International Texts: A Compelling Unit

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[Look for additional titles on the Graphic Novels for MS/HS page to the right,  in this annotated list from George Ramos, Books for Expanding Global Understanding, and in SLJ's newly updated An Expanded Cultural Diversity Booklist.]

Janice Murphy, a highly qualified, highly successful, and highly regarded teacher at Freeport Middle School, has shared with me a reading workshop unit comprised of texts - fiction and memoir - from an international palette.

There is no doubt that we are living in a global world, one that challenges educators to open student eyes, as appropriate, to life beyond the bounds of a zip code.  This means, more often than not, exploring cultural, social and political realities (and/or histories) not discussed or explored in the traditional curriculum.

Janice's unit is particularly powerful for middle school (she teaches grade 8) because at its core are adolescent issues: fairness, power, identity and "place," equality (social, gender, class), and the voice of the individual within his or her culture and world.  Instead of focusing the reading on culture, history, etc., or asking endless comprehension questions, she personalizes the reading experience.  Her Essential Question is: How do the situations or events in memoirs, autobiography, prose or historical fiction have relevance in my life? 

This question is a powerful one.  Moving from text to self is at the core of reading. [2014 disclaimer: yes, I know that now, in the CCSS world, this is no longer to be encouraged].

As designed by Janice, this is a collaborative unit.  Students read in groups - some as small as two - from a list of titles that have been purchased in multiple.  There is choice.  This year, the majority of the choices were not read.  This is to be expected in some classes, especially when insecurity about reading and heightened social awareness are the rule. Nonetheless, the larger the range of choices, the more chance there is that you will find a good fit for every student.  You may also find, as I often did, that good choices and good discussions lead students to make a 2nd choice - and even a 3rd.

Janice used two straightforward organizers to focus discussion of the texts: Collaborative Homework Questions and Critical Thinking Map, both from ReadWriteThink.  In combination, they direct discussion and serve also to give the teacher a quick assessment of how individual reading is going. 

Beyond that, I don't know the details of Janice's adventure. Aside from the fact that it worked. She shared several stories of students who read, for the first time, in a new zone.  One boy discovered a voice to talk about his own culture.  High readers asked for even more challenges. Some self-professed non-reading boys connected to the realistic nature of the genre. 

You will find at the bottom of this post reading choices for upper MS and HS. More ideas welcome!  The list does not contain Holocaust fiction and (generally) non-fiction; great lists are available online elsewhere.

Here are some ideas for Quest level activities (to continue the gaming metaphor I began in the previous post):

• view and discuss, as a class, Adichie's wonderful TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story
• culture/nation/news/history research (including fact-checking from text) - wiki - perhaps an edu.Glogster.com poster for the wall 
• tier 3 vocabulary lists from text - student selected - word walls (would need to contain images)
• video and audio files, images, artifacts - edu.Glogster posters or Prezi
• author research - wiki (same as other research)
• character study map or Prezi - the powerless protagonist (growth or change?)
• text passage selection - wiki - I would organize it by the Homework Questions topics - this can be huge in developing the Boss level project
• creative writing assignments: RAFT pieces, audio recordings, POV pieces - this can be sustained as one character throughout the unit or change with reading assignments (depends on the book - students should decide)

At the Boss level, Janice is using the Social Issues discussions to have students develop essay responses to the reading.  That is perfect for her personalized Essential Question and it allows her students to develop personal statements in the introduction and conclusion.  Very fine twist on the 5-paragraph essay.

If you wanted to use a more global question rather than the personal question, you might ask students to prepare a persuasive, issue-based presentation for a global roundtable (simulated UN) on the question of ....   Groups could then use a tool like TitanPad to write and refine an actual position paper.  In classes where I have used this approach, we had sit-ins, signage, graffiti (chalk), and lots of demonstration around the key points of discussion.

Who says ELA is boring and disconnected?

