Assessing Cultural Relevance: Exploring Personal Connections to a Text

Materials and Technology

Printouts

Websites

Preparation

 

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

¡Sí Se Puede! Yes, We Can! Janitor Strike in L.A. (optional)

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PRINTOUTS

• Gathering Evidence of Cultural Relevance
  
  
• Student Reflection Sheet
  
  
• Components of Your Cultural Relevance Review
  
  
• Cultural Relevance Review Guidelines
  
  
• Model Cultural Relevance Essay
  
  
• Checklist for Cultural Relevance Review
  
  
• Cultural Relevance Rubric

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WEBSITES

• Cultural Relevance Rubric
• Books of Humor for Teens
• Great Gay Teen Books
• YALSA offers recommended reading for teens in light of recent disaster
• Realistic Fiction
• Diaries/Letters/Journals
• The Mystery of Love
• The New Americans
• Write a Book Review
• Finding Book Reviews–Stauffer Library Reference

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PREPARATION

• Choose a text to use as a model for this lesson. You will work through the analysis of the text as a class to demonstrate the activity that students will complete. Choose a book, film, or television program that everyone in the class is familiar with, OR choose a picture book that you can read to the class before completing the analysis.
  
  
• It may be helpful to gather appropriate books for this activity to help narrow the options for students. The following resources list books from the genres that work best for this lesson. Naturally, you should review the lists to ensure the that books are appropriate for your school and classroom. You might print the lists for students’ reference or gather some of the books ahead of time:
  
  
  • Realistic Fiction, from ALA’s Teen Read Week 2005 Booklists
    
    
  • Nonfiction, also from ALA’s Teen Read Week 2005 Booklists
    
    
  • Books of Humor for Teens, from San Francisco Public Library (the top list only)
    
    
  • Great Gay Teen Books, from author Alex Sanchez
    
    
  • Disaster Booklist, from ALA
    
    
  • Diaries and Letters, from the Austin Public Library
    
    
• Realistic Fiction for Teens, from Plymouth Library
  
  
• DIARIES/LETTERS/JOURNALS, from the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library
  

Documentaries and realistic films and television programs are also appropriate for this lesson. You might gather films such as The Mystery of Love, The New Americans, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, and Super Size Me. You might ask students to brainstorm a list of current television shows and movies that have a realistic and reasonably modern setting.

If desired, obtain a copy of ¡Sí Se Puede! Yes, We Can! Janitor Strike in L.A. (Cinco Puntos Press, 2002) by Diana Cohn to read to the class during Session Four. This book is the focus of the Model Cultural Relevance Essay, so making students familiar with the book will increase their understanding of how the book fulfills the requirements for the writing assignment. Alternatively, you might write your own model essay, focusing on a book that students are already familiar with.

If students have access to computers, they can complete the online rubric and print their own customized version of the questions for gathering evidence. If computers are not available, make copies of the PDF version of the Cultural Relevance Rubric and the Gathering Evidence of Cultural Relevance handout for each student. You may also make overhead transparencies of the documents to use during class sessions as you demonstrate and discuss the analysis process.

Make copies of the handouts for the lesson.

Test the Cultural Relevance Rubric on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.

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