Books for Teaching About Cultural Diversity

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From Unit Plan: Celebrate Your Heritage

There are so many paths to follow when you're choosing resources for a unit on cultural diversity. Because I focus on teaching how people from cultures all around the world have come together as Americans, I use several professional resources on immigration. I also choose reading selections that highlight varying ethnicities, cultures, and customs.

Here a few suggestions when building your multicultural library:

• Look for books that show people from other cultures in contemporary roles. Avoid books that stereotype cultures or characters as well as those that elevate the status of one culture over another.
• Look for books that talk about ways that different cultures have influenced American culture.
• Try to balance your library among many cultures. Don't stay away from a book simply because the culture is not reflected in your classroom. That's all the more reason to introduce it to your class.

These Are Professional Resources:

Great American History Games by Lorraine Hopping Egan, Louise Spigarelli
These fun and engaging games, activities, and puzzles offer a great way to add excitement to history topics. Subjects range from Colonial America to Immigration to the Civil War, and more. Includes reproducible game board, activity sheets, map, and a full-color poster.

Classroom Tip: I use these games at independent workstations to reinforce taught concepts.

Hands-On History: Immigration: Fantastic Easy-to-Make Projects That Help Kids Learn and Love History! by Michael Gravois
Students will learn about things like packing for the journey, Ellis Island, immigrant traditions, and other important concepts. This valuable classroom-tested resource comes complete with step-by-step directions, background information, reproducible patterns, a read-aloud play, and much more!

Classroom Tip: This is a wonderful resource to use for any multicultural unit or study of immigration. I especially love the famous immigrant cut-outs, the journey scrapbook, and the ornament fact book. The hands-on aspect makes the projects and activities quick favorites for all.

Primary Sources Teaching Kit: Immigration
Packed with reproducible primary sources — from photographs of Ellis Island to the Oath of Citizenship — this collection of authentic documents will capture students' interest in immigration to America between the late 1800s and the early 1900s.

Classroom Tip: The photographs and documents will make the concept of immigration become real to your students. Use this with your whole group to show how immigration has shaped our nation.

The Scholastic Big Book of Holidays Around the Year by Susan Dillon
This complete holiday resource is packed with hands-on activities, ready-to-go reproducibles, read-aloud fast facts, pictures, literature and Web links to make learning about any holiday fun and connect it to every teacher's curriculum. From the Fourth of July to the Chinese New Year, this book includes more than 70 celebrations of all kinds-educational, cultural, religious, and civic!

Classroom Tip: I use this resource not only for this unit, but all year long. Most comprehensive resource I've found on holidays from all cultures.

Success With Reading: 15 Fun-to-Read American History Mini-Books by Nancy I. Sanders, Jeff Sanders
Eight-page mini-books on the Boston Tea Party, George Washington, the Oregon Trail, Immigration, and more. With vocabulary, extensions, and book links.

Classroom Tip: I've become a huge fan of the mini-book across the curriculum. Students read these before they build them, during, and after. By the time the book is complete, most students know the material very well.

Success With Reading: 10 Easy-to-Read American History Plays That Reach All Kinds of Readers by Sarah J. Glasscock
These exciting, easy-to-read plays, are written on a 3rd-grade reading level, so even your most challenged readers will be successful. Topics covered include Columbus's explorations, Jamestown, the Pilgrims, the Boston Tea Party, the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, Immigration, and more.

Classroom Tip: The title says it all. If you are always looking for ways to help all readers, this is a wonderful resource to try in your classroom. After one of these plays, the concept of "immigration" will suddenly make sense to your students.

Books for Whole Group Instruction, Read-Alouds, and our Classroom Library

Celebrating Diversity Grades K - 3
This ten pack of "picture" books is a phenomenal way to build your multicultural library quickly.

Classroom Tip: Never let the K-3 description in any title scare you when it comes to choosing books for you classroom library. Some of the best stories you can find to teach concepts are in books of this category. If you only stick to books labeled 3-5, you and your students are missing a great deal. Each one of these books tells a wonderful story or teaches a valuable lesson.

Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco
After being initiated into a neighbor's family by a solemn backyard ceremony, a young Russian American girl and her African American brothers determine to buy their Gramma Eula a beautiful Easter hat. But their good intentions are misunderstood, until they discover just the right way to pay for the hat that Eula's had her eye on.

Classroom Tip: The fantastic illustrations and story teach your class about true family ties. Patricia Polacco has many, many books that teach about families and diversity.

Coming to America: The Story of Immigration by Betsy Maestro; illustrated by Susannah Ryan
A succinct history of U.S. immigration for students of all levels. Beautiful watercolor illustrations capture the emotions of the successive waves of immigrants looking for a better life.

Classroom Tip: I open up my unit using this book. It is a wonderful way to introduce your students to the concept of coming to America to find a better way of life.

If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island by Ellen Levine; illustrated by Warren Parmenter
Vivid full-color illustrations and a question-and-answer text bring to life traditional life, customs, and everyday worlds in this series covering a rich range of historical events, eras, and peoples. Meticulous research, accuracy of detail, and facts told from a child's perspective convey what it was like to live in another time.

Classroom Tip: The question-and-answer format of this book works very well when leading discussions about the Ellis Island era with your class.

Immigrant Kids by Russell Freedman
In the late 1800's and early 1900's, immigrant kids sold newspapers, hauled firewood, worked in sweatshops, and did many other kinds of work. They played, fought in gangs, and became integrated into the life of America. Illustrated with 50 authentic and fascinating photographs.

Classroom Tip: The photographs in this book intrigue my class year after year. The turn-of-the-century immigrant experience is brought to life for my students as the stunning photos show school-aged children working, playing, and going to school under very different conditions.

Books for Guided Reading Groups and Literature Clubs

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
When Esperanza and Mama are forced to flee from their home in Mexico to a Mexican farm labor camp in California, they must adjust to a life without the fancy dresses and servants to which they were accustomed on Rancho de las Rosas. Now they must confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression.

Classroom Tip: This book is best suited for those students reading at an independent level of grade 4 or higher.

Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say
Through compelling reminiscences of his grandfather's life in America and Japan, Allen Say gives us a poignant account of a family's unique cross-cultural experience. He warmly conveys his own love for his two countries, and the strong and constant desire to be in both places at once.

Classroom Tip: This book is a wonderful read aloud resource. After reading, we follow up with a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the benefits each country holds for Grandfather.

Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen; illustrated by Daniel Mark Duffy
As Molly nears her first Thanksgiving in America, she doesn't find much to be thankful for. Her classmates giggle at her Yiddish accent and make fun of her unfamiliar ways, and now her mother embarrasses her with a doll that looks more Russian than Pilgrim.

Classroom Tip: This title is best for instructing those students working at a reading level of 3.5 or higher.

Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
A homemade quilt ties together the lives of four generations of an immigrant Jewish family, remaining a symbol of their enduring love and faith.

Classroom Tip: I use this book as a read aloud then have children design a four square quilt in their journals.

One Grain of Rice by Hitz Demi
A reward of one grain of rice doubles day by day into millions of grains of rice when a selfish raja is outwitted by a clever village girl.

Classroom Tip: This is a wonderful cross-curricular way to bring another culture into your math instruction.

Know Your Constitution
The United States Constitution is a system of basic laws and principles that defines the rights of American citizens and sets limits on what the government can and cannot do. Learn about America's most important document.

Stories of Native Americans
Native American coming-of-age stories. Retellings of traditional Native American myths. Books about native peoples all over North America.

Ethnic Minorities
Covers the history of the American immigration of ethnic minorities, including settlement patterns, identity issues, cultural assimilation, and demographics.