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Literature relies on recurring themes which are universal to diverse populations, including love, life, death, good versus evil, coming of age, and many more. Think about a favorite book and consider its use with diverse learners.
Use the questions to guide an original response:
How would you make this text more culturally relevant?
What challenges exist for procuring more diverse texts?
The primary challenges for educators seeking to procure a wide range of culturally diverse texts are often systemic, financial, and logistical.
Budgetary Constraints:
Cost: New textbooks and supplementary reading materials represent a significant and recurring expense. Schools often prioritize replacing core curriculum texts over purchasing supplemental diverse titles, especially if their existing library or textbook adoption cycle is rigid.
Grants/Funding: Securing specific funding for diverse literature libraries can be competitive or require extensive documentation, placing a heavy administrative burden on teachers.
Curriculum Standardization and Time:
Adoption Process: Many districts adhere to state- or district-mandated reading lists that are slow to change and may lack flexibility, making it difficult for individual teachers to integrate newly published diverse texts.
Time: Teachers face immense time pressure, limiting their ability to research, vet, and develop lesson plans for new, unfamiliar texts written by authors from diverse backgrounds.
Availability and Visibility:
Discovery: Texts from authors and cultures outside the dominant publishing narratives can be harder to discover through standard vendor catalogs. Small or independent publishers who often print these titles may not have relationships with large school distributors.
Using a favorite book, such as George Orwell's Animal Farm, with diverse learners requires specific strategies to enhance cultural relevance and address real-world challenges in text procurement.
Animal Farm is a universal allegory about revolution, power, and corruption, but its historical context (the Russian Revolution) can be distant for many diverse learners. Here are ways to enhance its cultural relevance:
Connect Allegory to Global History: Instead of focusing solely on the Soviet Union, frame the text as a universal study of post-colonial regimes, modern dictatorships, or local institutional corruption (e.g., student government, community leaders). Ask students to identify historical or current political movements from their own cultural background that align with the stages of the animals' revolution.