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When teaching children about history and diversity, it is important to keep them engaged in the story. One book can be selected to read to the class. After reading that book, the students can then act in a play about that book. This puts them in the shoes of the characters they read about, and will help them to empathize with the situations and with the characters. This will not only be entertaining, but it supports Becky Leathersich's emphasis on children seeing themselves in the books they read. (Lea Prusinowski).

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When teaching our students about history, whether that be a specific time period or diversity, children can choose their own diverse book that they can then do a book talk on. This will allow the student to explore a text that they are genuinely interested in, alongside connecting literacy to social studies. Once every student creates their book talks, they will present it to the class so every student can learn about the books and history that their peers read about. (Lea Prusinowski).

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Are there characters who demonstrated racism? If so, how did they demonstrate racism?

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Are there characters who demonstrated racism? If so, how did they demonstrate racism?

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After evaluating each character, it became apparent that this community isn't demonstrating racism, in fact it's the opposite. Most of the characters speak about the diverse nature of the community and the commonalities and cultural similarities they share. They also share how they are victims of racism themselves. Amir recalls a moment with an Italian women who called him a "dirty foreigner" and the negative impact of this statement as an immigrant from India. Another character, Maricela, is from Mexican descent and constantly faces the comments about fearing her as an illegal immigrant and a pregnant teenage one at that. The characters themselves do not appear racist but the outside community they face proves to be. (Olivia Bloise)

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One character in the text that displayed prejudice ideas and acted upon them was the second character, Ana.  The character Ana expressed prejudice ideas towards was the young Vietnamese girl in the fist chapter, Kim.  While not explicitly describing Kim’s race, Ana uses Kim’s black hair and the characters young age to fuel her assumption that Kim is doing something illegal or wrong when in truth Kim is planting the lima bean seeds in what will be the future community garden.  Ana believes that Kim is burying money or drugs in the dirt and even debates calling the cops on her (Fleischman, p.8).  Ana demonstrated her prejudice through her preconceived notions on Kim based on her appearance and age to judge her character and actions without getting to know Kim or even get a closer look at what Kim was planting.
(Yessenia Vargas)

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Students can begin writing in a reflection journal.  In these reflection journals, they can log their progress in the classroom so far, what their strengths and weaknesses are and ways they can improve.  In these journals, children can also talk about their growth academically and what helps them to best learn.  These would be great to implement once a month or every few weeks, and can serve as a great tool to bring into a parent-teacher conference. (Molly Baumer).

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After reading the book, the class can work together as a community to create a class garden.  We can assign roles for each week (someone to water, someone to pick weeds, someone to log growth...). Then, as the garden develops the class can reflect on what helped the garden to succeed and/or fail.  Lastly, the class can reflect on the importance of community and working together to support each other. (Molly Baumer).

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Instructional strategy 2: Independent study of diverse groups at a certain point in history 

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Instructional strategy 2: Independent study of diverse groups at a certain point in history 

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After learning about a specific time period in history, children can work through an independent study lesson where they each research a different cultural or racial group during that time period (18th century, 19th, 20th).  Then the class can come together and paint a picture of what ordinary people and different cultures experienced at that time.  The teacher would provide most of the research materials including culturally diverse books (non-fiction and historical fiction). (Molly Baumer).

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Instructional strategy 1: Using Religiously diverse books to learn about history

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Instructional strategy 1: Using Religiously diverse books to learn about history

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When teaching children about the history of our country and world, we can explain the religious diversity that provides a foundation for our country.  As Becky Leathersich explains, diverse texts can include religiously diverse books.  Children can pick a religion to learn about and read a book based on that religion, then they can religion fair where the children can present the different religions they learned about.  Or, the class can read books based on different religions throughout a unit instead of independently. (Molly Baumer).

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What activities and/or projects could you ask your students to do while reading or after reading this book?

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What activities and/or projects could you ask your students to do while reading or after reading this book?

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How can you connect this book to the social studies curriculum?

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How can you connect this book to the social studies curriculum?

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This book connects with the Civic Participation section of social studies curriculum.  This, meaning "demonstrating respect for the rights of others in discussions and classroom debates, regardless of whether one agrees with the other viewpoints" (NYS K-12 Social Studies Framework).  This relates to the book because we see the different cultures and how they seem to respect one another in the garden.  Also, the book emphasizes differences in groups and how they can still work together.
(Molly Baumer, Juliana Rivoli, Yessenia Vargas, Olivia Bloise, Lea Prusinowski).

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What was the community's culture? What and who helped establish the community's culture?

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What was the community's culture? What and who helped establish the community's culture?

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The community's culture was very diverse and isolated before the formation of the garden. The different cultural groups stuck together and often had prejudiced views of the other social groups. The formation of the community garden helped to establish a strong community culture. Kim was the character full of courage to be the one to make the first move in the creation of the garden, which resulted in great change for the community. Kim started planting seeds in honor of her father who passed away and the community members started to notice and feed into the garden’s activity. The garden started as separate groups with “blacks on one side, whites on one side, and central Americans and Asians towards the back” (Fleischman, p.33) but as time went on people of different races started to cross paths. People of different racial groups started to pass by the other group's garden areas when planting, gave out different vegetables, and would give each other advice on birth and raising kids. Specifically, Curtis goes on to explain that “people just appeared, people, you didn’t know where there” (Fleischman, p.56). A sense of comfort arose in this community. People protected one another when they were in danger and made genuine connections, despite their differences in the past. The community was brought together due to everyone’s appreciation and happiness because of the garden. The once separated, timid community turned into a welcoming safe space for all people in the community.
(Juliana Rivoli)

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4 to 5 instructional strategies and/or ways to connect literacy to social studies are included, and aligned with Becky Leathersich's diverse books presentation

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4 to 5 instructional strategies and/or ways to connect literacy to social studies are included, and aligned with Becky Leathersich's diverse books presentation