Reading the Word: Copper Sun

 

    

Reflection:

This semester in my "Literature for Older Children" class I asked the professor if I could read a text that was not listed on the syllabus for our historical fiction book clubs, Copper Sun.  Liz (another student in the class) and I asked to read this text because it was by an urban realistic fiction author that many of our students enjoyed, Sharon Draper.  I have included some of the reading notebook pages that I created in response to the book above.  I chose to include my reading of this text in my portfolio for many reasons.  For one, reading this text had a profound impact on my perspective on slavery in this country.  In the story, Amari is captured from her village in Africa and brought to South Carolina and sold into slavery.  I had not previously read such a detailed personal slave narrative (although it was fictional).  I chose to include my notebook pages to show what I was thinking about as I read: tracking characters, noticing changes in character relationships, and creating a visual representation of how it felt to move from the familiar territory of her village, Ziavi, into the unknown.  This young adult book depicts brutality, murder, and rape.  There are many middle schools that would not include this text in 7th/8th grade libraries because of some of the content.  In addition to the more standard reading response and comprehension work that I did while reading this text, I had a critical response as well.  In my reflections on what made this text so powerful for me many questions arose:

• Who decides what types of violence are acceptable to include in young adult texts?
• If this were a war story with soldiers being killed would it be as heavily censored?
• What impact does the legacy of slavery continue to have on people of African descent?
• Why have I never been exposed to this type of vivid personal account of slavery until this point in my education?  
• What sides of the story are neglected to be presented in this particular narrative?
• Why hasn't the US government formally taken responsibility for slavery as a part of its history as a nation?  
• Who is included when Americans talk about "our" nation?  
• What impact does slavery and language acquisition in slavery have on African American Dialect? 

Through a more critical reading of this text, current-day implications emerged.  I was able to view an issue that I was already familiar with, slavery, from a new perspective.