Answer to Question #204821 in English for Mandisa

Question

Question 1

In your own words, explain the importance of the narrator's voice in a book when it comes to conveying the author's style. (10 marks)

Question 2

In your own words, explain your understanding of "a representation of the elements on a dramatic curve"

Question 3

Use your own words to define multicultural literature.

List 5 criteryou would use in selecting multicultural stories for your First Additional Language learners in the intermediate please. Explain why these criteria are important.

Answer 1

Question 1

The narrative voice, or as it is more commonly known, the point of view (POV), is an essential element in storytelling, as it determines the character with whom the audience will sympathize. It also informs them of the narrator's perspective and is essential in shaping their understanding of the story's events.

It allows the reader to view everything from the stance of a character and/or narrator, including their feelings and experiences. The narrative voice is an essential element of the telling as it allows the reader to relate to the character telling the story and understand the motivations and desires of other characters, as well.

Think of POV like a pair of glasses that you give your audience. In order for them to see what you're seeing clearly, and in the best possible way to experience it, you need to give them the best pair of lenses to do that. Those lenses are the different types of narrative voice.

This post will delve into how to identify different types of narrative voice and which pair of "lenses" would best suit a particular piece of writing.

Question 2

Nowadays it is important to make choices that are inclusive of diversity. Traditional stories provide a means of representing diverse cultural experiences. However, these stories must be chosen with care to avoid stereotyping as well as ensure accuracy. Stories with pictures are a popular choice for children so it is also important to learn how to evaluate the quality and purpose of illustrations in books.

Question 3

Cultural Integrity

Literary works should be specific to a culture, both in the written work and in our use of it. Aspects of the culture should be embedded in the text and the illustrations. In picture books, the illustrations should enhance our understanding of the locale and the characters. We need to keep the “cultural” in multicultural. If there is no cultural context, the work may represent only a token effort at diversity. Thus, a folktale described in the text or preface as “African” is dubious, as all folktales are indigenous to a country or area. A reading of a folktale such as Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain gives us the opportunity to explore the cultural landscape of Kenya which bears little resemblance to, say, Ghana’s. Similarly, readings from Puerto Rico cannot represent the “Latin American experience,” as this enormous region is too diverse for such an effort.

Illustrations should be evaluated not only for their general cultural embedding, but specifically for their accuracy in portrayal of people. Caricatures of Arabs and Blacks continue to surface. For example, Arabs may be portrayed as dark-skinned, menacing men. Drawings of African-Americans should show individuality of character and should neither exaggerate nor minimize physical characteristics. Likewise, the diversity of color among Latin Americans should be reflected in the illustrations.

U.S. ethnic groups should not be confused with their overseas counterparts. Thus, Asian-American life and literature differ substantially from Asian life. Further, the Asian-American experience differs significantly along both national and generational lines. In addition, the experience of recent immigrants differs from those who arrived much earlier, even from the same countries. A novel such as The Joy Luck Club, with its theme of inter-generational differences, illuminates this point well.

Dialect should be appropriate to the situation and the time period. For example, African-American dialect differs across time and place. Moreover, its usage varies according to circumstance and person. Thus, choosing only books on African-American life written in dialect (or written with no dialect at all) misrepresents African-American life.

Avoidance of Exoticism

Literary selections should be chosen for their representative character, especially as our students often are not able to distinguish between the typical and the unrepresentative. Stereotyping comes in two main forms: 1) focusing on atypical cultures and situations and 2) allowing a typical situation represent all situations of a given culture. Careful selection is especially important, given that our students are not generally familiar with a wide range of cultural groups and may take a single work of literature to be representative of a whole group.

The first form of stereotyping comes from stories focusing on an atypical cultural group, such as the tiny Maasai population in Kenya. The second form of stereotyping can occur when only a single piece of literature is used to represent a whole culture, especially a culture with which students are unfamiliar. For example, literary selections which focus exclusively on traditional Native American tales can reinforce preexisting student notions of Native Americans as a people living in the past and without a presence today. Again, stories which place Chinese-Americans only in Chinatown can be misleading.

No single piece of literature can represent a culture. Because of this reality, we face a conundrum: our students need a variety of texts, yet we have time for only a limited number. There are a number of ways to resolve this problem, among them:

• choosing additional works, perhaps short ones, to give variety in viewpoints;
• looking for variety in what students read over a period of years rather than focusing just on what they read in a single year;
• supplementing the reading of the work with a study of that culture, thus offering an opportunity for interdisciplinary learning.

Fundamental to any literature program is the goal of creating lifelong readers. Our sharing of multicultural literature can open new vistas for students, making way for new explorations not possible within the time constraints of the school calendar.

We need to be mindful of our audience and the preconceptions they bring to a reading. Thus, a novel of horrors set in Africa, such as Heart of Darkness, reinforces student notions about Africa being mysterious and dangerous. Similarly, stories focusing on violence in African-American characters may reinforce notions about violence in this community.

Folktales can be a powerful entry point to a culture unfamiliar to our students and to its values. Folktales also offer a wonderful entree to oral literature. (We are facing an publishers’ explosion in folktales, because they promise cultural accuracy and they are inexpensive to produce, as the tales have already been told and are in the public domain.) However, there are certain pitfalls we need to avoid to use this literature well. The main one is balance. In particular, folktales abound from Asia and Africa, yet our students need exposure to other cultural experiences and genres of these peoples. Young students (and often older ones), unfamiliar with a culture, may not be able to differentiate between the world of the folktale and the world of today. Thus, students may hold on to the impression that Chinese life has not changed for two hundred years or that wild animals are found everywhere in Africa. Such misrepresentations are often reinforced by T.V. and movies. Offensive and inappropriate language is not the problem it once was. We should remain alert, however, to two problems. The first is where language encodes stereotypical views such as a “noble people,” or “a typically meek Chinese girl.” Illustrations can also encode stereotypes, such as an overabundance of Asian-Americans wearing eyeglasses. The second problem arises when authors use non-parallel language. Non-parallel language occurs when an author uses different words for another culture to describe the same things which exist in mainstream U.S. life. Thus, works like “hut” for house or home, “a native” for a person, and “superstition” for a religious belief are offensive. Racially charged remarks are acceptable if they are for the purpose of exposing a character and if they are used in a context which will easily be understood by the readers as defining that character.