The integral aspect of multicultural literature is providing students with resources. Text sets leveled for reading skill and genre allow students to choose books that interest them. Teacher educator Jerome Harste advises teachers to choose a few themes and build sets from multiple perspectives around those. With text sets in place, literature circles provide guided reading options. For this activity, students in groups of four to six read the same book. Periodically, they stop and discuss the story, with each student taking on a role such as investigator or summarizer, states the website Teaching Multicultural Literature. The teacher models the discussion ahead of time and assigns the roles. For this activity, teachers should group students according to their reading level.
Reading multicultural literature invites dialogue about culture. One way to start this dialogue is to set up a peer facilitation circle. Similar to a literature circle, this technique involves having students read the same book. However, peer facilitation encourages students to discuss emotional and intellectual reactions to cultural situations in the book rather than just its story, states the Teaching Multicultural Literature website. The teacher needs to set up guidelines ahead of time, stipulating non-evaluative phrases for discussion of differing viewpoints. A culminating activity for peer facilitation circles comes in identity stories, during which students summarize unit themes and connect them to their own identities.
Students gain a better understanding of the historical, social and cultural context of a period by reading multicultural literature. Through this study, they gain deeper insight into the struggles people have endured throughout history. To develop this comprehension, teachers need to teach the context directly. For example, a teacher selects a collection of stories or poems related to African-American culture. This literature connects to the histories of both slavery and Africa; the teacher needs to show students how to discover the connections. One way to do this is by putting the literature next to historical or anthropological texts and inviting students to find similarities and differences.
The ultimate goal of teaching multicultural literature is getting students to challenge stereotypes. Inviting debate into the classroom requires setting down the foundation for a safe space; teachers need to pre-teach appropriate phrases for discussing different viewpoints. Starting with a formal debate with definitive guidelines, students choose an issue that comes up in the literature and conduct further research. They then participate in the debate, following its rigid structure to ensure two-way dialogue. Throughout the year, though – and hopefully into the students' lives – teachers should encourage them to challenge literary stereotypes related to race and culture, states Professor Norton.