Using literature to educate students about conflicts concerning identity, religion and perspectives: Ten Things I Hate About Me and Does My Head Look Big In This?

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Högskolan i Halmstad

Sektionen för lärarutbildningen Engelska 61-90

Vt. 2011

Using literature to educate students about conflicts concerning identity, religion and perspectives: Ten Things I Hate About

Me and Does My Head Look Big In This?

Kristin Edvinsson C-essay Tutor: Anna Fåhraeus

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Abstract

The aim with this study is to demonstrate how the protagonists in Randa Abdel-Fattah´s novels Ten Things I Hate About Me and Does My Head Look Big In This? deal with conflicts concerning identity and religion but also to show how teachers can work with diversity and different perspectives with students. In this essay, the assumption is that most teenagers probably have many similar experiences in their lives despite differences. I attempt to show how teachers can use literature in the classroom while educating their students about

multiculturalism and identities. The essay shows how Abdel-Fattah’s two books can help an ESL teacher in the classroom. My argument is that these two novels would work well as tools to educate students about multiculturalism, identity and Islam. The study argues that the conflicts in the two novels could be recognized by many students and therefore useful to work with.

The Swedish school system is built on a common value-system that says that we should help the students become democratic citizens. We should also discourage all sort of discrimination.

In this essay I show how using fiction can do this. Several parts from the novels are high lighted to show how I believe one can use them for education purposes. To support my arguments I use theories such as: Your teen´s search for identity by Bellows and Teaching diversity by Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen. They have helped me to prove that it is positive to use fiction, and furthermore that teenagers do have similar issues as the

protagonists. The essay thus argues that these books could help students to understand themselves, others and different cultures.

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Contents

Introduction ... 4

Main research question and secondary literature... 5

Pedagogical focus... 7

Novel selections ... 9

Background and summary of Does My Head Look Big In This? ... 9

Background and summary of Ten Things I Hate About Me ... 10

Perspectives and diversity... 12

Conflicts concerning religion... 16

Conflicts concerning identity... 19

Conclusion ... 26

Works cited ... 28

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Introduction

When I started to think about what to write about in my C-essay I knew from the beginning that I wanted to write about real problems and issues the students have in their teenage lives.

We live in a country where we have many different cultures represented and in each

classroom there is a mix of different individuals. When I was growing up, in a small town in Sweden, we did not have one single person in my class with a foreign background. We did not learn much about different cultures and other life styles than the one we already knew.

However, today there is a completely different situation. I do not believe I have ever walked into a classroom during my time as a teacher trainee without meeting several individuals that originally are from another country and therefore from another culture.

I believe that it is a teacher’s responsibility to educate their students to become aware of what democracy means and about different cultures and the fact that there are many students that have a multicultural background. Therefore, I have chosen to read two novels that deal with this. The novels are about two young individuals that struggle with their identity and culture.

How can they help me, as a teacher, to educate my future students about multiculturalism, perspectives, religion and identities? The method I have used is to look at the internal and external conflicts the two main characters have. I believe that even if a person is different from another in terms of culture, language, and beliefs, there are several similarities that humans share, wherever they might come from. That is something I believe is important to teach the students about in school.

The aim of this essay is therefore to try to demonstrate how the two teenagers in Randa Abdel-Fattah’s novels Does My Head Look Big In This? and Ten Things I Hate About Me deal with conflicts, identity and religion. I will try to apply these things to teenagers in general

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and look at this from a classroom perspective. How can I use this knowledge while teaching my students about identity, multiculturalism and religion? However, I will only focus on Jamilah in Ten Things I Hate About Me at the end of the analysis.

In Swedish schools we have a goal that education should be based on fundamental democratic values. Our goal as teachers is to educate the students about every human’s self-worth and to have respect for each other. We should also discourage all forms of discrimination. I will show how one could use the two novels I have read with this in mind. I have used different secondary literature in this essay. Some of them take a more political point of view on multiculturalism, religion and identity such as S. Coleman and P. Collins’ Religion, Identity and Change and T. Modood, A. Triandafyllidou and R. Zapata-Barrero´s Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship. These books have helped me understand more about Muslims and more specifically about Muslim teenagers. They have also given me a deeper understanding of what it could be like to be a Muslim in a non-Muslim society. The other sources I have used deal with both the search for an identity, teaching diversity and how to use literature in the classroom. I believe if we succeed in doing this, there will be a better climate in the classroom and the students would become better critical thinkers and more open-minded individuals.

