Reading Level: 3-5
Genre: Multicultural
Maria Isabel Salazar Lopez loves her name and the story of all the relatives she is named after but when her family must move because her father gets a new job there are already two Marias in her new class, this leaves Maria Isabel with the name Mary Lopez. Maria doesn't understand why she isn't allowed to go by her name and her school work even begins to suffer as Maria struggles to identify herself with this new label of Mary Lopez. Maria's class puts on a cultural display of the various winter holidays and Maria would love to sing one of the songs but Mary Lopez never participates in class so Maria is left out of the festivities even though her parents have promised to get off work to see Maria perform.
This story is a great lesson on the importance of allowing people to identify who they want to be themselves and being sensitive to each individual student. As a project to go along with this book I would have my students research the origins of their names. They could search online, interview their parents or any other method and then create a project based on their findings. This could connect to social studies because the research could turn into a family tree project and discuss the immigration of different people to the US which would really connect well to the time period from the 1920's to now.
No comments:
Post a Comment