such as divorce, death, living overseas, or imprisonment. No two students’ situations are the same and by providing a variety of literature to students which covers a variety of parent/guardian situations I hope students feel understood and that they can relate to others and literature provided to them. I also aimed to include books where having a single parent was simply one aspect of the characters life and so it does not define them.

Rationale Of Why Topic Or Area Of Focus Is Important Diverse Literature For Elementary Students

I believe the topic I selected to research is one that is constantly present and necessary in the lives of my students. Children’s literature is a reflection of the culture from which it comes and as a society with many family dynamics, students deserve to be reflected and represented (Gritter, 2017). While not all students will be in a single parent household, it helps them to understand and potentially support their peers who may be in that situation. Discussions and access to diverse literature are important when building a positive classroom community and when teaching students to respect and appreciate the differences of people inside and outside their classroom (Van Horn, 2015). Reading can be such an outlet and escape for so many students and having literature accessible to them that they feel related and connected to only fosters that relationship with books. Students connect to books which have similar characters and issues to them in their life and providing books that reflect their own issues lead to vivacious and eager readers (Serafini & Moses, 2014). Sometimes authors write from their own experiences, books they wish had been available for them when they were in their youth, which leads to accurate and positively represented characters and situations, such as Roald Dahl who wrote about the life, he wished he’d had at school as a child.

Students end up in single or uncommon parent/guardian situations for a variety of reasons, but this does not mean that there should not be literature available to them to help them understand and be more comfortable with what is happening to them in their lives. It is not one story that exists when discussing single parents. Most people think immediately of single mothers, but there is a growing number of single fathers, about 22% of single parent families are single fathers (Census, 2016), single parents through adoption and grandparents who are parents to their grandchildren. All families are valued, and literature needs to be available in the classroom which shows more than just a single story.
Diverse literature is very important to include in all classrooms (Leland et al., 2012) but diverse does not only cover race, religion or economic situation; it also covers who loves and looks after you. Espec