This study documents literature discussions between groups of teacher education students in two geographically and demographically different universities. Students from an education methods course at each site discussed The Friendship by Mildred Taylor with one another as part of a distance reader response project. The project was designed to promote discussion of multicultural historical fiction among and between urban students of color at one site and mainly White suburban students from the second site. Additional goals include increasing computer literacy as prospective teachers access the WebCT online course management system and have regular conversations in this medium.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (Caryl Emerson & Michael Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
2.
Beach, R. (1997). Students’ resistance to engagement with multicultural literature. In T. Rogers & A. Soter (Eds.), Reading across cultures: Teaching literature in a diverse society (pp. 69-94). New York: Teachers College Press.
3.
Broughton, M. A. (2002). The performance and construction of subjectivities of early adolescent girls in book club discussion groups. Journal of Literacy Research, 34(1), 1-38.
4.
Delpit, L. (1996). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: New Press.
5.
Derman-Sparks, L. (1989). Anti-bias curriculum: Tools for empowering young children. Washington, DC: NAEYC.
6.
Enciso, P. (1997). Negotiating the meaning of difference: Talking back to multicultural literature. In T. Rogers & A. Soter (Eds.), Reading across cultures: Teaching literature in a diverse society (pp. 13-41). New York: Teachers College Press.
7.
Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of Whiteness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
8.
Gerwin, D., & Manolios, V. (2001). Making connections: Time and team teaching in the American Social History Project classroom. In M. Christiansen, M. Johnson, & J. Norris (Eds), Teaching together: School/university collaborations to improve social studies education (pp. 119-128). Washington, DC: National Council for Social Studies.
9.
Johnson, L. (2002). “My eyes have been opened”: White teachers and racial awareness. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 153-167.
10.
Karchmer, R. A. (2001). The journey ahead; thirteen teachers report how the Internet influences literacy and literacy instruction in their K-12 classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(4), 442-466.
11.
Kohl, H. (1996). Should we burn Babar?New York: New Press.
12.
Lee, E., Menkart, D., & Okazawa-Rey, M. (Eds.). (1998). Beyond heroes and holidays. Washington, DC: Network of Educators on the Americas.
13.
Lewis, C. (1997). The social drama of literature discussions in a fifth/sixth grade classroom. Research in the Teaching of English, 31, 163-204.
14.
Mabrito, M. (1991). Electronic mail as a vehicle for peer response. Written Communication, 8, 509-532.
15.
McIntyre, A. (1997). Making meaning of Whiteness: Exploring racial identity with White teachers. Albany: State University of New York Press.
16.
Merryfield, M. (2001). The paradoxes of teaching a multicultural education course on-line. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(4), 283-299.
17.
Mitchell-Pierce, K. (1994). Literature discussion groups and the social nature of reading. In C. Weaver (Ed.), Reading process and practice: From socio-psycholinguistics to whole language (pp. 156-167). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
18.
Moll, L. (2001, March). The concept of educational sovereignty. Paper presented at the University of Pennsylvania Ethnography Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
19.
Moller, K. (2001, December). “They’re not ‘them’ and we’re not ‘us’”: Addressing racism, ethnocentrism, and fear in response to Joseph Bruchac’s The Heart of a Chief. Presented at the National Reading Conference, San Antonio, TX.
20.
Rogers, T. (1997). No imagined peaceful place: A story of community, texts, and cultural conversations in one urban high school. In T. Rogers & A. Soter (Eds.), Reading across cultures: Teaching literature in a diverse society (pp. 95-115). New York: Teachers College Press.
21.
Silin, J. (1997, March). Teaching as a gay man: Pedagogic resistance or public spectacle?New York: The American Educational Research Association.
22.
Sims-Bishop, R. (1997). Forward. In T. Rogers & A. Soter (Eds.), Reading across cultures: Teaching literature in a diverse society (pp. vii-ix). New York: Teachers College Press.
23.
Singer, J. Y., & Smith, S. (2003). The potential of multicultural literature to provoke understanding of self and others. Multicultural Perspectives, 5(2), 17-23.
24.
Tatum, B. (1999). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race. New York: Basic Books.
25.
Taxel, J. (1991). Reclaiming the voice of resistance. In M. Apple & L. Christian-Smith (Eds.), The politics of the textbook (pp. 78-111). New York: Routledge.
26.
Taylor, M. (1998). The friendship. New York: Puffin. Original work published 1988.
27.
Tenorio, R. (1995). Introduction. In Rethinking schools: An agenda for change (pp. xvii-xviv). New York: New Press.
28.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language (Alex Kozulin, Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
29.
Wilkinson, P., & Kido, E. (1997). Literature and cultural awareness: Voices from the journey. Language Arts, 74, 255-265.
30.
Wolf, S., Ballentine, D., & Hill, L. (1999). The right to write: Preservice teachers’ evolving understandings of authenticity and aesthetic heat in multicultural literature. Research in the Teaching of English, 34, 130-184.
