Insider/Outsider

When most people pick up a piece of literature that claims to be diverse they niavely believe that it is an authentic representation of that culture. Most of the time though you will come across books that claim to be diverse literature, but are written by authors who might have never had any interaction or knowledge with the culture they are writting about. Or for example a book might portray African American characters, but the story could be applied to any culture i.e. a story about adopting a pet from the shelter. I do think it is important to show everyday stories that could happen to anyone with pictures of diverse people, but these aren't really examples of diverse literature.
It is very important for a reader and/or teacher to really examine and research the literature they are about to read or teach. Especially if they are trying to find a book that is diverse and explains more about a different culture, race, or religion. Deciding whether or not it is diverse there are a few questions you should ask of the book that lets you know whether or not it is accurate. One question that always arrises when deciding is if the author of the book is an insider or outsider of the culture or religion that they are writing about. Some people believe that for the book to really be authentic it should be written by an insider, but I don't think that always have to be true. Now I don't think that just anyone can pick up a pen and start writing about a culture or religion that they have never experienced or researched. For an outsider to really compose a great piece of diverse literature, for me at least, is for them to have researched, interviewed and experienced aspects of that culture they are writing about. It seems to be that there are more diverse pieces of literature written by outsiders than insiders so you have to sift through those to really find great books.

First Impressions

This past Wednesday in class we really started to explore different types of diverse literature and what really made a piece of literature diverse. The class split up into groups and each got a different book to read. My group got an abc book that featured homosexual parents. When I first thought about diverse literature I thought of books about minority groups only based on race, religion, or culture. I never really thought much about gay and lesbian literature being diverse, but being introduced to this book I realized it fit in perfectly to diverse literature. I thought this specific alaphabet book took an interesting way to include diversity in a subtle way. Through out the book it never really addressed that the family units were gay and lesbian, but just had pictures and mentioned things such as my dads or my moms. This really opened my eyes to my view on diverse literature. Also there was another group who had a book on an Amish family, another group of people that have slipped my mind in the field of diversity. This class really broadened my view on diverse literature to more than just what I am used to as being considered as diverse!