Text Messages: Recommendations for Adolescent Readers - Ep. 70: Exploring the Disability Experience

In this podcast, Jennifer Buler discusses different works of fiction that are catered towards Middle Grade and Young Adult readers that all include topics and main characters that deal with and struggle with mental and physical disabilities. She goes down a list of books that she read personally and explains what type of disabilities and everyday struggles the characters with mental or physical disabilities go through daily.

By using these books, or others like them, when teaching and including books that cover these topics it is important to not isolate anyone who may or may not relate to these types of stories. Before teaching, it is also important to review and preview the content within books to make sure that they are okay and safe to teach within your classroom.

In my classroom, I plan to incorporate many books that address these topics because it is important for students to know that they are not alone. It is also important for students to read these types of books because it gives them a chance to understand and feel how kids like them who have physical and mental disabilities feel every day.

How Teachers Can Increase the Diversity of Their Reading Curriculum

In this blog post by Heather Barcan, she expresses the need and importance of teaching student's diverse literature. Her main goal as a teacher is to make her students not feel alienated and the same shame that she felt growing up for being different from than the characters in the books they read in class. Instead, books that students should be reading should be ones that they are able to see themselves in. To let them know that they have something worth contributing to society. However, implementing diverse literature into curriculum is often a trial-and-error process because it is not a change that can happen overnight. In this post, there are many recommendations to beginning an approach to diverse literature and ways to bring it into the classroom successfully. Some of them being reading a lot of different types of books, attending workshops, and even asking students what they enjoy reading.

When it comes to my classroom, I also would like for my students to not feel alienated or invisible. One of the things that I am going to work on over the years, especially now, is working on building an in-class library that contains many topics of books for students to look through if they feel like it. For the curriculum however, I want to try my hardest to implement a book talk project that allows students to choose a book from a list of diverse novels either already selected or choose a book on their own (with approval of course) that speaks to them. I am also going to attend conventions, workshops, and conferences to learn more about diverse and social justice literature novels. 

Successful Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning Disabilities

This resource explains ways to help teach students who struggle with learning disabilities and how to address them without making them feel embarrassed for being different or needing special attention as well as making them feel isolated. It provides teaching strategies on how to approach teaching students with learning disabilities to "learn how to learn". With the strategies posted on the site, it is recommended that to keep students engaged in learning, it is important to break up the uniformity of the structure of the class. 

In my classroom, I will use these teaching strategies—along with my education and training from TCNJ—to make my students feel seen and heard. To do this I want to make sure that all my students feel like they are a in a safe environment and help them get the help they need to be able to succed in class.

Inclusion Literature: Ideas for Teachers and Teachers Educators 

In this resource, it explains and provides ideas and ways of how to implement inclusive literature into the classroom for teachers and teacher educators with books about disability. It also explains the importance of why inclusive literature is needed to be taught in school along with some of the positive effects it has on students who read this type of literature. This text also goes on to to explain what the roles and duties that a teacher must do in order for the students to benefit from the teaching of inclusive literature. This includes evaluating the books to make sure they are okay to read in class, have discussions about the books and the topics of disabilities in either small groups or whole class discussions, and hands on activities to help students understand what it is like to have and live with a disability.

I think that it is so important for the inclusion of stories that come from a disabled character to be in my cirriculum because, like mentioned before, it gives students the opportunity to experience life from another set of eyes. To experience the struggles and discrimination that they get for being different. I want to be able to promote a safe space in my classroom as well as be able to educate my students about the harmful effects of ableism.

Opening Doors: Teaching LGBTQ-themed Young Adult Literature for an Inclusive Curriculum

Although it is one of the most challeneged and banned genre of books in the United States as of right now, the importance of having and reading LGBTQIA+ stories is because it helps students feel valiadated and learn more about themselves. This type of literature can help a student grow whether they identify as apart of the LGBTQIA+ Community or not. This text expresses how the literature in which young students might read will have an affect on the way they view life and the world. By including these types of book into the curriculum, teachers can honor and uplift all types of voices as well as creating a supportive environment for students and teachers alike.