Talking Points - Volume 15, Issue 2, 2004

The editors interview Donald Graves, who has inspired countless teachers through his books about learning, especially writing. The focus of the interview is on the personal experiences that have shaped Graves’s understanding of literacy.

Yvonne Freeman and David Freeman argue the importance of providing students with culturally relevant books and discuss their criteria for deciding if a book is culturally relevant to a particular child.

Francisco Jiménez, an award-winning author who began his life in the United States as a migrant farm worker, recounts two childhood experiences with teachers who helped shape his attitude toward literature and motivated him to become a teacher and a riter. Article available in print version only.

In this short essay, Jane Baskwill shares how her preschool writing experiences shaped her literacy development.

The author shows how her mother managed to connect with her students, many of them immigrants, in a tiny schoolhouse over fifty years ago. Her testimonial bears witness to the deeply personal nature of teaching and learning.

The author writes about the importance of words, especially as they relate to culture, as she reflects on memories of her immigrant mother.

After recounting some stories of her own literacy development, the author provides a lens through which teachers might personalize literacy with a problem-posing approach to learning. This method leads students of all ages to base new learning on personal experience in a way that encourages critical reflection.

The president of WLU, Amy Seely Flint, updates readers on what’s happening within the Whole Language Umbrella.