Early Literacy in preschool and kindergarten

by | Feb 3, 2023 | Human Resource Management

 

When thinking about the books that we have available in our classrooms it is important that we include a variety of cultures to represent our multicultural world. This is true whether you live in a diverse community or a heterogeneous one. According to Beary and Pratt (2023) “All young children need to learn about other children who may be different from them”. I currently work in a school district that serves a diverse group of students. The classroom I work in has a large latino population and would like to see more books in the classroom that represent their culture. When thinking about a new book I would like to introduce to the classroom, I looked at Beaty and Pratts handout 2.1 to help me make an informed decision. I looked to make sure that the characters were realistic and that the children could relate to them. I looked for illustrations that were catchy and made sense. I looked for a book that was fast moving with lots of repetition.
The story that I decided on was Green is a Chile Pepper by Roseanne Greenfiled Thong. This picture book helps children learn about colors that are all around them. The objects of color are of Latino origin and they are presented with beautiful and bright illustrations. The story moves quickly and is written almost like a poem with lots of rhyming. The story shows pictures of children eating and dancing a playing with an emphasis on culture. I think that it would be a good book to introduce because the characters are realistics and do everyday things. Many children in my classroom might be able to relate to several parts of the story. And, the children that do not relate, can still talk about foods that they eat, or dances that they do with their friends and family. I also think that once we read this story together we could include it in many of the centers, including dramatic play and the literacy center.
Questions
1) Does your classroom have a large selection of multicultural books? Do your students read them?
2) How can you use multicultural books to provide a sense of belonging in the classroom?
3) When you were in school do you remember there being multicultural books available?

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


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God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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