By:
Dacey Sartor &
Caroline Butler-Rahman

6th grade students are studying the themes of tolerance and perspective through reading and writing about the experience of growing up in a multicultural and multilingual nation. In ADLE, they have read the collection of short stories
Béisbol en Abril by Gary Soto, and have started drafting individual monologues based on a self-selected character in one of the stories, examining the motivations that drive a person living in a bicultural community. While reading and analyzing Laurence Yep’s historical fiction novel
Dragonwings in ELA, students are also comparing the policies facing 19th century immigrants to the recent developments in national attitudes and policy towards immigration. In both classes, students are deepening their thinking through discussion and writing about the ways in which individual communities hold onto their cultural heritage while moving into the future as a multicultural nation.