Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 4, Literature Dealing with Low Socio-Economics

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Regardless of your political preferences or perspectives, it is undeniable that we are entering into a time of great economic distress. More and more of our students are going to be dealing with poverty, hunger, and housing insecurity. The financial difficulty often leads to additional stresses at home, including parents working multiple jobs and domestic abuse.

The thing about poverty is that it is not always readily apparent, and it usually brings with it a great deal of shame.

Many families will be entering into a time of true need for the first time ever. They may be wearing the nice clothes they had before their parents lost their jobs, they may be picked up in a nice vehicle that they still own, and they may still have a fancy cell phone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to a secure home with a fully stocked kitchen.

As poverty increases, more of our students will be latch-key children with no one at home to care for them until late at night, much less reinforce their learning or make sure they do their homework. Many of them will now be babysitters, filling in for parents while they are at work.

For other students, this is nothing new.

But now community resources are stretched even more thin than they have been previously.

While reading can serve as an escape, it can also be very discouraging to only see characters who are privileged in movies, TV shows, and books.

It can be incredibly comforting and liberating for students to read about young people who are experiencing similar struggles but manage to survive or even overcome. If it hits a little too close to home, consider teaching stories that take place in a different setting or in which a character dealing with poverty is just one of the many characters in the story.

Another benefit is exposing students who are privileged to the experiences of living in poverty. They may never have considered the shame and pain that they are causing by talking about their most recent grand vacation, showing off new clothes, or bragging about birthday and Christmas presents.

Not to mention snide comments about off-brand shoes, generic lunches, or stained and holey clothing.

If nothing else, add some of these titles to your classroom.

As with all content, you should make sure that you have properly vetted, studied, and received approval for any piece before teaching it or even adding it to your classroom library.

Please add your favorite titles in the comments!