It is imperative for teachers to explore the backgrounds of students in many different ways to help them learn to their best ability. There are many different ways for students to connect personally and culturally to reading. In Triplett’s article she discusses the importance of book talks as a way of getting to know students and their backgrounds in an experience-text relationship (ETR). She states “ETR is an instructional conversation strategy meant to help teachers integrate cultural relevance into comprehension instruction” (64). I like this statement because from experience in the classroom as a student and as a future teacher in the College of Education, I have seen many scenarios where students share experiences during book talks and connect to the story in many different ways when they would not be given the chance to discuss otherwise. She mentions that it is important to get children thinking and connecting to the book before the book is even opened by asking prompt questions. For TE 301, my CT always asked questions before reading the text to get the children involved and motivated before they knew what the title of the book was. I always liked listening to the stories and answers that the kids produced from the questions she asked because they could tell you a lot about the culture and home life of students. Although it is hard to make time for book talks in the classroom with the required material and tests that students are given nowadays, teachers have to understand that book talks are very important. Students can connect to the book and also connect with other students who share some aspects of their diverse culture, while also learning to become better readers. Whether small groups or large book talk discussion, children can connect to the book and discuss their personal connections with each other.
Another way to learn about students and their cultural experiences is to have a diverse selection of books. I know that when I was in elementary school we did not have that many diverse books for the few diverse students that attended my school to relate to. Having a diverse selection of books will allow every student to connect to books differently and having book talks about diverse books allow for different experiences to be shared for the whole class to learn about. To better understand every individual backgrounds you could always have every student create their own stories about themselves. I always enjoyed the Young Author books that we worked on in elementary. We were given blank books and a topic for which we could go about creating in any way possible. Some topics that could help me as a teacher learn more about students would be “All About Me”, “My Culture”, “My Favorite Personal Memories” and even “What People Do Not Know About Me”. These topics would allow the students to reach into their memory bank and past experiences so they can share with the class diverse literature created by students.