Final Class Reflection

After looking over my course work for the semester, I realized just how much I am taking away from this class experience. One of the biggest things I have realized is the influence that insider vs. outsider authors have on books. I had never thought about that concept before this class, and now that I have I am going to be more careful when selecting books for my classroom. After going through the whole semester, I do feel that diverse books by insider authors are the ones that I will try to choose from now on.

Another good thing that I learned is that even though a book may include a character like one of my students, it does not necessarily mean that it is going to be a good representation. Of the books we read, I felt that for the most part the characters were good representations, but there was always some sort of argument that we could come up with. This made it obvious to me that I as a teacher need to be aware of the possible questions or criticisms my students may have for a book, especially if it is a book that represents a particular student.

A week that I really appreciated, was the week we talked about the awards given to books. Before this class, I think I would have just picked a book because it had an award on it and not really thought twice about its contents. However, after I learned some of the criteria, I feel that I will be more careful and judge the book for myself.

For one final thought, I feel that this class made me realize the need for diverse books in school. When looking for books for the final or just for my own curiosity it was very difficult to locate diverse books in bookstores and even libraries. I know this was true for many of us. It is really important that students relate to characters in books, so if the libraries and bookstores don't carry them, I would like to be able to help out and make them available in the school that I end up working in.