2. Critical Issues in Global Literacy and Literature
Kathy G. Short
University of Arizona

3. Opening the world for children through literature

4. University of Arizona – Tucson, Arizona

5. Worlds of Words
wowlit.org

6. Why is Global Literature Significant?
Go beyond a tourist perspective of the world
Insights into how people live, feel and think around the world
Develop emotional connections and empathy as well as knowledge
Come to know own home culture and world beyond home
Recognize common values shared across cultures as well as unique differences of each culture
See how people of world view themselves, not just how we view them
Source of authentic language materials that reflect the culture

7. Convey perspectives on language learning

8. Global and international literature
Global literature – any book that is set in a global culture, no matter who is the author.
International literature – a book that was originally written and published in a specific global setting for children of that country and then translated and/or published in other countries. These books are a subset of global literature.

9. Issues of Global Literature
Availability
Access
Accuracy, authenticity and representation
Use with children

10. Availability of Global Literature
Books written by insiders to a global
culture
Translations
Books in the same language but from other countries
Source of authentic literature
Cultural differences can make the book difficult
Balance of translated books with books from own culture

11. Availability of global literature
Universal vs culturally specific books
Translation – Does the translator retain cultural names and details or universalize them? How does the translator balance readability with cultural authenticity?

12. Books published in Taiwan

13. Authorship of Global Literature
Authors from another country whose books have been translated but who write about a culture other than their own.
Authors who live and work across global cultures and regularly move between several cultures.

14. Authorship of Global Literature
Authors who are immigrants from another country and who write about their country of origin.

15. Authorship of Global Literature
Authors who draw on their family heritage in their country of origin but who have never lived in that country.

16. Authorship of Global Literature
Authors who live in another country for a significant period of time and write
based on that experience
Authors who research a particular country or culture and may or may not visit that country
Authors who work in collaboration with someone from that country.

17. Availability: What’s Missing?
Historical fiction and folklore are available along with some informational books and poetry
Very little contemporary fiction
Focus on rural and village life and not on urban settings

18. Access : Finding Books Data bases and blogs
Worlds of Words – wowlit.org
Chinese Books for Young Readers
Award Lists
Outstanding International Books – USBBY
Notable Books for a Global Society – ILA
Batchelder Award
Digital Books
International Children’s Digital Library

19. THE HOME PAGE Quick overview: The website is divided into 3 columns.
• The left column (in blue) will directs the user to actual books that might be used.
• The center column is content with links to additional, related content.
• The right column features news and time sensitive information.
• The green row that spans the center and right column are quick links to the resource pages in the WOW website.
• A search function to quickly locate info anywhere on the site.
THE HOME PAGE 19

20. International Board of Books for Young People --- ibby.org
x Building Bridges Through Children’s and Young Adult Books x Outstanding International Books usbby.org

21. International Children’s Digital Library

22. Accuracy, Authenticity, and Representation
Extent to which a book reflects beliefs and values of a cultural group and depicts details of everyday life and language for that group
Diversity within any cultural group
Readers from within are able to feel affirmed that what are reading rings true – “you know it when you see it.”
Readers from another culture are able to identify and learn something of value about cultural similarities and differences

23. Accuracy
Details of everyday life and language

24. Authenticity Reflects the core values at the heart of the culture.
Believability – acts and thinks in a way that is viewed as possible by insiders

25. Representation
The relationship of an individual book to images of a specific culture within a collection of children’s books and society
Having few available images overemphasizes those that are present
Over-representation of a particular theme or image
Power relationships -- who solves the problem
Perspectives and audience

26. Representation

27. Cultural authenticity
Check out the background of the author
Connection of author’s experiences to book content.
Research by the author
Web sites, book jacket, author’s notes
Share with children before reading the book
Consider the perspectives on a culture
Check for contemporary images
Range of representations within the culture
Look at who tells the story

28. Children’s Responses to Global Literature
Unfamiliar terminology
Unfamiliar story structures
Lack of knowledge related to cultural context
Unable to easily connect to the characters on the surface level
View own culture as the norm and so feel pity for the characters or see their lives as “weird”
Judging what is appropriate in literature or the actions of characters through your own cultural lens

29. Graffiti Boards
Record “in-process” thinking

30. Graffiti response to Korean Picturebook

31. Consensus Board Record personal response Dialogue
Come to consensus on issues to discuss further

32. Save the Last Word for Me
Consider multiple interpretations of significant quotes or illustrations

33. Sketch to Stretch
Sketch the “meaning” of the book – symbolic representation

34. Heart Map
Map the heart of the character

35. Webbing What’s On Your Mind

36. Literature Circles

38. Issues across novels Gender preference population-one child limit
adult/child relationships
lack of resources for families: money & time
sick parents
child abuse
lack of political freedom
drug abuse/violence
equal education opportunities for girls & boy
care of elderly
racism
hunger

39. Expanding children’s views and knowledge
China's Solar City
The Rise of China’s Techies
Panda Peril in China

40. Paired Books

41. A Curriculum that is Intercultural
Critically
reading the
word and the world
Inquiries into Global Issues
Integration of
Intercultural Perspectives
Cross-Cultural
Studies
Personal
Cultural
Identities
A Curriculum that is Intercultural

44. Culturally Situated Response
Combines Reader Response and Cultural Criticism
The reader’s situational and cultural context affects the ways in which the reader perceives the text.
Readers perceive texts in ways that are representative of their cultural identities and experiences
Readers’ ethnicities, gender, race, and class play a role in that representation
Readers bring their cultural assumptions to literature
Readers may bring resistance to cross-cultural texts
When readers engage with literature that is embedded in different beliefs, values, and practices than their own, they can attempt to understand what others mean, even if they are missing knowledge about that cultural context

45. Culturally Situated Response
This criticism explores:
How readers perceive texts to be representative of cultures
The roles readers’ ethnicities, gender, race, and class play in that representation
The resistance readers may bring to cross-cultural texts
The assumptions readers bring to the literature
How readers and authors’ texts may not share beliefs, values, and practices, but rather attempting to understand what others mean, even if knowledge is missing about that information

46. Literature and Diversity
Culturally responsive curriculum – read about ourselves and our cultural communities
Culturally expansive curriculum – read about diverse global communities to recognize both common humanity and cultural differences.
Culturally critical curriculum – read critically to consider issues of power, inequity, and social injustice – What is? What if? What action?