ELE 616 Readings and Research in Children’s Literature
Fall 2009
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Why analyze literature?
To discover the full spectrum of
the content
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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A little Newtonian physics
Isaac Newton first used the word
spectrum (Latin for “appearance” or
“apparition”) in print in 1671 in
describing his experiments in optics.
Newton observed that, when a narrow
beam of white sunlight strikes the face of a
glass prism at an angle, some is reflected
and some of the beam passes into and
through the glass, emerging
as different colored bands.
– NationMaster Encyclopedia
> Visible light
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Spectrum requires a prism
Estonian composer
Arvo Pärt:
– I could compare my music to white
light which contains all colours. Only a
prism can divide the colours and make
them appear; this prism could be the
spirit of the listener.
• about his music: Alina
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Prism as a filter
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin:
– The biographer finds that the
past is not simply the past, but a
prism through which the subject
filters his own changing selfimage.
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1979).
‘‘Angles of Vision’’, in:
Mark Pachter (Ed.), Telling Lives: the
biographer’s art. Washington, DC: New
Republic Books. Cited in Debate and
Reflection: How to Write Journalism
History
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A prism to view the full spectrum of literature
Personal
Real
Invented
SMiley face
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Personal?
Do you feel as if you’re involved;
part of the action?
–
That these are real people we’re dealing
with—some identifiable personalities
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Real?
Is there something that makes you
feel that this could have happened?
– Even when it couldn’t in real life?
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Invented?
Is this story invented, created by
one or more authors?
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Smiley Face?
Does it seem generic, impersonal?
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
Two Continuums
Real
Personal
Invented
SMiley Face
Put ‘em together!
Real
P
e
r
s
o
n
a
l
SM
i
l
e
y
Invented
Application to Literature???
. . . and Indians????
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Top Left Sector of Matrix
Real
Up close and personal—and
real!
P Folklore: Folklore is the body of
expressive culture, including tales,
e
music, dance, legends, oral history,
r
proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs,
customs, material culture, and so forth,
s
common to a particular population,
o
comprising the traditions (including
n
oral traditions) of that culture,
subculture, or group. (Wikipedia)
a
l
Invented
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A rival to Paul Bunyan and John Henry
Fink, Mike, 1770?–1823?
– American border hero, whose exploits have been so
elaborated in legend that the actual facts of his life are
difficult to discover. He was born probably at the frontier
post of Pittsburgh, took part in the wars against the
Native Americans of the Ohio region, and subsequently
became a keelboatman on the flatboats of the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers. He later turned to trapping.
• “Mike Fink.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008.
Retrieved September 17, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Fink-Mik.html
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Mike Fink tale
By “the then beautiful village of
Louisville”
– Among [a] band of [Indian] outcasts was a
Cherokee, who bore the name of Proud Joe . . .
Joe still wore, with Indian dignity, his scalplock;
he ornamented it with taste, and cherished it, as
report said, until some Indian messenger of
vengeance should tear it from his head, as
expiatory of his numerous crimes. Mike had
noticed this peculiarity; and, reaching out his
hand, plucked from the revered scalplock a
hawk's feather. . . . [Mike’s] ball had cut it clear
from his head; the cord around the root, in which
were placed feathers and other ornaments, still
held it together; the concussion had merely
stunned its owner; farther - he had escaped all
bodily harm!
• “Mike Fink, the Keel-boatman” in Thorpe, T.B.
(1854). The Hive of “The Bee Hunter.” A Repository of
Sketches, Including Peculiar American Character,
Scenery, and Rural Sports.
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Bottom Left Sector of Matrix
Invented, but Personal
P
e
r
s
o
n
a
l
Real
Quality literature, sometimes
adaptations, or else original
writing, with universal appeal and
meaning for everyman and
everywoman
Invented
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Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Personal, invented and more controversial
The “Little House” series
– If Pa Ingalls had built his little house on
the periphery of an antebellum southern
mansion and Mrs. Wilder had described its
Black slaves in the same terms she depicted the Osage
Indians, her book long ago would have been barred
from children’s eyes, or at least sanitized like some
editions of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn. Mrs. Wilder’s book even contains
the popular variation of General Sheridan’s
racist remark about what constitutes a good
Indian.
• Dennis McAuliffe, Jr., Little House on the Osage Prairie
Analyzing Multicultural Literature
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Top Right of the Matrix
Real Smileys!
Real
Recognizable stories,
but unoriginal and
shallow
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A real smiley?
Wargin, Kathy Jo
The Legend of the Petoskey Stone
Sleeping Bear Press, 2004
– The Legend of the Petosky Stone
purports to be a legend about a Native
American chief from a community on
the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. It
also purports to tell the origin of the name of the
northwest Michigan town of Petoskey, as well as the
transfer of that name to a fossilized coral that was made
the official state stone. There is absolutely nothing
factual or traditional in this book. The language
pronunciation guides, the explanations, the
translations, are all false.
• Review by Lois Beardslee, Oyate
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Bottom Right of the Matrix
Invented smileys [perhaps contrived?]
Generic, unoriginal,
impersonal, shallow
Invented
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A stilted example?
– This title presents a mishmash of Indian cultural snippets,
alphabetically and in rhyme, paired with side panels that purport to
offer more information about each topic. Abysmally written, with trite
error-laden rhymes and boring yet confusing “informational” text, the
poor attempts at iambic pentameter highlight this cockamamie piece of
dreck . . .
• Review by Beverly Slapin in Oyate
Comment by Debbie Reese in her blog
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Functions of multicultural literature
Rudine Sims Bishop:
– provide knowledge or information
– expand how students view the world by offering
varying perspectives
– promote or develop an appreciation for diversity
– give rise to critical inquiry
– illuminate human experience
• In Using Multiethnic Literature in the K–8 Classroom (ed. Harris,
V.J. (1997)), cited by Debbie Reese in Native Americans Today, a
ReadWriteThink lesson from NCTE and the International
Reading Association
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Useful resources