Culture Impeding Comprehension

One of my favorite things to do with children during literacy time is a Read Aloud! Although I teach "big kids", I realize that 6th graders love to have books read to them the same way the younger kids do. My school is heavy into character education, which is something that many middle schools seem to lack these days. I decided to incorporate children's literature in a way to help students truly understand some of the character traits we were working on throughout the school. The two books I've read to my students are: Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (Steptoe, 1998) and Snowflake Bentley (Martin, 1999).

I used Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters to represent respect for others and oneself. This is an African tale similar to Cinderella, a story of which most of my students were familiar. Of course with any cultural adaptation of a story, there were obvious differences. For instance, instead two mean stepsisters and Cinderella, there were two biological sisters; one mean and one generous. Instead of a fairy godmother, there was the girls' father who reared them. Storyline aside, there are 4 cultural differences to this particular story of which the students needed further information.

1. This story takes place in Africa. Students needed some background knowledge about village life and about what region upon this story was based. They also needed to know that not every person in Africa lived in villages or dressed in the manner of the book.

2. Students needed to know what the names of the characters meant. Nyasha, the "nice" sister's name means mercy. Manyara, the "mean" sister's name means ashamed. They needed to know that their names meant something and linked to behaviors of the characters themselves.

3. The students had trouble understanding the journey and the tests each of the sisters had to endure. The tests were showing signs of their character; how they treated others was very important to the king. If she treated others poorly, how much worse might she treat the king?

4. Students also had a hard time distinguishing between a "servant" and a "slave". One misconception with my students was that because they were Africans, that when one worked for another, it automatically meant that person was a slave. I had to provided several examples to disparage that thinking!

I read Snowflake Bentley to talk about grit and hard work. Because Wilson Bentley lived so long ago, students needed context about the time which he was living. Students had challenges comprehending:

1. How people were able to get around without a "fast" mean of transportation and how far apart everyone lived from one another.

2. The beginnings of a camera as a work in progress to capture beauty. Now, students have pictures everywhere. It was hard getting them to imagine not being able to capture everything digitally like one can today.

3. How he was able to speak at colleges and universities after not attending school regularly; he dropped out to help farm at the age of 14.

4. The concept of getting sick from a disease and not getting treated for it at the hospital and how he continued to work through the sickness.

The challenge of this book was mostly about the time period and talking about the scientific advances that allow us to be as technologically savvy as we are today. The point was that because of this man's grit, we know what snowflakes look like. He endured despite challenging conditions and did not make excuses.

To summarize, once students were given a framework with which to understand the stories, they were then able to make connections to see how these books related to the character traits that we, as a learning community, are trying to reinforce everyday.