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
Why Be Normal? The Search for Identity and Acceptance in the Gifted Adolescent
a pair of khaki pants; I have drunk my two cups of coffee; I have come prepared, once again, to break down the barriers my students create. "Great game, Friday night, Jeff," I say. He looked like the letter Y, distorted and turned upside down. His legs sprawled in front, arms tightly crossed on his chest, brow furrowed-all hostility and ire. But when I tell him that I saw his touchdown run, he tilts his head up; his arms begin to unfold. Hope fills his eyes, and I can tell what he's thinking: You mean we're not going to talk about stupid poetry? I smile, then crack the spine of my anthology, and the rest of the class follows suit. His arms tighten across his chest again. It was as if no teacher could expect a man like him to sit through a poetry lesson on Monday morning. Furthermore, any man should not expect himself to sit through a poetry lesson at any time. When Dylan-every English teacher's dream student, astute, creative, literary-challenged that notion by showing his pleasure in discussing the way in which Gwendolyn Brooks's "The Sonnet-Ballad" represented the destructive futility of war, Jeff decided to let Dylan know the way men were to respond to poetry and the subject of English. The scene went something like this: "Mr. Glaeser, I think the poem is showing how the lover has to give himself over completely to the conventions of warfare in order to survive. But this
Teaching for a Tolerant World, Grades 9-12. Essays and Resources.
The essays and resources in this book are designed to help high school English teachers adapt their own classroom lessons for teaching about genocide and intolerance. Beginning with guidelines developed by the National Council of teachers of English's Committee on Teaching about Genocide and Intolerance, the 16 essays present approaches to teaching various works as literature. Essays include: (1) "Struggling with the Meaning of Tolerance" (Caroline E. Heller and Joseph A. Hawkins Jr.); (2) "After Freedom: Jim Crow in Life and Literature" (Milton Kleg and Celia Bard); (3) "Noticing 'The Color Purple': Personalizing the Invisible" (Mari M. McLean and Christine M. Gibson); (4) "The Foreigner at Home: Faces of Asian Diaspora in Tan and Nunez" (Toming Jun Liu); (5) "Teaching Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart'" (Carol Danks); (6) "The Salem Witch Trials: History Repeats Itself" (Bonnie R. Albertson); (7) "Teaching Conflict-Resolution Strategies through Multiethnic Literature" (Belinda Yun-Ying Louie and Douglas H. Louie); (8) "Young People Respond to the Elderly" (Leatrice B. Rabinsky); (9) "Peer Dialogue Journals: An Approach to Teaching Tolerance" (Kate Kessler); (10) "Defining Genocide: Words Do Matter" (Samuel Totten); (11) "Teaching the 'Holodomor' (Ukraine Famine): Issues of Language, Literary Pedagogy, and Learning" (Judith P. Robertson); (12) "Teaching about Women in Twentieth-Century Genocides" (Marjorie Bingham); (13) "Academic and Pedagogical Issues in Teaching the Holocaust" (Sandra Stotsky); (14) "Teaching the Holocaust in the English Classroom: Hearing the Voices, Touching the History" (Grace M. Caporino); (15) "Incorporating Poetry into a Study of the Holocaust" (Samuel Totten); and (16) "It's Not Just What You Teach, But Who You Teach" (Sallie M. Fine). In addition to general resources for teaching about genocide and intolerance, the book presents annotations of African American, Asian American, Chicano/Chicana, Native American, Gay and Lesbian, and Holocaust resources. (RS) To request a review copy, contact Lori Bianchini 800-369-6283, ext. 3644; public_info@ncte.org Teaching for a Tolerant World, Grades 9-12: Essays and Resources Edited by Carol Danks & Leatrice B. Rabinsky and the NCTE Committee on Teaching about Genoeide and Intolerance Teaching for a Tolerant World, Grades 9-12: Essays and Resources is the first of three resources to come from the Committee on Teaching about Genocide and Intolerance of the National Council of Teachers of English. Created in 1993, the committee was charged with developing and publishing teaching materials on the literature of genocide and intolerance; including compilations of resources and suggestions for how to teach'the subjects. In addition, they considered a variety of issues relating to intolerance and genocide, such as racism, sexism, ageism, ethnocentrism, -and homophobia. The high school volume that they produced is co-edited by Carol Danks, chair of NCTE's Committee on Teaching about GenOcide and Intolerance, and Leatrice B. Rabinsky, a retired high school teacher and board member of the Ohio Council on Holocaust Eduction. The elementary volume, Teaching for a Tolerant World, Grades K-6: Essays and Resources, is due out in time for NCTE's 1999 Annual Convention in Denver, and the middle school volume, Teaching-for a Tolerant World, Grades 6-8: Essays.and Resources, is slated to be out in early 2000. All three volumes begin with "General Guidelines for Teaching aboutintolerance and Genocide." A resorirce section specific to each book suggests videos, Web 'sites, books, Organizations, etc., to aid teachers who wish to focus on a specific group or historical event. The hiOr school volume lists materials to teach tolerance in general as well as issues of-tolerance related to African Americans, Asian Americans, Chicanos/Chicanas, Native