En la Clase: “Stitching Truth: Chilean Arpilleras in the Classroom” (part 1 of 2)

As Ailesha shared in her ¡Mira, Look! post this past week, our last thematic series of posts for this school year focuses on human rights.  Much of our work through with k-12 teachers is based on thematic workshops that connect Latin American content with human rights issues.   In collaboration with the National Hispanic Cultural Center, we held a series of workshops this spring around the exhibition, “Stitching Resistance: The History of Chilean Arpilleras,” which is on view at the NHCC from October 19, 2012 through January, 2014.

Local Event!! Guest Lecture: Liberalizing Illiberal Liberalism

The Graduate Student Association of Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies at the University of New Mexico is hosting a lecture by Dr. Charles W. Mills on Thursday May 2nd from 4:00-6:30 pm at the University of New Mexico, Student Union Building, Ballroom A and B.

WWW: Día de los niños booklist!

Poster from American Library Association can be found at dia.ala.org

Tuesday, April 30, is El día de los niños.

El día was nearly three-quarters of a century old in Mexico, when, in 1996, it was appropriated in the United States and coupled with the name “El día de los libros” to promote the celebration of literacy.

Growing Up without Books: Discovering DeShawn

We’ve talked a great deal here at Vamos about the importance of authentic multicultural literature, especially for the students of color in our classrooms.  This is a great blog post written by a children’s lit author reflecting on that very topic.  I hope you’ll check it out!

the open book

In light of our grant from First Book we asked our authors to reflect on why diverse books are important. Guest blogger, author/poet Tony Medina talks about growing up in the projects without books and later as an author witnessing the true power of connecting multicultural books with children of color.

As a child in the Throgs Neck Housing Projects in the Bronx, I did not grow up with books. The only person I saw reading was my grandmother, who occasionally read mass-market paperback fiction and her Bible that was as big as a phone book. If the Bible fell from the top of the dresser where she kept it, it could take your kneecap off and crush your foot in the process! The only time I recall being exposed to children’s books was at school when the teacher took us to the school library and the librarian allowed us…

View original post 551 more words

¡Mira Look!: Human Rights and Taste of Salt

As we shift our focus from poetry to human rights, I found myself sadly unsurprised at the lack of great children’s and YA literature on human rights and Latin America. On the one hand, everything can be boiled down to human rights; and indeed, much of what we discuss on Vamos centers on the idea that one of those rights is the right to be in a diverse, culturally sensitive, exploration centered classroom, where all students see themselves and their future potential in the books they read, the stories they hear and the arts they craft. On the other hand, if everything is boiled down to human rights, does that take away some salience  from those pillars of Rights that everyone is entitled to? Or does discussing rights necessarily encompass all our daily interactions?

Giveaway Winners!! Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

I can’t believe the school year is almost over!! Time goes by so fast! We hope you’ve had as wonderful a year as we have here at Vamos a Leer. This is our last giveaway until next August when we all start back to school! Thanks so much to all of you who have visited our blog and shared your thoughts with us throughout the year. It’s wonderful to have you all stopping by.  We hope you’ll continue!!

WWW: Using Editorial Cartoons to Teach Social Justice

If I had to choose one point to take from our recent professional development workshop on Alice Leora Briggs’ depiction of the violence in Juárez, it is this:

Artists play a critical role in exposing injustice.

It’s true. Hypocrisy and greed are never safe around an artist. And among artists, there can be none more unabashedly political than an editorial cartoonist. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s: “Teaching Tolerance” website has a powerful series of political cartoons that can help students explore social justice issues while building important language skills like irony, satire, caricature, dialogue, etc…

New Units of Study

I came across this post today and wanted to share it with our Vamos a Leer readers. As much as we focus on literacy in the activities and books we share, I thought it may be of interest to many of you, as the Units of Study focus on writing AND are aligned to the Common Core State Standards. There is even a link in the post to download your own samples of the new Units of Study by Lucy Calkins. If you’re not familiar with Two Writing Teachers definitely check out their blog!

¡Mira Look!: Poetry Resources For Older Readers & Rhymers

To close out our posts on National Poetry Month, I wanted to follow up last week’s post (which gave resources for younger readers–click here to read it) by offering some great poetry resources for older readers. I would really encourage all of you to utilize plenty of poetry in your lesson plans, in April and other months. Poetry is a wonderful literary craft that can speak to kids who may have a hard time engaging with different literary styles/genres. As always, there are far too many for me to list here, so please feel free to share your ideas in the comments below.

En la Clase: “In the Wake of Juarez”–Art as Social Justice

Alice Leora Briggs, Abecedario de Juárez, 2010, Sgraffito on 32 wood panels. Collection of the Artist, Courtesy of Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ

In last week’s En la Clase post, I shared one of the lessons from our curriculum materials created for the professional development workshop “In the Wake of Juárez–Teaching Politics through Art”.  The workshop was based upon the current exhibition of Alice Leora Briggs’ work: “In the Wake of Juárez.”  In the workshop we discussed the significance of Briggs’ work and how and why we should implement projects like Briggs’ in the classroom. For those of you who aren’t local, Briggs’ images can be viewed at http://aliceleorabriggs.com (click on the artworks tab).