget Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Themed Children's Literature: A Teacher's Reflections of a More Inclusive Multicultural Education and Literature Program
ABSTRACT For many years, educational practitioners have been implementing multicultural literature about African-American, Asian, and Latino families. Teachers have also presented literature about great leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Helen Keller. However, the same cannot be said about literature depicting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) families and heroes. In this article, the author's experience of teaching a multicultural literature program and students' responses to LGBT-themed literature are presented and discussed.
Against Borders: Promoting Books for a Multicultural World
Educators and librarians already face the challenge of designing their curriculums to incorporate material that reflects the multicultural student populations they must help to educate and develop. "Against Borders" is a resource book designed to aid teachers and librarians in directing students, primarily grades 6 to 12, to reading materials by, or about, people from different cultural backgrounds. "Against Borders" features updated and expanded "Booklist" bibliographies on specific ethnic groups and cultural issues plus substantive original essays on related topics by Hazel Rochman. Rochman's "booktalks" explore such themes as outsiders, friends, family, survival, journals, fathers and love. The author intends to guide the reader in the ways of promoting books to young readers. Illustrated throughout, sections cover fiction and nonfiction titles. Curriculum units focus on topics such as the holocaust, immigration, Black history month, and genres such as myth, autobiography and poetry. This resource book is intended to be used in curriculum planning to shape programmes that encourage students to explore the diverse world around them.