Developing Understandings of Culture for Young Readers, Writers, and Artists through Global Literature

This article provides an overview onto the goals of the Vail Literacy Community and how teachers worked to achieve them. Through readings, discussions, and experiences, they worked to enrich and deepen students' understandings of themselves as complex cultural beings; their respect for cultural perspectives and ways of living different than their own; their desire to learn about others and the world; and, their concern for issues in the world. An additional intent was to provide art and writing experiences that invited students to create their own meanings multimodally, which was done through developing a Storying Studio where global literature was read and discussed, art was examined, and students were encouraged to reflect on the story, their learning, and/or the art.