Teaching Multicultural Literature . Interactive Strategy Workbook

Teaching Multicultural Literature : A Workshop for the Middle Grades

Explore two poems using strategies from the workshops

This activity offers you an opportunity to read two poems and reflect on the teaching strategies featured throughout the workshop. Use the poems below as a springboard for creating your own activities. Choose strategies you would like to explore and consider how you might adapt them for these poems and for your students. Save your ideas in your workbook and return to this space as you continue the workshop. At any time, you may compile and print your entries.

Choose a poem:


	Photo by Tama Rothchild

"Grandmother"
by Paula Gunn Allen

New Mexico native Paula Gunn Allen, of Laguna, Sioux, and Lebanese ancestry, is a poet, novelist, critic, and influential scholar of Native American literature. Her honors include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writers' Circle of the Americas. Much of her poetry is inspired by the Pueblo culture.


	Photo by Dwight Okita

"In Response to Executive Order 9066"
by Dwight Okita

Dwight Holden Okita is a prominent poet, playwright, and screenwriter from Chicago. His much-anthologized poem, "In Response to Executive Order 9066," was inspired by the experience of his mother, who was interned in a relocation camp during World War II.

Choose a strategy:

Click on the button next to the strategy, scroll down, and open the workbook; or use the link to review a strategy, and then return. You will be asked to register for this activity the first time you use the workbook.

Workshop 1

Workshop 2

Peer facilitation circle