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…

This essay is just one story in the ongoing conversation of how to approach teaching indigenous literatures in colonial educational institutions. Through sharing her experiences in teaching Richard Van Camp's "The Lesser Blessed," the author hopes to reveal the power of this particular text and the way its effects on students who…

Describes an educator's attempt to raise multicultural issues in the classroom through a course centered on Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Are Watching God." Maintains that educators have a responsibility to raise issues of cultural diversity in learning communities that provide ways for student to engage in thinking that expands their…

Details a program designed to use an awareness of cultural reader response to stimulate multicultural understanding among middle-school students. Provides strategies for reading multiethnic literature with students from varied backgrounds. (HB)

Reviews two areas of cross-cultural research (sociolinguistic research on oral interaction and the applied linguistic research area of contrastive rhetoric). Makes recommendations for using collaborative peer response groups successfully with multicultural classes. (MG)

Drawn fron a conference attended by more than 150 educators from England, the United States, Canada, South Africa, India, China, New Zealand, and Australia, the papers in this compilation deal with a variety of aspects of literature instruction. Papers in the first section of the compilation provide reports on seminars held during the week-long…

Taking a consistent student- and response-centered approach to literature-based teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms, this book is designed for use as a main text in undergraduate and graduate language arts methods courses. The book is firmly grounded in current social constructivist learning theory combined with a…

Students in two college freshman composition classes (one American and one English as a second language) at a southern university researched the theory of contrastive rhetoric by exchanging pen pal letters and by progressing through a sequence of five formal assignments with revisions. These assignments led the students to consider their own…