Book Reviews (Entry #4)

Children's picture books are a great resource to help engage students, teach a specific skill, or even build community in the classroom.  However, for many of our ELL students, there may be pieces of the literature that is not accessible because of cultural aspects.  Literature is a record of experiences, so it can not help but be culturally specific.  That does not mean that all children can not enjoy and understand picture books.  It just means that as teachers, we need to be aware of the cultural biases that exist within pieces of literature.

The following are two children's books I chose to review, looking specifically for those cultural aspects that may challenge an ELL learner.

Cliff Hanger (2002), written by Jean Craighead George, is the story of a boy, Axel, and his, Grits.  Axel lives in the Teton Mountains with his dad, Dag, the leader of a mountain climbing school.  A bad storm approaches the area and Grits is stuck on a rock ledge.  Axel climbs to rescue Grits while the thunderstorm worsens.  The story follows Axel, Grits, and Dag through this scary adventure.

Cliff Hanger poses several cultural challenges not only for ELL students, but also for anyone who does not have experience with rock climbing.  Rock climbing is not a sport that all children have knowledge about.  The specifics in this story would make it difficult for any child to comprehend if they had never had an experience with rock climbing.

1. Language of Climbing-  Axel and Dag discuss possible solutions for saving Grits before Axel decides to climb.  When he begins to climb, the conversation becomes that of two climbers."On belay!"...."Climbing"...."Dog on belay".  For a child that has never been climbing, this does not make sense.  How can they understand what this means?  The story also tells of Axel rappelling down from the mountain.  "Axel wrapped the rope around an outcrop and clipped it to his harness...Holding one end of the rope, letting out the other, he jumped out, dropped, caught himself, jumped out, dropped, caught himself."  This is very confusing to understand and visualize, again, if this is not something you have experienced.
2. Vocabulary-  The vocabulary, specifically that of the climbing gear, is overwhelming in this story.  Without having used the gear yourself, it is meaningless and therefore, near impossible to keep sorted in your mind.  For example...harness, carabiner, climber's nut, helmet, backpack, rope, handhold, route.   
3. Location-  The story takes place in the Teton Mountains and references a lot of specific climbing sights.  Students that have spent most of their lives in urban settings will have difficulty visualizing the setting.  The story discusses Cathedral Wall and Monkey Ledge.  It says that the characters "trekked steadily up the wooded trails and climbed over rock avalanches".
4. Counting the storm-  Throughout the entire story, Axel and Dag count to find the distance of the storm.  In the midst of conversations they will count out, "One, two, three...Kaboom!".  Students may not know that this is a tool to measure how close the storm is.  Instead, it seems like part of the story sequence and it becomes confusing as to why the characters are continually counting during conversations.

All of the challenges listed above can be addressed prior to reading the story or during the reading in order to help ELL learners comprehend the book.  My first suggestion is to incorporate realia to teach the vocabulary.  Bring in climbing gear for the students to see and try-on.  A harness, rope, climbing shoes, and helmet can help the students visualize what the characters are experiencing, not to mention increase engagement.  Having these items in the classroom is also probably the best way to explicitly teach the key vocabulary words.  For anything that can not be brought into the classroom, pictures would be very helpful.  Use pictures to show geographic locations that are discussed in the story.  Tie that discussion to the weather in such an area and what may be some of the dangers.  Ideally, it would be wonderful to take a field trip to a local climbing gym. However, for many, that is not realistic.  The next best option is to show a video clip of climbers.  Find a clip that would highlight the use of their language as they climb and their strategies.  

The other book I reviewed was We Had a Picnic This Sunday Past (1997), written by Jacqueline Woodson.  This is the story of an African-American family gathering for an annual picnic in the park.  The main character, Teeka, is with her grandmother as they arrive and greet all of the other family members.  They reminisce and share stories about their lives and previous picnics.

Four challenges posed in this book for ELL learners are...

1. Picnic-  I know to some it may sound ridiculous, but many students have not ever had a picnic, or at least, do not know the term.  Most students have played in a park, but they are not accustomed to bringing food and gathering to eat in the park.  The word is part of the title and used repeatedly throughout the story, yet some students will be unsure of the meaning of it.  In languages that are similar to English, this word may sound familiar.  But for some, this will be a key word that needs to be explained.
2. Dialect-  The story is written with a dialect that students may not be accustomed to.  There is an accent that is written into the story, and along with that, phrases and figures of speech that will most likely be unfamiliar to an ELL student.  For example,  "You seen hide or hair of Martha's pie?,"Says she thinks Cousin Martha scares the stove into baking bad", and 
3. Food- Food is often an area where ELL students are unsure.  Food always seems to be part of a celebration in all cultures, but the types of food enjoyed is very different from one culture to the next.  This story has many traditional American foods, but they may not be familiar to a child that is not native to this culture.  Examples...sweet potato pie, sweet cob corn, biscuits, collards.
4. Metaphors and Similes- The story uses descriptive metaphors and similes to enhance the language.  These are great strengths in the writer's craft, but can be very confusing for a child still trying to master the language.  When learning a language, students focus on the literal meanings, and it can be difficult to understand figurative language.  Woodson uses the following phrases, which may be challenging for an ELL learner..."pretty as a day", "look like a Moon Pie", "eat like the devil", "fresh as summer".

Just as in the previous story, I believe it is possible to lessen the language "load" on ELL students by building their schema on this topic.    Begin with the most basic discussion of what a picnic is.  This can easily be role-played in just a few minutes in the classroom.  Then, teach the food vocabulary with pictures or by bringing in the actual dishes if possible.   Ask students to tell about a food they know of that is similar to one of the dishes in the story?  ELL students would also benefit from a discussion about accents and dialects.  For many students they may have been told that they have an accent.  Give different examples of English spoken in several dialects.  Lastly, explicit teaching of what a simile and a metaphor are will be necessary.  After instructing on this topic, have students create their own similes and metaphors and find them in other stories they read.    

I'll end with a quote from Gibbons (2002), that I think sums up the cultural challenges for ELL's and the importance for teachers to build schema for our students.  "In one sense, reading simply confirms what we know: we amp our already existing experiences onto what we read.  But what happens if our previous experiences have not provided us with this particular schematic knowledge...?"

Reference

George, J.C.  (2002).  Cliff hanger.  New York, NY: Harper Collins.

 Gibbons, P.  (2002).  Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: Teaching second

       language learners in the mainstream classroom.  Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Woodson, J. (1997).  We had a picnic this Sunday past. New York, NY: Scholastic.