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Teaching Strategies

For teaching strategies on how to integrate literature into your courses, visit the Diversity Center's Educator|Resources on Teaching Empathy and Critical Thinking Using Books (Social Justice 101), Making Space for Free-Choice Reading Alongside Textbooks in Social Work Generalist Courses, and the Center Library resource page. See also Literature as Exploration and two K-12 books on multiculturalism that can be applied to college education and across cultures, Stories Matter: The Complexity of Cultural Authenticity in Children’s Literature and A Magical Encounter: Latino Children's Literature in the Classroom.

Center Library

Literature serves as a powerful pedagogical tool to motivate critical thinking on interculturality and social justice. Diversity Center Director Dr. Yolanda Padilla curates a collection of contemporary books that engage students in the exploration of a range of social issues. Included in this collection are memoirs and ethnographies; traditional, graphic, and science fiction novels; and books on social analysis/social action. The last section is a collection of children’s books that offer an appreciation of cultural worldviews through folk tales and other stories. Book covers are organized by genre and alphabetized by book title. Click on the book cover for a description of the book. A corresponding book list provides publication information. 
 

 

Special Collection of Asian and Asian American Literature

The-Beast.png
Barefoot-Woman.png Black-Lotus.jpg The-Best-We-Could-Do.jpg
Good-Talk.jpg America-is-not-the-Heart.jpg The-Boat-People.jpg Exit-West.jpg
The-Kinship-of-Secrets.jpg Map-os-Salt-and-Stars.jpg On-Earth-We-re-Briefly.jpg A-Place-for-Us.jpg
Tokyo-Ueno-Station.jpg LUX-Women-Dreaming.jpg Black-Wave.jpg Good-Muslim-Bad-Muslim.jpg
       

Narrative Nonfiction

After-the-Last-Border.png The-Beast.png
Barefoot-Woman.png Black-Lotus.jpg Children-of-the-Land.png
Dear-America.jpg The-Making-of-a-Teenage-Service-Class.png
Dirty-River.jpg Domestica.png
The-Girl-Who-Smiled-Beads.jpg The-Girl-With-Seven-Names.jpg
Good-Girls-Revolt.png Here-We-Are.png The-Home-Place.png Homeward.jpg
Hundreds-of-Interlaced-Fingers.jpg The-Death-and-life-of-Aida-Hernandez.png
Luther-Standing-Bear.jpg Mukiwa.png Negroland.png
Notes-From-a-Young-Black-Chef.jpg One-Time-One-Place.jpg
Spirit-Catches-You-and-You-Fall-Down.png There-Will-Be-No-Miracles-Here.png They-Leave-Their-Kidneys-in-the-Fields.png
Travels-with-Lizbeth.png $2-00-A-Day.png The-Undying.png The-Ungrateful-Refugee.png
With-the-Old-Breed.png The-Yellow-House.jpg

Nonfiction Graphic Novels

Belonging.png The-Best-We-Could-Do.png Good-Talk.png
 

Fiction 

Apeirogon.png
The-Gone-Dead.jpg Gringo-Champion.png Home-Fire.jpg
House-of-Stone.jpg
Midnight-s-Children.jpg
My-Part-of-Her.png On-Earth-We-re-Briefly-Gorgeous.jpg the-other-americans.jpg The-Poet-X.jpg
Refuge.png Slash-and-Burn.png
Ta-Nehisi-Coats-the-Water-Dancer.png
Women-Dreaming.png    

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Always-North.png
The-Deep.png
The-Forever-War.png The-Freedom-Artist.png
Parable-of-the-Sower.jpg
The-Wall.jpg
   

Fiction Graphic Novels

Social Analysis/Activism

Afrotopia.png As-Long-as-Grass-Grows.jpg Automating-Inequality.png
Becoming-Ms-Burton.jpg Becoming-Transnational-Youth-Workers.jpg Becoming-Wise-an-Inquiry-into-the-Mystery-and-Art-of-Living.jpg
Biological-Exuberance.jpg Black-Wave.png
The-Boys-Crusade.png Can-t-Stop-Won-t-Stop.png The-Casualty-Gap.png
The-Class-Ceiling.jpg The-Closing-of-the-American-Mind.png Dispossession-and-the-Environment.jpg
El-Norte.png Book-Cover-Race-Question.jpg
Fight-of-the-Century.png
Forgotten-Citizens.png Fragile-Families.png Good-Economics-for-Hard-Times.png Good-Muslim-Bad-Muslim.jpg
Ghosts-in-the-Schoolyard.png Guest-House-for-Young-Widows.png Home-and-Exile.png
How-to-Be-An-Antiracist.png How-to-Do-Nothing.png Hungry-Translations.png Hustle-and-Gig.png
The-Injustice-Never-Leaves-You.png Jay-Z.png
Light-of-the-Stars.jpg
Memes-to-Movements.jpg No-BS.png
The-Ones-We-ve-Been-Waiting-For.png The-Poisoned-City.png On-Being-Included.png
Permanent-Record.png Reason-in-a-Dark-Time.jpg Refuge-Beyond-Reach.png
A-Sand-County-Almanac.jpg Salt-Sugar-Fat.png Secondhand-Time.png The-Sixth-Extinction.png
We-Are-the-Weather.png Solution-Focused-Brief-Therapy.jpg
The-Social-Transformation-of-American-Medicine.jpg Stamped-from-the-Beginning.jpg Tethered-Fates.png
Trauma-Stewardship.png The-the-World-May-Know.png The-Uninhabitable-Earth.png Unequal-City.jpg
The-Warmth-of-Other-Suns.png
Where-Do-We-Go-From-Here.png Who-s-the-Bigot.png Wilmington-s-Lie.png
     

Children's Literature 

Great-Soybean-Picnic.png Bowwow-Powwow.png A-Differnt-Pond.png Dreamers.png
Family-Pictures.png Firebird-(1).png Grandpa-Cacao.png Islandborn.png
Jack-Agyu.png Leila-in-Saffron.png Black-Fish.png My-First-Book-of-Haiku-Poems.png
My-LIfe-with-the-Wave.png The-Name-Jar.png The-Promise.png Sharing-Our-World.png
Sulwe.png The-Three-Questions.png Where-Are-You-From.png Windcatcher.png

Featured Book 

Trauma-Stewardship-(1).png

In the Black tradition of education as an act of political resistance, “more than empty vessels to be filled, black students are discovered to be conscious participants, dissident learners” (p. 24).  
—Jarvis R. Givens, Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching 

Genre: Social Analysis