Adding African American Literature as Basic Curriculum

If we hope to integrate ball club fully, we must understand the significance of having diversity in the course. Without a syllabus that offers access to a diverse range of cultures in literature, we are robbing non-dominant cultures of their identity development. As James Baldwin expresses in his autobiographical nones in Notes of a Native Son, if totally if the dominant cultural fixate are accessible non-dominant cultures testament discombobulate to select an imposed identity to find star at all, "I was an interloper. This was not my heritage. At the same time I had no new(prenominal) heritage which I could possibly hope to function?I had certainly been unfitted for the jungle or the tribe. I would have to appropriate these whiteness centuries, I would have to make them mine?I would have to accept my special attitude, my special shoot for in this scheme?otherwise I would have no place in any scheme" (Baldwin 7).

Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles in getting African American literature into the curriculum is convincing teachers how significant and vital an addition it is to not only inexorables but whites and other cultures as well. Too often, teachers think a book by a black writer is fitted only during Black History Month. They do

One of the biggest obstacles to incorporating African American literature into the curriculum is convincing those who make that decision of its value and its similarity to white literature. White literature is often useful for educating and societalizing students because of its set like honesty, responsibility, perseverance and others. African American literature revolves most the same kinds of values, albeit values that were engendered through a different set of experiences typically than white values. When the curriculum offers a balance of white and non-dominant culture literature to students, it provides them with a greater understanding of themselves as much as it teaches them a fuller knowledge of other cultures.

Bottom line, it teaches both black and white students that the values divided by whites or blacks are not that different?only the experiences through which they developed them. In one school that use literature-based instruction and includes a mixture of non-dominant culture literature in its curriculum argues, "There is a notable amount of social interaction as youngsters share, debate, and compare materials they read. It is expected that all youngsters will explore through their reading a core of values. Indeed, wide-cut literature [whether black or white] is characterized by the presentation, confrontation, and resolution of themes involving such(prenominal) values" (Palardy 2).

Smolkin, R. Books uncover lives of black middle class. The Washington Times. Feb. 21, 1999, 1-2.

not realize that black literature not only gives the black student the ability to more fully understand his or her own culture, heritage and identity, but it also opens a communion between black and white children especially questioning assumptions and values of the mainstream culture. Further, like books by white authors, black literature
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