Understanding Islam Through Young Adult Literature

This blog post will cover two articles from recent issues of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, both dealing with helping students understand Islam.  This is an issue close to my heart.  I spent a month in Egypt in 2009 with other teachers, learning more about Egypt, Islam, and the ways that we often misunderstand many aspects of both Islam and the Middle East (such as the fact that Islam and the Middle East are NOT synonymous).  The first article, "Negotiating Understanding Through the Young Adult Literature of Muslim Cultures,"  by Allison Baer and Jacqueline Glasgow, focuses on using fiction to understand culture, whereas the second, "Critical Literacy: Using Nonfiction to Learn About Islam," by Stephen Phelps, obviously talks about how to use nonfiction to learn more factual information about Islam and dispel myths from realities. 

The authors of both articles point out that there is a definite need for more general knowledge about Islam, and I agree.  Many people do not know much about Islam, and don't have a desire to, easily associating Islam with terrorism.  Such a knee-jerk reaction does not do justice to the incredibly variety of people who identify as Muslims, or to the many different variations of Islam practiced around the world (to put it in more familiar terms, there is quite a range of beliefs between Unitarians, Quakers, Southern Baptists, snake-handling churches, and Catholics, even though they all identify as some branch of Christianity.  It's impossible to say what Christianity definitively is based on the beliefs of any one of these denominations, but many people do this about Islam!  "All Muslims are…” or “Oh, those Selafis…” etc.)   It may not even be possible for future generations of Americans to have the luxury of ignorance about Islam and the Middle East, however, as the world becomes even more globally-connected and the Muslim population in America and outside continues to grow.  Baer and Glasgow (and Phelps too) point out a number of myths and surprising facts in the beginning of their articles.  Worldwide, Muslims account for about 20-25% of the world's population (Christians are about 33%), and are a quickly-growing group within America.  (Interestingly, in America, 20% of Muslims are African American, and only 37% are of Arab descent (according to Phelps's sources).   Many people seem to use the words "Muslim" and "Arab" as interchangeably, but that is just not accurate.) 

Both articles use a critical theory framework.  They both defend the use of multicultural literature as a means to come to critical literacy, in which students are aware of the implicit power structure in their readings.  Phelps includes the following four dimensions as part of critical literacy: "disrupting the commonplace," "interrogating multiple viewpoints," focusing on sociopolitical issues," and "taking action and promoting social justice" (192).  Baer and Glasgow say that texts should be chosen and discussed to "address issues of power and privilege in society" (they actually cite Sonia Nieto here, "Understanding Multicultural Education in a Sociopolitical Context" (2010)). I think that Baer and Glasgow would agree with Bogun Yoon (author of my last post) that that multicultural literature should not be used superficially, as some kind of cultural tokenism to trot out in food festivals or by simply having protagonists of many backgrounds.  The benefits of multicultural literature for Baer and Glasgow center around cultural understanding and validation of diverse student backgrounds.  For Phelps, though, even including texts from a variety of cultural perspectives is not enough (as Yoon showed with her analysis of the implicit immigrant assimilation messages).  Phelps takes more of a classic critical theory perspective, saying that teachers should raise questions about social justice with students, and potentially create action plans. 

After Baer and Glasgow’s rationale for teaching multicultural literature (including fiction related to Islam), they provide a list of such literature, and an in-depth description of several works.  They review several recent novels, like Does My Head Look Big in This? (Abdel-Fattah, 2007) and The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (Kahf, 2006).  The former is set in the US and the latter in Australia; both deal with issues of identity and fitting in (in this case, fitting into Western culture as a Muslim girl), a theme to which many teenagers can relate.  They also review several nonfiction memoirs, which notably, are both set in Afghanistan and tell the story of women whose rights were horribly curtailed.  (Note: again, let me emphasize that it is imperative that students do NOT read only a book like that and draw conclusions about Islam or the Middle East.)  The authors end by giving examples of instructional techniques they feel would go well with these books and this topic: the Socratic seminar and process drama (by process drama, they mean creating a scenario related to the book for students to act out, and gain empathy and understanding, like a court case or a presentation to the school board).

Phelps makes many of the same points – that multicultural literature and critical literacy are vital for students.  Unlike Baer and Glasgow though, Phelps is brutally honest about the potential challenges of talking about a controversial topic like Islam. He writes, “Practical classroom application of critical theory is not for the fainthearted” (193), and anticipates difficult discussions around the role of women in Islam, the church-state relationship, and Palestine (193) (definitely an issue about which so many Egyptians and others in the region care about passionately).  Phelps chose texts based on their relevance to the themes of being bicultural and being Muslim in America.  He reviews only nonfiction texts like Red, White, and Muslim: My Story of Belief (Hasan 2009). His main point is to complicate the easy associations students often make between Islam, Muslims, and various stereotypical concepts.  Phelps says, “Islam and a consideration of multiple viewpoints would encourage students to move beyond a ‘good Muslim/bad Muslim’ binary that demonizes any Muslim whose beliefs might diverge from dominant Western secular and political narratives” (197).

These two articles speak to each other quite well.  Of course, they are about similar topics and make similar points about the importance of learning about what it means to be Muslim.  Kind of funny though - Baer and Glasgow actually fall into some of the pitfalls that that Phelps identifies.  Baer and Glasgow include Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (by Suzanne Fisher Staples) on their bibliography; Phelps points out the Shabanu is exactly the kind of Orientalist nonsense he is trying to fight against, with the novel's exotic sand, camels, tribes, and barbaric arranged marriages.  The authors of both articles, though, argue against "essentializing" an entire religion and/or region to a few key tropes.   I know that at my school we read Deborah Ellis's The Breadwinner.  Kids mostly liked the plot (girl in Afghanistan, dresses up like a boy to provide for her family since girls cannot walk around openly), but that one portrayal is hardly a comprehensive view of the region or the religion of Islam. 

Baer and Glasgow open their article with a quote from President Obama's 2009 Cairo speech to the Muslim World, in which he remarked on the economic success of the 7 million American Muslims.  When I was in Egypt shortly after Obama's speech, people were overjoyed.  People would stop us on the street and say, "Ameriki?" or "You are from America?" and when we said yes, many people would just say, "Obama!"  Unfortunately, I do not believe that this is still the attitude two years later, with many policies unchanged despite overthrowing Mubarak.

Baer, A. L. and J. N. Glasgow.  (2010).  "Negotiating Understanding Through the Young Adult Literature of Muslim Cultures."  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Vol. 54, No. 1 (September 2010), pp. 23-32.

Phelps, S.  (2010).  "Critical Literacy: Using Nonfiction to Learn About Islam."  Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy.  Vol. 54, No. 3 (November 2010), pp. 190–198.