 Interdisciplinary Usage of Multicultural Texts

One of the major tenets of being an effective teacher is being able to find opportunities to
incorporate different aspects of student learning and literacy across the curriculum. This
is the same with multicultural literacy.
For example, poetry in language arts; issues of social justice in social studies; use of
historical fiction; recipes from a variety of cultures to teach measurement in math; songs
and art forms native to different cultural groups in the arts; and the list continues. Using
different interpretations of the same story (e.g. Cinderella) can also allow students to
develop skills in comparing and contrasting—allowing them to learn about varying
cultural issues and understand how each Cinderella story adapts a pair of glass shoes in
its own context.
Iwai (2015) also offers a few other approaches to using multicultural literature:
 Open-Mind Portraits. Students illustrate a character’s face from a story and write the
character’s feelings and thoughts.
 Sketch-to-Stretch. Students draw sketches that illustrate important messages and
ideas from the story, and share their drawings that reflect what the story meant to
them.
 Double-Entry Journals. Students write quotes from the story in the left column and
reflections on the quotes in the right column.
 Interactive Writing. Students write their thoughts and reflections about the topic or
story by interacting with their teacher and peers.
 Storyboards. Students select important events from the story and illustrate the
sequence of those events in graphic organizers.