| This study presents experiences of four classroom teachers who used a multicultural literature-based, reader response approach to explore multicultural teaching. These case study participants met weekly at a bilingual elementary school. They explored a wide range of literature and teaching strategies for children and adolescents. The course provided a context for study and analysis of the integration of multicultural education, language diversity and bilingualism, reader response theory, and multicultural children's literature. Data analyzed included teachers' voices, reflections, and actions in casual conversations, interviews, journals, classroom visits, surveys, and discussions. Descriptions and explanations represent real situations and provide a detailed portrait of the manner in which these teachers used children's literature and reader response to enhance multicultural teaching.;Each teacher's story shows how a teacher's classroom practice grows and develops when supported and encouraged. They studied their teaching, analyzed their philosophies, questioned and reflected on their practice, and confronted challenging issues which surfaced when multicultural literature and reader response were used. Teachers found that by implementing effective reader response strategies when children are engaged in reading multicultural children's literature, they did, in fact, move towards multicultural teaching. In addition, as they observed students' reading interests grow due to meaningful and relevant literature, they were also interacting more about their reading to their peers and writing better. Children were seeing themselves, their families, and their communities in the literature.;Findings suggest that teachers who come to the profession with voids or misperceptions from their own education recognize the need to develop expertise in the use of effective classroom strategies. Teachers are more apt to increase risk-taking as they move towards Banks' (1994) levels of transformation and social action. A democratic classroom can become a reality when the principles of multicultural education are adhered to and students are validated for prior knowledge and experiences. In addition, this is strengthened as students are encouraged to view literature from multicultural perspectives. In addition, findings suggest that colleges of education would positively impact the effectiveness of perspective teachers by embedding the principles of multicultural education in all course work. Development of such approaches would enable teachers to involve today's diverse school student populations in relevant school experiences. |