Main research question and secondary literature

The research question in this essay is how the protagonists in the two novels deal with conflicts regarding identity and religion, but also how the novels can be useful while talking about diversity and different perspectives. To find an answer to the first question, I have done a close reading and looked at the three main areas separately: perspectives and diversity, identity, and religion. The definition my secondary literature gives for “identity” in relation to

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teenagers, is: “They find themselves disoriented, scared and alone. They become moody, secretive and sarcastic...In the teenage years, young people begin their quests for identity”.

1This source will give me support to understand and answer the questions about the protagonist’s identity issues.

In this essay I will also show how I believe one could use these two novels in the classroom.

For my analysis, “Teaching 'Diversity': A Place to Begin” by Janet Gonzalez-Mena and Dora Pulido-Tobiassen, has been very helpful. For example, they suggest that teachers have to help students to learn how to be critical thinkers, and furthermore that teachers should teach about prejudice and discrimination.²

Peter Adler has written an article called: “Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on

Multiculturalism”. This article has been used frequently in the essay when the aim has been to understand what an identity is and what it can be like to be ethnic in a mainstream white Christian culture. P. Adler’s has helped support my basic values, that every human shares many things although we have different cultures, beliefs and personalities. This is important for me as a teacher to teach my future students.

D.E. Alverman and S.F. Phelps have made a list of benefits in using fictional literature to increase the understanding and the starting point for many interesting discussions. Their list contains six different benefits, however number four, five and six are the ones I will use in

1 Gonzalez-Mena, Janet and Pulido-Tobiassen, Dora. “Teaching “Diversity”: A Place to Begin.” Early Childhood Today, Nov. 1999. April 2011. Web.

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this essay. 4:”literature goes beyond the facts”, 5:”literature allows readers to experience other times, other places, other people and other cultures with empathy” and 6: “literature can be a powerful catalyst for thoughtful analysis and critical thinking” (Stix and George, 2).

This study begins with a brief chapter about the pedagogical focus of this essay and also about teenagers’ conflicts in general. Thereafter, I try to demonstrate why and how I believe

teachers could use literature as a tool when the students work with things like identity, religion and diversity. Furthermore that chapter demonstrates why I as a teacher should find this important to be aware of. After that brief summaries of the two novels are presented. This is followed by the analysis and discussion about the conflicts that I have found in the novels and how a teacher could use them in the classroom. Finally, the essay ends with a conclusion about what has been discovered and discussed.

Pedagogical focus

Being a teenager was, as most of us might remember, both wonderful and hard. I believe that almost every teenager has difficulties sometime during their teen years with relationships in one way or another. It can be in relationships with others, or one’s relationship with oneself or for that matter, one’s relationship with the environment one is in. Aside from this, teenagers might struggle with love and romance, living with parents, being a good friend, making decisions, how to relate to sex, drugs and alcohol.

This is just a sample of some of the conflicts teenagers might have to deal with. As a teacher, I have the opportunity to see a lot of this in the classroom. A teenager’s conflicts do not stay at home when the school day starts, he or she brings their issues and thoughts in a backpack that sometimes is quite apparent. The teachers have to deal with this, whether the teacher wants to or not.

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The school day does not only include teaching, as all teachers know. A lot of a teacher’s job consists of dealing with conflicts and different situations where the students have something on their mind. I believe that a good way of dealing with conflicts, identity issues and

relationships is to include discussions and tasks about it in the classroom. One way of doing this is to have discussions in small or larger groups. In every school I have been in, there is a scheduled hour for discussions about life. In my opinion this is very good, however I believe the teachers could do even more. Using fiction in the classroom is a very good way. Gallo suggests that: “young adult novels are valuable tools for helping teenagers to understand themselves and to see their place in the world…” (26). That is why I believe fiction could be a useful tool while teaching about conflicts concerning identity, perspectives and diversity and religion.

In the introduction to their article “Teaching 'Diversity': A Place to Begin” Janet-Gonzalez and Dora Pulido-Tobiassen suggest that: “Building positive identities and a respect for differences means weaving diversity into the fabric of children's everyday lives”.³ I strongly agree with them and I believe that this is something every teacher should have in mind while working in school. “Positive Identities” to me means that teenagers should know that all human beings are equal and I want them to see diversity as something positive and be able to learn from it. Instead of judging others, they should learn critical thinking and to become open-minded about things they do not know that much about.

