Welcome

Hello Everyone! You can probably conclude from the name of this blog that my name is Kathryn Koss. I am a Special Education- Learning Disabilities Senior who is concentrating in Language Arts. I am also working on a Child Development (ZA) Endorsement.

The majority of published literature portrays the “typical” family – non-Hispanic white, middle class and heterosexual. This causes a problem as the demographics of the United States changes. As time goes on, the percentage of non-Hispanic whites, who today make up the majority demographic in the United States, is falling while the Hispanic, African American, and Asian demographics are rising. Also, homosexuality, mixed marriages and single parent homes are becoming more prevalent in the lives of children today. Therefore, the majority of literature is portraying a family or situation with which most children cannot connect.

Diverse literature helps children learn about other cultures as well as identify with their own. Through this process, discussions of diversity can easily take place. Unfortunately, society puts up boundaries about what is “appropriate” and usually the literature which is deemed “appropriate” by many families and schools is portraying the “typical” individual. This cultural phenomenon of a non-diverse reading selection has caught my interest. I believe that it is important to be anti-biased. This can be done in a classroom through conversation, posters, and books. The ability to spend a little more time to find diverse literature for a classroom library can cause children to connect with literature and accept others, even if it is not what society deems “appropriate” and “typical.”

I am excited to start reading the books assigned for this course and discussing ways in which we, as teachers, can bring the diverse literature into our future classrooms. I hope to learn titles of high quality diverse books as well how to better select books to create a diverse library in my own classroom. But, it should also be noted that with a library full of diverse literature will come questions about subjects which are considered unacceptable to talk about in a school setting. I am interested in learning my classmates’ ideas of how to bring in anti-bias, diverse literature into my class and talk about these taboo subjects without causing a negative uproar with parents and school personnel.

Over the course of the semester I am excited to learn from my fellow students through conversations and our blogs, but most of all I am excited to explore and learn more about the diverse literature.

-Kathryn