Pre-Service Teachers’ Changing Perspectives of Mexican Immigration following an Online Multicultural Literature Experience
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Shannon Tovey Howrey
Abstract
Misconceptions, stereotypes, and deficit views of Mexican immigrants are pervasive in the current U.S. media. Such views are inconsistent with culturally responsive pedagogy, and teachers who hold them will be impeded in their abilities to teach Mexican immigrant children effectively (Nathenson-Mejia & Escamilla, 2003). Research supports the notion that many teachers become more culturally responsive as a result of reading multicultural children’s literature (Nieto, 2013). Few studies, however, have looked specifically at literature with Mexican immigration themes, and fewer still have been done specifically with undergraduate pre-service teachers or utilizing critical discourse methodology. In this study, four pre-service teachers read and discussed the children’s novel Return to Sender in an online discussion board over four weeks. Critical discourse analysis of changes in participants ways of representing, ways of interacting, and ways of being (Fairclough, 2003) over the four weeks indicated that some participants developed more empathetic views toward Mexican immigrants, while others did not. These differences seemed related to the stance (Rosenblatt, 1978) they adopted when approaching the text. These findings may inform teacher educators as they plan multicultural literature experiences that promote culturally responsive understandings of the experiences of Mexican immigrant and other children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
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Appendix
A Student Directions and Prompts for Online Literature Circles
On-Line Literature Circle Directions and Conversation Prompts
Activities
Monitoring comprehension activity and think-aloud
Connecting activity and think-aloud
Questioning activity and think-aloud
Visualizing/Inference activity and think-aloud
Be sure that every group member posts an original response based on the strategy and then replies to at least two of the other group members.
| Literature Circle Book Section | Corresponding Textbook Chapter and Comprehension Strategy | Comprehension Skills |
|---|---|---|
| 1 - Monitoring Comprehension Activity | Harvey & Goudvis Chapter 6 | – Following the inner conversation p. 78 |
| – Read Write and Talk p. 82 | ||
| 2 – Connecting Activity | Harvey & Goudvis Chapter 7 | – Noticing and Thinking About New Learning p. 97 |
| – Building Background Knowledge p. 99 | ||
| 3 – Questioning Activity | Harvey & Goudvis Chapter 8 | – Share Questions About Your Own Reading p. 110 |
| – Gathering Information Through Questioning p. 113 | ||
| – Think and Thin Questions p. 115 | ||
| – Questioning That Leads to Inferential Thinking p. 119 | ||
| – Responding to Beyond the Line Questions p. 120 | ||
| – Using Question Webs to Expand Thinking p. 121 | ||
| 4 – Visualizing/Inference Activity | Harvey & Goudvis Chapter 9 | – Visualizing from a Vivid Piece of Text p. 134 |
| – Creating Mental Images That Go Beyond Visualizing p. 137 | ||
| – Inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words p. 139 | ||
| – Inferring with Text Clues p. 141 | ||
| – Recognizing Plot and Inferring Themes p. 142 | ||
| – Visualzing and Inferring to Understand Information p. 144 | ||
| – Inferring and Questioning to Understand Historical Concepts |
Discussion Posting Guidelines for Section 1 of Your Novel
In Chapter 6 the idea of “monitoring comprehension” is that you are not waiting until the end of the chapter or book to write a response. You are doing it wherever you naturally have a response. This keeps you from spacing out and helps you to be attentive to what is going on in the story. You will write down your connections, questions, or reactions as you go along. In the textbook, they show examples of doing it with sticky notes (“following the inner conversation”) and a few other ways to do it. If you are doing the sticky note idea, take all your sticky notes and stick them on a paper, like on p. 79, take a picture and post it. Then look at other people’s postings - you might have to come back a few times to the discussion board. Respond to at least two people’s sticky notes and continue a conversation with them. Here are a few sample ways to converse, which you can use throughout all the discussion postings:
I agree with ______ [person in group] that …
Your comment about ______ reminded me of …
I was also confused about …
Your question about ______ made me think of …
I also wonder why _____. Do you think it could be______?
Discussion Posting Guidelines for Section 2 of Your Novel
For this session, you will do a “connections” activity. After reading Chapter 7 of the textbook and the second session of your young adult novel choose either “Noticing and Thinking About New Learning” on page 97 or “Building Background Knowledge” on p. 99.
Discussion Posting Guidelines for Section 3 of Your Novel
For this section of the literacy posting you will choose and do a questioning activity. For those with electronic textbooks, these are located at the end of Chapter 8.
Share Questions About Your Own Reading p. 110
Gathering Information Through Questioning p. 113
Think and Thin Questions p. 115
Questioning That Leads to Inferential Thinking p. 119
Responding to Beyond the Line Questions p. 120
Using Question Webs to Expand Thinking p. 121
Discussion Posting Guidelines for Section 4 of Your Novel
Please choose one of these assignments to do for section 4:
Visualizing from a Vivid Piece of Text p. 134
Creating Mental Images That Go Beyond Visualizing p. 137
Inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words p. 139
Inferring with Text Clues p. 141
Recognizing Plot and Inferring Themes p. 142
Visualizing and Inferring to Understand Information p. 144
B Literature Circle Reflection Directions
Literature Circle Reflection
After you have completed week 4 of your literature circle, reflect individually on your literature circle experience. This will be a separate document uploaded to the “Reflection” drop box. You might choose to discuss one or more in your reflection:
How reading the novel might make you a better teacher and, if so, in what ways.
How discussing the novel might make you a better teacher and, if so, in what ways.
Whether or not the response requirements (monitoring comprehension, connecting, questioning, and inferring) helped you to understand your book.
Whether or not the online book discussion was helpful in understanding your book and/or if you think a face-to-face discussion might have worked better.
Whether or not you enjoyed the novel, and why or why not.
What, if anything, you learned about the culture of some of your potential students.
Any other comments you may have.
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial Comment
- Multiculturalism Still Matters
- Research Articles
- Pre-Service Teachers’ Metaphors of Learning and Teaching English as a Second Language
- Cultural Awareness on A Bilingual Education: A Mixed Method Study
- Pre-Service Teachers’ Changing Perspectives of Mexican Immigration following an Online Multicultural Literature Experience
- A Portrait of Chinese Culture: Investigating Perceptions Presented in Children's Books
- Faith and Pedagogy: Intersections of Asian American Teachers’ Identities and Practice
- Living Together in a Diverse World: Conversations about the Stories of Two Mommies and Daddies among Mexican-descent Bilingual Kindergarteners
- Implementing ELF-informed Activities in an Elementary Level English Preparatory Classroom
Articles in the same Issue
- Editorial Comment
- Multiculturalism Still Matters
- Research Articles
- Pre-Service Teachers’ Metaphors of Learning and Teaching English as a Second Language
- Cultural Awareness on A Bilingual Education: A Mixed Method Study
- Pre-Service Teachers’ Changing Perspectives of Mexican Immigration following an Online Multicultural Literature Experience
- A Portrait of Chinese Culture: Investigating Perceptions Presented in Children's Books
- Faith and Pedagogy: Intersections of Asian American Teachers’ Identities and Practice
- Living Together in a Diverse World: Conversations about the Stories of Two Mommies and Daddies among Mexican-descent Bilingual Kindergarteners
- Implementing ELF-informed Activities in an Elementary Level English Preparatory Classroom
