American Literature for Hispanic Students

Join Teachers.Net

Chatboards

Recent Groups

HS English

MEMBERS

12 Members

+ Join Group

Pinned Posts

ALLAll Teachers

Teachers.Net LIVE CHAT Support group - Tues eve!

Featured Jobs

Full-timeMontessori Teacher

Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada

TemporaryTeachers, rural schools

Peace River North School District

Full-timeHead Teacher: 2nd/3rd Grades – Mills College Children’s School

Mills College

Teaching Jobs on Teachers.Net

Featured Job special only $39!

https://teachers.net/jobs

Become a Teachers.Net sponsor!

High School English Teachers Chatboard

American Literature for Hispanic Students

by Beccie Price

Jun 4, 2013

I have just taken a job teaching English III, American Literature, in a school that is about 55% Hispanic, most of them immigrants. The English II teacher told me that the students have a difficult time relating to much of American Literature. I am searching for ideas and would welcome any suggestions or ideas.

Comment

(5)

report post

Teri On 6/04/13, Beccie Price wrote: > I have just taken a job teaching English III, American > Literature, in a school that is about 55% Hispanic, most of > them immigrants. The English II teacher told me that the > students have a difficult time relating to much of American > Literature. I am searching for ideas and would welcome any &g...See More

Jun 10, 2013

report post

Sara On 6/10/13, Teri wrote: > On 6/04/13, Beccie Price wrote: >> I have just taken a job teaching English III, American >> Literature, in a school that is about 55% Hispanic, most of >> them immigrants. The English II teacher told me that the >> students have a difficult time relating to much of American >> Literature. ...See MoreOn 6/10/13, Teri wrote: > On 6/04/13, Beccie Price wrote: >> I have just taken a job teaching English III, American >> Literature, in a school that is about 55% Hispanic, most of >> them immigrants. The English II teacher told me that the >> students have a difficult time relating to much of American >> Literature. I am searching for ideas and would welcome any >> suggestions or ideas.

I might take a different tack. What is the goal of your literature class? I teach history and literature and perhaps that's why I do see this differently. If the goal is to have them appreciate literature- and I think that's always one goal of a literature class - then I would include readings that are meaningful to them. It's not just a lack of background knowledge that creates a distance between them and the traditional literature - it's much more than that. (and it may in part be their weak reading skills)

In our school - and we have a very few Hispanics - we use The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. She is a Hispanic writer and she writes in part because she said her literature classes in school made her feel less a part of America, not more. She thought there should be writing that reflected Hispanic life in America. We use Cisneros's book and some other modern works authored by writers of different ethnic backgrounds but all American. >> >If you were at my school or your students were, the curriculum includes Hispanic writing as well as works authored by African- Americans, Chinese, Native American, and several more. To do this we had to drop some of the old standards but we wanted our literature classes to be embracing of the tremendous diversity there is in America even if our school is not as diverse as the country.

And - what is socioeconomic reality of your Hispanic students? One of my students born in Africa taught me an entirely different perspective on the classic short story "The Story of An Hour." We see and teach the main character as so unhappy in her marriage and my African-born student said, "What does she have to be unhappy about? Her husband can afford to take the train...and her house has an upstairs. Only very rich people take trains and have houses with an upstairs." I never saw that character as very wealthy - it's a different cultural perspective but it impacts heavily on their relationship with the literature.

It's not just their ethnicity that separates them from traditional literature - it's their socioeconomic realities, their cultural beliefs and the very different realities of their lives. My urban 'street wise' teenage girls hoot with laughter at Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" - the submissive nature of the main character is not something they can identify with and they can't take it as serious literature.

Literature is a mirror held up to life but whose life? If I want my students to appreciate literature I have to give them some literature they can relate to. Would a steady diet of Nathaniel Hawthorne work for you? There are classic writers - Hemingway being one - whose books I cannot abide. Hemingway was such a misogynist - I can't appreciate the idle rich with which he peoples many of his books.

Jun 12, 2013

report post

Teri It does depend on what your goals are for the course. In my area, English III is meant to survey the literary periods of American Literature; i.e., we are meant to read works representative of each of the different time periods from Native American through Post Modern. Choosing only modern, multicultural literature isn't an option. From this perspe...See More