Reading list:  (lexiles given where available) - MS = not recommended for middle school

• Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery - Galang - Philippines
• Bamboo People - Perkins - Burma - 680
• Before We Were Free - Alvarez - Dominican Republic - 890
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Boo - Mumbai, India - 1030 - nonfiction - MS
• The Bite of the Mango - Kamara - Africa - Sierra Leone - 800 - MS
• Bless Me, Ultima - Anaya - Chicano - 840
• Boxers and Saints - Yang - China - graphic novel
• Burma Chronicles - Delisle - Burma - graphic novel - MS
• The Breadwinner - Ellis - Afghanistan - 630 - also Parvana's Journey (640) and Mud City (740)
• Breaking Stalin's Nose - Yelchin - 670 - Stalin's Russia - graphic illustrations - Newberry
• The Bride Price - Emecheta - Nigeria - 1060 (retold at 610 for MS)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz - Dominican Republic - 1010 - MS
• Chinese Cinderella - Mah - China, autobiographical - 960 - or the author's autobiographical Falling Leaves - 950
• Claire of the Sea Light - Danticat - Haiti - MS
• The Clay Marble - Minfong Ho - Cambodia - 860
• Colibri - Cameron - Guatemala - 730
• Collected Stories - Marquez - Columbia - MS
• Cuba 15 - Osa - Cuban immigrants - 750
• The Death of Vishnu - Suri - India
• The Disappeared - Whelan - Argentina - 780
• Exit Wounds - Modan - Israel - graphic novel - MS
• The Farming of Bones - Danticat - Dominican Republic (Trujillo) & Haiti - MS
• First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.) - Loung Ung - Cambodia - memoir - 920 - MS
• God Grew Tired of Us - Dau - Sudan and US memoir - pair with Lost Boy, Lost Girl
• The Grand Plan to Fix Everything - Krishnaswami - India - 770
• A Hand Full of Stars - Schami - Syria - 810
• Haveli - Staples - Pakistan - 1030
• Heart of a Samurai - Preus - Japan (and US) - 760
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Rushdie - 940 - India
• Homeless Bird - Whelan - India - 800
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Ford - Japanese American-WW2 - 730
• The House of the Spirits - Allende - Chile - 1280 - MS
• Inside Out and Back Again - Lai - Vietnam (fleeing at end of War) - National Book Award, Newberry - poem form - 800
• In the Time of the Butterflies - Alvarez - 910 - MS (graphic sexuality)
• Iqbal - D'Adamo - Pakistan - 730
• The Jade Peony - Choy - Chinese-Canadian children
• Kampung Boy - Lat - Southeast Asia (Muslim) - graphic novel
• The Kite Runner - Hosseini - Afghanistan - 840 - MS - advanced readers will enjoy and appreciate his new novel, And the Mountains Echoed
• The Life and Times of Michael K: A Novel - Coetzee - S. Africa - 940
• A Long Walk to Water - Park - Sudan - 720
• A Long Way Gone - Beah - Africa--Sierra Leone boy soldier - non fiction - 920 - MS
• Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan - Dau - Sudan - non fiction - 900 - 8th+
• The Metamorphosis - Kafka - Russia - 670
• My Name is Not Easy - Edwardson - First People (Canada) 
• Never Fall Down - McCormick - Cambodia boy soldier - 710
• The Old Gringo - Fuentes - Mexico - MS
• The Orphan Master's Son - Johnson - North Korea - definitely MS
• Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You - Jansen - Rwanda
• Paradise of the Blind: A Novel - Duong Thu Huong - Vietnam - 720 - upper MS and HS
• Persepolis - Satrapi - Iran - graphic novel - MS
• Purple Hibiscus - Adichie - Nigeria - 920
• The Red Glass - Resau - AZ. and Mexico - 800
• Red Scarf Girl - Jiang - China, Cultural Revolution - 780
• Shabanu - Staples - Pakistan - 970
• Shiva's Fire - Staples - India - 990
• Shizuko's Daughter - Mori - Japan - 820
• So Long a Letter - Ba - Senegal - translated from French, Muslim woman - MS
• Sold - McCormick - Nepal/India - 820 - verse format - MS
• A Step From Heaven - An Na - Korean girl - 670
• A Stone in My Hand - Clinton - Palestine (Gaza) - 540
• The Storyteller - Llosa - Peru - MS
• They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys From Sudan - Ajak, Deng, Deng - Sudan - non fiction 
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Hosseini - Afghanistan - 830
• Tofu Quilt - Russell - young girl in Hong Kong 1960's - poem format
• Trash - Mulligan - unspecified underdeveloped country - 860
• Two Old Women - Wallis - First People (Canada)
• We Need New Names - Bulawayo - Zimbabwe - displacement, immigration of young girl - MS
• The White Tiger - Adiga - India - MS
• Zahra's Paradise - Amir - Iranian boy disappears after 2008 elections - graphic novel - also may be available serialized online 

