Shweta Ganesh Kumar shared with me this TED Talk from novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about how "a single story" about another person or country can cause critical misunderstanding, and I felt that the talk really reflected why I started this blog. Please watch it below, if you haven't already: I sometimes teach creative writing to children and teens and have been very shocked to see that the first impulse of my students - all Filipinos or Chinese Filipinos ages 11-15 - is to write stories featuring characters with blond hair and blue eyes. It seems that, like the seven-year-old Adichie, my students have "a single story" about what literature is and do not think that people like them can exist in literature. (Needless to say, I am now trying to expose my students to more Filipino literature and literature from other Asian countries.) I blog because our students, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren, and godchildren NEED AND DESERVE more than "a ...
Cool! I liked the page already. I'm looking forward to your activities, especially for next month.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Nancy! And yes, National Children's Book Day is next month!
ReplyDeleteDone! It sounds as though you all had a fab time at the Lit Fest :-)
ReplyDeleteMarjorie, I wish you and Corinne had gone to the Little Lit Fest! :o(
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