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Novel selections

I accept as true that teenagers like to read about other teenagers and their lives. L.J. Smith and H. Johnsson state that, “Literature can become the lens through which content is viewed. This lens holds the young reader’s attention while connecting content with the variety of human experiences” (Stix & George, 2). A. Stix and M. George agree with this and add: “Indeed, as it does for many adults, fiction can bring historical figures alive for young people and allow them to explore the reality of life, culture, and society in a given historical period” (2).

If I were to teach multiculturalism, identity and religion it would be preferable to have some kind of literature to demonstrate my thoughts with because I believe that this could deepen student understanding. As a teacher I would like for my students to learn that diversity is respectable and something we can learn from. Furthermore I believe that the students could understand the search for identity easier if they had the opportunity to read about it.

Moreover, I imagine that religion is a subject that could be hard for the students to absorb and therefore I believe fiction could help them receive a new perspective and view on different religions. Personally I believe that it is important to teach about these things and I would prefer to do it in as interesting a way as possible for the students. This is why I have chosen Ten Things I Hate About Me and Does My Head Look Big In This as my primary literature in this essay.

Background and summary of Does My Head Look Big In This?

The second novel I have chosen to analyze is: Does My Head Look Big In This. This was Randa Abdel-Fattah’s debut novel and it came out in 2006. It is also a novel that in my opinion would be appropriate for young adults. The language in this novel is suitable for

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young adults and teenagers, and furthermore it deals with conflicts I think the teacher can use in the classroom while educating students about multiculturalism, identity and religion.

In this novel the reader becomes acquainted with the protagonist Amal. She is, just like Jamilah, a Muslim girl. Amal is fighting with her emotions. She wants to wear the hijab full- time but she is nervous about how people around her will react. She is afraid of what people in her school will think, nevertheless, she is determined to take this step (8-9).

She is a brave and strong girl with many thoughts about life as a Muslim teenager. She does not hide her background and culture, however she has not worn the hijab in a very long time and she is affected by the society she lives in and their assumptions. This cultural collision appears as soon as Amal walks into school with the hijab on. When she talks to the head master at her school she has to defend herself and the hijab. The head master believes that Amal has been forced to wear the hijab and Amal has a quite hard time explaining to her that she is wrong (36-37).

There is a constant struggle in the novel about, culture, identity, self-respect, determination and feelings. I believe that this novel gives the reader a quite good lesson. It gives the reader an opportunity to see a different perspective of the world and it explains very well what it can be like to be a Muslim today. That is why I believe that this novel could work well in the classroom.

Background and summary of Ten Things I Hate About Me

Ten Things I Hate About Me, is a novel written by Randa Abdel-Fattah. It was published in May 2010. On the book-cover it is recommended to all readers, however because of its plot and the age of the main characters I find it most suitable for young adults. To deepen this

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statement I would say that it would be a good book to read in upper secondary school because I find the language suitable and appropriate to the overall language level students in an ESL classroom possess. Another reason to use it in school is that the main characters are the same age as the students would be in these grades, and it contains a lot of issues many teenagers can relate to, such friendships, relations, the search for identity, family and school, etcetera.

The novel is about Jamie, or Jamilah, which is her full name. She is a Lebanese-Muslim girl, but nobody in her class has any idea. She does everything she can to hide her background.

She struggles with internal conflicts about being the person she really is or to keep it a secret from her friends. She is afraid that if she reveals the truth, everybody in school will have preconceived assumptions or think she is a terrorist (6).

She does not have any close friends at school because she can never be completely honest with them and therefore she finds it very pleasant when she starts writing with a boy in a chat room on the Internet. She can tell him anything and be the person she really is. However, it soon turns out that the boy she is talking to on the Internet is a boy from her class and she feels very angry and sad when she finds out. Nevertheless, her interaction with this boy makes her more confident and he tells her that if the friends are true friends they will still like her or like her even more if she tells them the truth.

The novel deals with internal and external conflicts, identity problems, multiculturalism and family relationships in a way that, I as a reader, find quite good. I believe students could relate to Jamilah in one way or the other and I believe the book could help students develop a deeper understanding for things they do not have in their own lives but also with conflicts they recognize.

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Perspectives and diversity

Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen state in their article that it is important to have: “a discussion with the goal of understanding each other's perspectives”.⁴ I believe that many of the students in school have something they would not like to go to school without. Amal is nervous and stressed out about the decision because she knows it will change her life a good deal. Even though she is scared of how people in her school will react she is ready for this great step, to become closer with her faith (8).

