Re: Help! Need neutral hist. fiction...
Dick Jane Katie (djkjones@erols.com)
Mon, 17 Aug 1998 11:50:45 +0000
Dear Bob,
Gender Neutral fiction - I'm not sure what you want exactly, but
there are a lot of good collections of myths, lengends, and folktales
that tie in with history and culture. If you specifically look for women
as heroic figures, you will find that their tales are a little sublte,
but still, at least, combat the image presented in many history texts
that women had little to contribute.
What I do is agument my basic myth text with a collection of tales
that celebrate women: THE GREAT DEEDS OF HEROIC WOMEN by retold by
Maurice Saxby and WISE WOMEN Folk and Fairy Tales from around the World
retold by Suzanne I. Barchers - both of these are available from Amazon.
Right now I'm reading UPPITY WOMEN which is "non-fiction".
The short bios of ancient women who where learned etc. is facinating,
but some are R rated so you'd need to pick and choose.
Will you be teaching in a team situation - your English or language
arts teacher should be a good source. He or she should try to work with
you to give your students the best balance. I'm the eighth grade
language arts teacher on my team and work with my history team teacher
to be sure we coordinate what we do.
How old is your text? You may be up for a new adoption shortly and
most new books are somewhat more sensitive. However, the good news is
that there is a lot of supplemental material out there. Ask for some
Language Arts catalogues and you should be able to do a better job of
offering a balanced picture of history.
Jane Jones
djkjones@erols.com