Native American literature in the US can also be considered international, due to the sovereign nationhood of more than 500 Nations.  The best lists and reviews are found at Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature blog.  It is a good idea to check a title with Debbie's blog before using it in the classroom. Debbie and others have also compiled a k12 list of the Top 100 Books by Indigenous Masters.

Similarly, the Raza experience is often poorly portrayed in fiction.  Find reliable recommendations at De Colores: The Raza Experience in Children's Literature.

Another slant is the immigrant experience and the experiences of other cultures within the US, which have generated some exceptional fiction. Some of the best titles:

• All the Broken Pieces - Burg - Vietnam boy immigrant (post-War) - poem format - HL680
• American Born Chinese - Yang - graphic novel
• Americanah - Adichie - Nigerian immigrants to America and London
• An American Brat - Sidwa - Pakistan girl
• Any Small Goodness - Johnston - Mexican immigrant to East LA barrio - 660 - reviewed here in The Raza Experience in Books for Children
• America Street - Mazer - short story collection for MS and up
• The Arrival - Shaun Tan - immigrant experience - graphic novel
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Chua - Chinese mother in America - MS
• Breaking Through - Jiménez - Mexican immigrants
• Brother, I Am Dying - Danticat - autobiographical, Haitian immigrants (60's) - MS
• The Circuit - Jimenez - Mexican immigrant memoir in story form - non fiction - 880 - has sequels Breaking Through (750) and Reaching Out (910) which are more directly autobiographical
• Drown - Diaz - Dominican immigrant (male voices) - stories - MS
• Esperanza Rising - Ryan - US/Great depression/Mexican Am. - 750
• First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants - Gallo - short story collection for MS and up
• God Grew Tired of Us - Dau - Sudan and US memoir - pair with Lost Boy, Lost Girl
• Home of the Brave - Applegate - Sudanese refugee in US - poem form - 860
• The House on Mango Street - Cisneros - Hispanic in Chicago - 870
• How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Alvarez - Santa Domingo - 950 - MS
• Interpreter of Maladies - Lahiri - Indian immigrants and life in India - 1050 - MS
• The Jumping Tree - Saldana - Mexican immigrants in Texas - racism theme - 770
• Krik? Krak! - Danticat - Haitian immigrants - stories - MS
• The Last Summer of the Death Warriors - Stork - Mexican American - HL640 - MS (terrific pairing with The Round House)
• Little Bee - Cleave - Nigeria immigrant to Britain - MS
• Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan - Dau - Sudan and US - non fiction - 900 - 8th+
• Lupita Manana - Beatty - Mexican immigrant children - 760
• Parrot in the Oven - mi vida - Martinez - Mexican-American boy in Chicago - 1000
• Return to Sender - Alvarez - Mexican immigrant family in Vt. - 890
• The Namesake - Lahiri - Calcutta family immigrates to MA - 1210 - MS
• Native Speaker - Chang-rae Lee - Korean - MS
• The No-No Boy - Okada - Japanese, Nisei experience - 900 - MS
• Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida - Martinez - Mexican immigrant - 1000 - MS
• Two Kinds - Tan - Chinese-American - online - also Tan's "Fish Cheeks"
• What is the What - Eggers - Lost Boys of Sudan (based on a true story) - MS
• When I Was Puerto Rican - Santiago - 1020 - MS
• The Woman Warrior - Kingston - Chinese - creative nonfiction - 800