Working with the Picture Books
My students began their work with the picture books immediately following our group discussion of what they knew about Africa. I first introduced all the books to them during a brief book walk. I showed the whole class each book’s cover and some of the inside pages, and I briefly discussed the book’s topic, layout, and country of focus.
After I introduced each book to the whole class, I told the students to get into groups of three or four and to choose one of the books that they’d like to explore further. In addition, I gave each group a chart to help guide them through their book reading and discussion. At the top of the chart the students wrote the book’s title, author, and country of origin. The chart itself contained three columns, with Tag Heuer Replica room to write a quote from the text or the page number of a picture they’d like to address, a personal response to the quote or picture, and questions they’d like answered. I rotated among the groups. When a group finished one book, they selected another one to read and discuss. I told the students we could spend as much time as they wanted on this activity; they chose to spend three class periods engaged in these small-group discussions about the picture books. At the end of each class period, we met as a whole group so the students could share with the class what they had learned.
The small-group discussions were lively and educational. I listened as students took turns trying to pronounce and learn Igbo words; expressed surprise at the technology and the Western dress depicted in the pictures, and wondered about the origins and details of specific cultural practices and ceremonies. One group was surprised that people in Africa celebrate Christmas. Another group was fascinated by the idea that some Africans hold two wedding ceremonies—one Christian and one traditional. As the students learned more about particular aspects of Igbo culture, they tried to make sense of them by comparing them to aspects of their own culture.
The students quickly came to the realization that no culture is homogeneous; a great deal of variation exists in how individuals enact particular aspects of culture. They also recognized that they have a lot more in Tag Heuer Carrera Replica Watches common with people in Africa than they previously had realized. The picture books and the discussions around them humanized members of a foreign culture and gave the students positive, concrete images to replace the largely stereotypical and negative images that had previously limited their understandings.
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