Reflections
by Katie Bergin
The topic I chose for the TE 448 final is Asian American literature. I decided against also studying Pacific Island texts because if I were to include those texts as well, there would have been way to many different themes and aspects of the culture in the books. The reason I chose Asian American children’s books was because it is something that I have only recently found really interesting. I am taking an Asian American English class here at MSU, where we study numerous different Asian cultures through adult novels and films. I wanted to research a little more and see if the themes between children’s books and adult novels and my findings were pretty surprising. In the following posts, I am going to talk about the different themes covered in these pictures books including immigration, cultural and family traditions, overcoming negative stereotypes, and the issues of finding an identity.
Literature is such a great tool to be used in the classroom to expose and teach children about things that they might not learn through their family, in their classroom, or in their society. Having something relatable to students such as a picture book is a great way for children to not only learn a lot about another culture, but to learn through something as enjoyable as a picture book. There were tons of Asian American authors and picture books available in my local library, which mind you, is a huge library, but something I noted was that unless there is a lot of children of Asian decent in a classroom, there is normally not that many Asian American books to choose from. My hope is that my final posts not only opens up and exposes people in our class to these wonderful books, but to expose them to this great, diverse genre of Asian American literature for children.
Just a side note, there is an award called Asian/Pacific American Literature Award (APALA) “The prizes promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and are awarded based on literary and artistic merit. This year, APALA is presenting awards in three categories: Adult Non-Fiction, Illustration in Children's Literature, and Young Adult Literature.”
http://www.apalaweb.org/awards/awards.htm#AWARD_FOR_LITERATURE
by Katie Bergin
The topic I chose for the TE 448 final is Asian American literature. I decided against also studying Pacific Island texts because if I were to include those texts as well, there would have been way to many different themes and aspects of the culture in the books. The reason I chose Asian American children’s books was because it is something that I have only recently found really interesting. I am taking an Asian American English class here at MSU, where we study numerous different Asian cultures through adult novels and films. I wanted to research a little more and see if the themes between children’s books and adult novels and my findings were pretty surprising. In the following posts, I am going to talk about the different themes covered in these pictures books including immigration, cultural and family traditions, overcoming negative stereotypes, and the issues of finding an identity.
Literature is such a great tool to be used in the classroom to expose and teach children about things that they might not learn through their family, in their classroom, or in their society. Having something relatable to students such as a picture book is a great way for children to not only learn a lot about another culture, but to learn through something as enjoyable as a picture book. There were tons of Asian American authors and picture books available in my local library, which mind you, is a huge library, but something I noted was that unless there is a lot of children of Asian decent in a classroom, there is normally not that many Asian American books to choose from. My hope is that my final posts not only opens up and exposes people in our class to these wonderful books, but to expose them to this great, diverse genre of Asian American literature for children.
Just a side note, there is an award called Asian/Pacific American Literature Award (APALA) “The prizes promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and are awarded based on literary and artistic merit. This year, APALA is presenting awards in three categories: Adult Non-Fiction, Illustration in Children's Literature, and Young Adult Literature.”
http://www.apalaweb.org/awards/awards.htm#AWARD_FOR_LITERATURE
