Bronx Masquerade

This book was definitely not what i expected it to be, but I really enjoyed it and I think my future students would feel the same way. What i really liked about the book was the face that each student got to give their own story, and descriptions were not just given by other students. For example, Porscha was described as this crazy girl that will beat anything up that look at her wrong. But she is then given a chance to tell her side and find out that the story is a little bit different than people say. I think this is a great way to show students not to believe everything they hear and to not pass judgement so quickly. They will learn that every student has a voice.
I also liked the "Ain't I Fine" article. I never really stopped to think about different codes of communication. Ironically, I started reading "Sam and the Tiger" in my field placement the other day before reading this article. I was pleasantly surprised when this article talked about the book. I was only able to skim parts of the book, but it had very bright pictures and definitely grabbed my attention. I did happen to read the part about the sunglasses and I found it quite funny because his parents' comment is totally something that my parent would have said to me. My family is incredibly sarcastic and we joke around with eachother all the time. It was not until reading the article that this banter was actually a common African-American communication code known as signifying. Although neither I nor my family are African-American, I was able to relate that particular part of the story to my own ways of communicating to my family and helped me to enjoy the book even more.

Random

This completely unrelated to what we have been talking about but I did not know where else to write about this and figured since I had a blog, I might as well use it. I was watching TV last night and a commercial came on about registering to vote. With the election coming up, this wasn't surprising. However, the commercial separated voters by their racial classes. Pictures and images came across the screen that would say, "7 million African-Americans are not registered. 3 million Asian-Americans are not registered..." (these numbers aren't the accurate ones because I could not remember the real ones, but you get the idea). After the commercial ended, I was a little taken back by it. I was not necessarily offended by it, but I did not understand why they would divide people up in that manner. I could see if they divided it by age groups or something (ex. "18 million college students are not registered), but the racial division surprised me a little. Am I being over sensitive to the issue, or does someone else see this ad as a bit strange?

Insider/Outsider Debate

This is definitely a question without an easy answer. Before beginning this unit, I felt that the best (and most accurate) tales about other cultures were best told from an insider. They can contribute their personal life experiences and portray event from their perspective. As I thought more about the question, however, I am beginning to see the other side as well. Although "inside" authors avoid stereotypes of their culture, they might possibly support the generalization of another. If an author does their research about a particular culture and avoids these generalizations, there is nothing stopping an "outsider" from writing an excellent piece of multicultural literature. Unfortunately, many "outside"authors do not do this, making "insider" literature seem that much better.
Although all of the articles were enjoyable, I seemed to connect with the last artice by Cai the most. This article really got me thinging about multiculturalism in general, not just multicultural literature. I started thinking about what kind of things I will include in my classroom and became overwhelmed almost immedately. How can I tell superficial literature from more in-depth material? Children seem to love reading the superficial stuff, but should I not include it in my classroom simply because they do not deal with deeper cultural conflicts? I'm sure that these are not easy questions to answer but I really have no idea how to figure them out.

A little bit about me

Well Hello! My name is Stephanie Albrecht. I am a senior at Michigan State University and I am having the time of my life. I am majoring in elementary education with a focus in language arts. East Lansing and MSU's campus are the exact opposite of where I grew up and I love it. I love the people, the places, and everything the town has to offer. I'm a pretty busy girl but in my free time I love to watch movies and just hang out with friends. I have 3 older sisters that all live out of state. I do not get to see them very often and I miss them like crazy. I have met so many great people up here but they can never replace my friends and family back home.
After this year, I will officially be done with my under-graduate career, which is a terrifying concept to me. My student teaching will hopefully be in the Lansing area and I hope to a permanent teaching job somewhere in Michigan.