Jun 14, 2013

report post

Very Veteran Teacher As an English as a Second Language teacher, I am delighted that you want to try to make the curriculum more accessible for your Hispanic students. There can be many variables as to the problems students are having with American Lit. Providing background material can help, but please consider the vocabulary in the reading selections, too. Much of th...See MoreAs an English as a Second Language teacher, I am delighted that you want to try to make the curriculum more accessible for your Hispanic students. There can be many variables as to the problems students are having with American Lit. Providing background material can help, but please consider the vocabulary in the reading selections, too. Much of the literature students read is filled with allusions, slang, dialect, idioms, etc., that are incomprehensible to students whose first language is not English. You can frontload vocabulary before assigning a selection, and you may be surprised at how much it can help even native speakers of English. I agree that the idea of small reading/discussion groups can work well. If you put Hispanic students with accepting native speakers, the Hispanic kids will be more comfortable asking about vocabulary and references to a history and culture that means little to them without background material. Many Hispanic kids can not read well for various reasons. If they spoke limited English or no English when they started elementary school, well-meaning teachers may have pushed them through with passing grades when they didn't know how to help these kids learn to read. Even those children who were born in the US and have spoken English all or most of their lives, may not have been ready to learn to read. Parents who can't read in any language or can't read in English may not have read to their young children or provided them with appropriate reading material at home. You also can differentiate assignments. A student who has limited proficiency in English may need to list, write phrases or simple sentences, compare ideas or characters by creating a Venn Diagram, draw pictures to express ideas, etc. We frequently remind classroom teachers that their job is to present material and to assess based on the abilities of individual students. You can't expect a student with limited proficiency in English to answer an essay question, but he might be show you how well he understood the plot if you give him a list of statements, written in simple, basic English, about the plot and ask him to put those statements in chronological order. I realize these ideas will require extra work and time you don't have, but with a little experience in differentiating, you will learn to anticipate problems and will be able to adjust your teaching/assessment techniques without feeling overwhelmed. If there is an ESL/LEP/EFL teacher at your school, he or she should be able to help you and give you specific ideas for accommodating your students based on their linguistic abilities in English and in language in general. I teach in a pull-out program where I teach students in small groups in elementary school and middle school and help them individually with classroom assignments at the high school level. I also work with classroom teachers and provide training and support for modifying work to accommodate their students. Thank you for opening this discussion.

On 6/14/13, Teri wrote: > It does depend on what your goals are for the course. In my area, > English III is meant to survey the literary periods of American > Literature; i.e., we are meant to read works representative of each > of the different time periods from Native American through Post > Modern. Choosing only modern, multicultural literature isn't an > option. From this perspective, I try to choose the most interesting > literature from each period and then try to make it interesting and > accessible to the students. Providing the students with background > knowledge,among other strategies, does help with this.

Aug 5, 2013

report post

marjoryt I teach American Literature online in the college setting. Here is some support for your students:

Ask the students to create a 1 page list of what their grade, culture, and community finds important. Don't give them much help - this should be their list. Make this a poster and give each a copy for their binders. As they go through the sem...See MoreI teach American Literature online in the college setting. Here is some support for your students:

Ask the students to create a 1 page list of what their grade, culture, and community finds important. Don't give them much help - this should be their list. Make this a poster and give each a copy for their binders. As they go through the semester, ask them to measure each work against the list - does the work match, miss, strike new ground. Periodically ask the students to group write paragraphs reflecting - are they finding new ground or affirming an element of humanity or being a Christian or being an American.

1) Look for the letter Christopher Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella - he's complaining (politely) that they aren't keeping up their end of the bargain.

2) For MOST of major works, you'll find YouTube videos and/or audio versions of the work. Find them! If you can't find them, record them yourself. Ask the students to read the text while listening to the audio version. My students tell me this is excellent help while dealing with the early modern English of the Puritans and John Smith.

3) I always give my students the background of the status quo and then how the writers were opposed to it. This is particularly important for the Puritans and the Transcendentalists and the Realists.

4) The Civil War, World War 1 and World War 2 eras will be really weak in literature. That's because so much propaganda was going on. You should expose the students to that. There is great material for World War 1 and 2 especially - cartoons, music, movies.

5) Make sure you cover writers of the state.

More ideas/authors/concepts my students have enjoyed: 1) Lincoln gets covered - he's the common man writer. Show the opposition - Jefferson Davis was considered the more highly trained and effective writer (during the time period) - find his letter resigning from the US Senate. 2) Use John Smith as an example of self-promotion. 3) Use the Mayflower Compact as the introduction to the Puritans. 4) The Crucible and Young Goodman Brown are NOT representative of the Puritans. Use Anne Bradstreet and look up Mary Rowlandson (full text online). My students don't like Johnathan Edwards to read, but they will listen to the online version. 3) Disney version of Sleepy Hollow is on YouTube. My students love it. 4) Disney versions of Paul Bunyan and other American tall tales are also there - they love them. 5) Always ask the students - do they "like" the protagonist? Are they "supposed to always like the the protagonist - no this is literature for adults - there isn't always a happy ending. 6) Young Goodman Brown - looking for evil and he finds something 7) Pair Frederick Douglass with Harriet Jacobs 8) For the 1960s I have the students examine poetry and music. 9) For the 1970s and 1980s I have the students examine movies. 10) For the 1990s and beyond, we look at anime, animation, and the internet.

My favorite Puritan assignment - I provide a list of the Puritan beliefs, then ask the students to find examples within the works they've read.

Aug 22, 2013

report post