Their Story: Unveiling the Truth

Undergraduate Review Volume 19 Article 10 2025 Their Story: Unveiling the Truth Lauren Zorovic Follow this and additional works at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev Recommended Citation Zorovic, Lauren (2025). Their Story: Unveiling the Truth. Undergraduate Review, 19, 87-100. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol19/iss1/10 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Copyright © 2025 Lauren Zorovic COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HEALTH SCIENCES Their Story: Unveiling the Truth Lauren Zorovic Introduction History lessons in grades K-2 include mostly white peoples’ perspectives, with little attention to the histories of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations in the U.S. Despite public school populations becoming more diverse, BIPOC students have been less likely than their white peers to see people of their race or ethnicity in history lessons, due in part to some lawmakers thinking implementing BIPOC history will take away white people's history in school lessons. The purpose of this research was to create a website that gives teachers access to positive and manageable ways to implement more racial perspectives into their history lessons without taking away traditionally taught perspectives. The result is a Googe site website, https://sites.google.com/view/theirstoryunveilingthetruth?usp=sharing, which is meant to serve as a guide especially for 1st- and 2nd-grade teachers. It includes eight complete lesson plans, as well as resources for talking with families and book recommendations for both teachers and children. One of the lesson plans, on Exploring the Diversity in the United States, is also provided at the end of this article. This research utilized evidence-based practices that promote implementing more racial diversity in history lessons, drawing from online resources, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Learning for Justice site, and from several books, including Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen (2018), We Want to Do More than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love (2019), and Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum (2017). The knowledge gained went into writing the literature review portion of the project, which guided the lesson plans and resources for the website. The results of this work demonstrated that implementing more racial diversity in history lessons can positively add to the history stories children learn about. Results also showed that teachers can benefit from this work because learning more about their students' backgrounds helps them be better teachers. Children’s Literature: How to Select Books Selecting children’s books to talk about race with students is important and must be done with care and attention. Even with so many diverse books out there, some award-winning diverse books can show misrepresentation and misappropriation (Derman-Sparks et al., 2011, p. 115). How should teachers go about selecting diverse, multicultural books to talk to their students about race? The answer is to use a set of criteria for selecting diverse books, which is used for the books on the website I designed. These criteria cover the range of features that are found in children’s books, including the illustrations, storyline, and characters, among others. The criteria include specific questions about each feature to make sure the books are portraying an accurate version of diverse characters. One question that is asked about children’s books is simply, do the book’s storyline and characters portray accurate and authentic versions of the races in current life? (Derman-Sparks et al., 2011, p. 170). This allows teachers to see if the book is relevant for today’s world in terms of how different races are portrayed in the writing and pictures. Another question that is asked is, can all the children and their families be BRIDGEWATER STATE UNIVERSITY | 87 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HEALTH SCIENCES seen in the books in the classroom? (Derman-Sparks, et al., 2020, p. 45). This is important for teachers to ask because it allows for all students to be able to connect to the books by being accurately represented in them. A similar question is, who are the heroes in the story, and do they represent the races, cultural identities, and languages in the classroom? (Derman-Sparks, et al., 2011). Moving beyond the content of the book, teachers also could consider the author and illustrator of the book. Knowing the author and illustrator may help determine whether the book is portraying the lived experiences of authors’ and illustrators’ backgrounds and perspectives. The author’s and illustrator’s background can indicate whether they are engaging with the subject based on their experience, race, culture, ethnicity, etc. (DermanSparks et al., 2011, p. 170). All of these questions can help teachers choose high-quality multicultural books for their classrooms. Using Critical Literacy with Children’s Literature to Explore Race Critical literacy is an important concept teachers need to include as they read multicultural books to their students to explore race. Critical literacy is critically looking at literature while keeping in mind the political, sociocultural, historical, and economic forces that shape young students' lives (Soares & Wood, 2023). Essentially, it acknowledges that forces from society affect books that young students read, which impacts their thinking. Additionally, critical literacy focuses on developing a critical stance, which encourages students to engage in social action to make the world a better place (Lee & Camicia, 2023). Using this approach enables teachers to engage their students in more in-depth thinking about a book, which allows students to become more aware of their broader society. This also allows teachers to teach their students to search for voices that are amplified in the book and ones that are muted (Soares & Wood, 2023). There are specific ways to implement critical literacy that teachers should learn before teaching it to 88 | THE UNDERGRADUATE REVIEW 2025 students. One way is to look at the multiple perspectives in the books they read themselves. Examining the perspectives in the book allows teachers to understand who is talking and who is not and to ask students questions about that. This makes the students' learning more meaningful as the teacher has a goal of what they want their students to learn and can guide students' learning process. For example, the teacher could ask students who is talking in the story (Brichi’s lit spot, n.d.). Based on what students say, the teacher can ask more questions, helping students think critically about the perspectives they hear in the book. This skill of using follow-up questi (...truncated)