One way of trying to make the other students in a class understand what it might be like for a Muslim girl to not wear the hijab could be to let them write a text. What I suggest is that the teacher could let every student write a short text about something they would not walk in the classroom without. It might be shoes, pants, make-up, or a cell phone etc. After they have written the text, the teacher could introduce them to the facts about wearing the hijab. A passage from Does My Head Look Big In This? might be useful. Chapter two in the novel could be a good way of showing the students what it could feel like for a girl like Amal since the reader is allowed to understand what goes around in her mind, and that this is a big decision for her (7-15). If the students have the ability to understand each other, maybe it would not be as hard as it is for girls like Amal to walk into the classroom with the hijab.

Two of the three benefits of using literature that Alverman and Phelps have created could also be useful here. Number 5: “literature allows readers to experience other times, other places, other people and other cultures with empathy” and number 6: “literature can be a powerful

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catalyst for thoughtful analysis and critical thinking” (Stix and George, 2). If fiction like Abdel-Fattah’s novel was used in the classroom, I believe the students could perhaps develop a deeper understanding for others and see things from another perspective.

In Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Multiculturalism, P. Adler states:

All human beings share a similar biology, universally limited by the rhythms of life. All individuals in all races and cultures must move through life's phases on a similar

schedule: birth, infancy, adolescence, middle age, old age, and death. Similarly, humans everywhere embody the same physiological functions of ingestion, irritability,

metabolic equilibrium, sexuality, growth, and decay. Yet the ultimate interpretation of human biology is a cultural phenomenon: that is, the meanings of human biological patterns are culturally derived. It is culture which dictates the meanings of sexuality, the ceremonials of birth, the transitions of life, and the rituals of death.⁵

This is a statement I believe one could use while teaching about diversity. The students have to learn that even though we can hold a different view in terms of culture and beliefs we all share many things as well and the things that differ can be seen as something positive.

Therefore the pedagogical focus would be to educate about the common value system in Sweden. P. Adler and D. Hafiz’s arguments can be connected with a part in Does My Head Look Big In This? when Amal has made the decision to wear the hijab and she walks in to the classroom for the first time. In the novel, she is extremely nervous about this. However, after a while she becomes more and more used to it and she describes the feeling as experiencing a

5 Adler, Peter. “Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Multiculturalism.” Intercultural Communication, 1976. 2002, April 2011. Web.

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new identity (28). She also feels that she is freer than ever and that she finally knows who she really is (29). I believe that the teacher could use this and try to explain to the students that even if we do not look the same, do the same things, believe in the same God, we are all human beings with the same rights. Furthermore, I think it is important to make the students see that even if we distinguish ourselves from each other, we can always learn and appreciate the things that differ between us.

Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen state: “Teach children to be critical thinkers, specifically about prejudice and discrimination. Critical thinking is when we strive to

understand issues through examining and questioning”.⁶ I agree with this and I believe that if we do not succeed with this the result might be that students are mean to each other and that is exactly what occurs in the novel. Amal has to deal with other people’s conceptions quite often after she starts to wear the hijab. After a while in school, her classmates start to ask questions about her and Islam, and sometimes the questions are very mean and insulting. Tia is the name of one of Amal’s classmates, she is very mean and disrespectful towards Amal several times. In one scene she starts to ask Amal about whether she is ashamed or not of being a Muslim when stories about crime and other things are being said about Muslims (151f). Amal gets very upset about all this, and she starts to doubt if her decision to wear the hijab, whether it was right or not. Tia does these kinds of things often and it is obvious that it is hard for Amal to handle it. I would argue that the teachers could avoid this sort of discrimination if we talk about it more and encourage discussions and include tasks about it in the classroom. As

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Gonzales-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen claim, it is of momentous importance to help the students to become critical thinkers. The pedagogical focus would therefore be critical thinking and knowledge about things that are for us unknown in the search for a broader perspective on our surroundings.

