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Utilizing the sensitive themes within this novel, my scholars, as 21st-century global participants, can begin to develop and to possess cultural sensitivity. Through this deeper understanding and relationships with the characters, my goal is to bridge the gap between my scholars from diverse cultural backgrounds and the lens in which society may judge them. However, I believe just as important as teaching reading, writing and arithmetic are the teaching of life skills: the teaching of communication, the teaching of cooperation, the teaching of forgiveness, the teaching of tolerance, the teaching of reflection, and the teaching of dealing with confusion and change. I knew reading this novel could be considered controversial to some, and I am very sensitive to some of the issues that are being raised in this text.
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Multi-cultural literature is one of the vehicles that students can use in order to find themselves and make thoughtful and meaningful connections with the world around them. I want to ensure that my students have all the means available to them in order to make fair judgments about themselves and others. As we read through this novel, I observe my scholars sorting out their beliefs, ideas, and preconceived notions. This is often a very confusing and painful time for our youth many of my scholars find themselves challenging authority and all their learned and taught beliefs. When Miss O’Brien looked at me, after we had won the case, what did she see that caused her to turn away?”įor those of us who teach middle school students, we know all too well that these are the years when our scholars or making discoveries about themselves. I want to look at myself a thousand times to look for one true image. Through his writing, he and other authors like him challenge us to face difficult things and make to make tough choices. For the past few weeks, author Walter Dean Myers has become a sort of a father to us, offering suggestions, raising questions, helping us to grow and understand ourselves and others. I want my scholars to feel what the characters are feeling, to journey through the idiosyncrasies of life that we all encounter on a daily basis. Monster is just one of the many multi-cultural texts that I read with my scholars throughout the school year. As I read Monster with my scholars, we conjectured about how many youths today find themselves in the same sort of struggle that Steve finds himself in.Īs a language arts teacher, teaching literature has always been a passion and love of mine mainly because good literature serves as a means for readers to “read” themselves, making us think and feel, and humanizing our fictional characters and the world in which they live we see a glimmer of ourselves, a glimmer of our own struggles and insecurities.
#Why teach monster walter dean myers free#
In reality, although Myers’ novel serves as a sort of timeline of Steve’s experience throughout his trial, Monster is really about the young protagonist’s plight to break free from stereotypes and allow his true self to emerge. Steve Harmon, like so many of my scholars, is trying to find a way to allow his better self, his characteristics that make him unique, display in a world where others who look like him are considered “Monsters”. But being in here with these guys makes it hard to think about yourself as being different…I see what Miss O’Brien meant when she said part of her job was to make me look human in the eyes of the jury.” I want to feel like I’m a good person because I believe I am. “In a way he was right, at least about me. In Walter Dean Myers’ young adult novel, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon, imprisoned for allegedly being involved in a robbery and murder, considers his place in the world after a fellow prisoner asserts that everyone in the prison is just a criminal trying “to act good.” Steve, who has suddenly found himself in a precarious situation very unlike the one he’s accustomed to, comments in his journal: This is just one of many powerful lines from Walter Dean Myers’s award-winning novel, Monster.
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That way even if you sniffle a little they won’t hear you.” “The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.