1. Children’s Books Critique Morganne Taylor EDUC 255 01H

2. Education 255 InTASC Standards Description and Rationale  Standard #2: Learning Differences. The teacher uses understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that enable each learner to meet high standards  Name of Artifact: Children’s Book Critique  Date: March 1, 2015  Course: EDUC 255: Teaching and Learning in the Universe  Brief Description: This is a book critique assignment I completed while analyzing multicultural children’s books. I include three different books that express different multicultural aspects and pick out there positive and negatives parts.  Rationale: To document my understanding of InTASC Standard #2, Learner Differences, I have selected to include this book critique assignment because it shows my understanding of how vast the multicultural world can be. It is important for teachers and students to gain background knowledge on a variety of ways to embrace and educate of multicultural education.

3. Three Children’s Books 1. In the Garden, Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta. Oxford Reading Tree. 2. The Bully, Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta. Oxford Reading Tree. 3. What was it Like?, Roderick Hunt, Oxford Reading Tree I have an account on a site called Oxford Owl. It gives me free access to eBooks for children that vary in ages. It is extremely useful and I plan to utilize it in my own teaching career. http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/

4. In the Garden  In this story, a group of diverse friends discover a magic key that causes them to shrink down to a very small size. Once they shrink, they are faced with some obstacles that they must cross together. They escape a bumble bee, climb a hill, and find food.  Positive Factors: 1. Both boys and girls playing together 2. They help one another 3. Different ethnicities 4. Wilma gets to drive the toy car, normally the male figure would be driving  Negative Factors: 1. More boys than girls, there are 2 girls and 3 boys This story did not have the usual stereotypes one might be used to. One of the main ones I saw was when Wilma drove the toy car. Normally, if there is a driving situation, the male figure is the one to be driving. There also were not instances of the boys doing more than the girls which shows their equality.

5. The Bully  The story starts off with a new girl coming into the children’s class. The new student, Rosie, is extremely mean to all of the other students and she is considered a bully. As the story goes, she continually picks on the students. When Rosie tries to take the magic key away and begins calling students names, she turns into what she says (motor mouth, parrot face). Rosie runs away after that and she begins to get bullied. The students she picked on went to get help for her and the teacher stopped it. Positive Factors: 1. Diverse groups in the school 2. Boys and girls together 3. Even though Rosie was a bully in the beginning, she turned out getting bullied and apologized 4. Preventing Bullying Negative Factors: 1. Teacher is a woman, this is usually the case, stereotypical There are students of different ethnicities among the classroom. When the new student comes in, she begins to bully the other students. When she gets a dose of her own medicine, she realizes what she did was wrong and the students forgive her. Throughout the story there is a pretty even amount of girl and boy characters which is a positive. I did find it stereotypical to have the teacher a woman and the principal a man. Gender stereotypes are still common in todays society. Other than that instance, there is equality throughout the rest of the story.

6. What Was it Like?  The children are going to be in a play that explains the history of their town. As they are practicing they cannot stay serious, and Gran tells them it was much more serious than they know. The magic key then takes them back in time to when WWII was happening. The children experience many unfortunate situations that were quite scary. They learned to take the war more seriously and understood what Gran was saying. In the play, they acted very well and showed everyone how it really was. Positive Factors: 1. Boys and girls together 2. Learning a lesson 3. Diverse group Negative factors: 1. Stereotypes: Men in the background on cover illustration. 2. Based on pictures, more men acting in the play. 3. Men working on train This story shares an extremely important lesson in the multicultural education world. Students need to be able to see from others point of views in order to understand. There are a couple typical stereotypes throughout this story such as men being the more dominate characters in the story. The more authoritative figures in the story are men.

7. How these relate to multicultural ed…  All of these children’s books deal with some type of multicultural aspect. They are all different, but give a good idea on the vast ways something can be multicultural.  All three books have boys and girls working together and being friends.

8. How these relate to multicultural ed…  Diverse groups in each book.  Whether there are difference amongst people, there can still be similarities that bring them together.  Looking through someone else perspective helps bring understanding of others cultures and helps to make connections.

9. References  http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/  http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/api/courses/27/digital_books/1466.html?engine=http%3A%2F%2Fo up-oxed-pop-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com%2Febook-engine%2F http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/api/courses/27/digital_books/1466.html?engine=http%3A%2F%2Fo up-oxed-pop-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com%2Febook-engine%2F  http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/api/courses/27/digital_books/1399.html?engine=http%3A%2F%2Fo up-oxed-pop-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com%2Febook-engine%2F http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/api/courses/27/digital_books/1399.html?engine=http%3A%2F%2Fo up-oxed-pop-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com%2Febook-engine%2F  http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/api/courses/27/digital_books/1281.html?engine=http%3A%2F%2Fo up-oxed-pop-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com%2Febook-engine%2F http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/api/courses/27/digital_books/1281.html?engine=http%3A%2F%2Fo up-oxed-pop-production-assets.s3.amazonaws.com%2Febook-engine%2F  https://www.google.com/search?q=diversity&rlz=1C1AFAB_enUS480US569&es_sm=122&source=l nms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=R8XzVJmDPY2syASNkoKQCw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=667#t bm=isch&q=classroom+clipart&revid=848426909