Teaching Different Perspectives Through Literature

Teaching multicultural education can be difficult. Literature gives teachers a good starting point to introduce these difficult topics. One piece of literature that an elementary teacher could use in their classroom is The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. This story is told from the wolf's perspective. This could teach young students that everyone has a different view on many different topics. They could learn that it is not fair to pass judgment on anyone until they know the whole story. The students could then rewrite a different story using a different character's perspective. They could do this in groups so they can see how difficult it is to get everyone to agree on how the story should go. By the end of the lesson, the teacher could go over some societal issues on racism and prejudice (age appropriate of course) and have the students try to think about the problem from the other perspective. They could talk about whether it is fair to pass judgment if we do not know the whole story. This would be a fun way to talk about a serious issue.

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