Using a Text Set of Diverse Media to Teach Alternative Perspectives to Third Grade Students

This capstone project is centered on the question, how can a text set made of diverse books be used to teach alternative perspectives to third grade students? The author documents their experience both personally and professionally as well as their research that led them to create a fifteen lesson third grade literacy unit that teaches the critical literacy skill of alternative perspectives. This literacy unit focuses on students being able to distinguish their perspective from that of an author or character. Through the creation of this project, the author discovered important things about the topics of critical literacy, diverse books, text sets, and literacy curriculum. First, that the use of a backwards design when creating curriculum can have a major impact on student understanding. Second, that the definition of diversity in literature goes beyond racial diversity. Third, critical literacy principles state that every person brings their own unique interpretation of text to any reading experience. Finally, text sets can be used to expose students to as many authentic pieces of literature as possible, regardless of reading ability