J. Gonzalez-Mena and D. Pulido-Tobiassen claim, “As our nation grows increasingly diverse, there has never been a better opportunity for us to learn to live respectfully together and benefit from one another's wisdom and experiences. But sometimes fear, uncertainty, or discomfort prevent people from talking to each other”.⁷ They suggest that it is important to talk and learn from each other and I believe they are right. Adam is a friend of Amal’s and he asks questions as well, however, he is actually interested in the answer Amal gives and he is trying to understand what it is like to be a Muslim. For Amal, this is sometimes hard to know, whether someone is asking a question out of curiosity or just to be mean. If the teachers do not talk about it, it will probably end up just as it did for Amal. The friends ask questions and they can be mean, because they do not know anything about it or they ask only because they want to learn. I find it true that most teenagers want to explore knowledge about things they are interested in and I believe culture is one of those things for many teenagers. Therefore I believe it would be positive if we include education about multiculturalism and identity when reading fiction because literature can provide us with useful knowledge.

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Conflicts concerning religion

How could a teacher include tasks about discrimination and racism in the classroom? This section will give a attempt to answer that.

Modood states: “Western societies are in fear of international groups”.⁸ This could be one of the reasons I believe that non-Muslims react with fear and preconceptions towards Muslims, they do not know anything about Muslims. The most common view people receive from the media is the picture of radical Muslim groups and it might be easy to think that this is the complete picture of Islam and Muslims. One can understand why Amal is doubtful in Does My Head Look Big In This? One of Amal’s greatest internal conflicts is whether she is brave enough to wear the hijab as a full-timer or not. She struggles with her emotions and whether she will be able to stand up in front of all her friends at her school or not. She is afraid of what people will think if she comes to school wearing the hijab. Although she is determined that she wants a strong connection to her religion and God, she is not convinced that people around her will understand (p.7f).

For a person that is non-Muslim it might be difficult to understand how one could be free if that person has to wear a veil. Nevertheless, the reader learns in Does My Head Look Big In This? that it is not about being forced or not in Amal’s situation. She wants to wear it and do what she can to feel a strong connection with her faith and religion. Perhaps this is hard to understand for a person that does not share the experience of having a strong belief. A woman by the name Dilara Hafiz has written an article called “What’s a Muslim teenager to do?” It is a handbook for Muslim teenagers where they can find support and advice regarding their

8 Modood, Tariq, Triandafyllidou, Anna and Zapata-Barrero, Ricard. Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Routledge, 2006.

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everyday issues. In that article Hafiz argues “Ninety-nine per cent of the hateful comments we’ve heard since 9/11, are based on misconceptions about the basics of Islam” (McKinnell, 2009). I believe that a teacher could use this passage in school when discussing how Amal expresses the fear of preconceptions. The pedagogical focus concerning religion could be to teach the students about different religions. We could talk about it in groups and I would let them read about Amal and Jamilah so they would see another person’s point of view of the world.

P. Adler states: “Around the planet the streams of the world's cultures merge together to form new currents of human interaction...Communication and cultural exchange are the preeminent conditions of the twentieth century”.⁹ I believe that this statement says something that a teacher should have in mind. To talk about this with the students and point this out, could help the students see a different view of the world. If we have a negative point of view on

everything that is different, it will be harder to become a democratic citizen. P. Adler argues further:

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Nation, culture, and society exert tremendous influence on each of our lives, structuring our values, engineering our view of the world, and patterning our responses to

experience. Human beings cannot hold themselves apart from some form of cultural influence. No one is culture free.¹⁰

To me, this means that in the classroom a teacher should make the students understand this and be aware of the fact that all human beings have the same rights and are equally valuable.

If the students know and believe in that, I believe, that they have taken a big step to become democratic citizens. I would like to use one specific passage from Does My Head Look Big In This? and associate it with P. Alder’s arguments in the classroom. The pedagogical focus in using this passage could be for the teacher to focus on discrimination and racism in the world.

I believe it would be easier for the students to understand the issue if they could read about it in fiction as well as in nonfiction.

The passage, in Does My Head Look Big In This?, deals with an internal conflict I believe is a great one for Amal. It is a scene when she is on the bus. The bus driver is assaulting her in a rather strange way. When she sits down on the bus an old lady begins to talk to her. The lady compliments Amal for her shawl and they begin a conversation about different patterns and colors and also food. Amal notices, after a while, that the bus driver has turned up the volume on the radio. From the speakers, everybody on the bus can hear, a voice saying that all

Muslims are trouble and that they are violent. Amal feels embarrassed and the bus driver looks right at her, like everything is her fault. However, she feels that it is not the fact that he

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has assaulted her that is the worst part, the worst part is that he got to her (156ff). To me, it is obvious that this bus driver does not realize, or accept, that we live in a multicultural world.

The bus driver’s reaction confirms the necessary of bringing tasks about discrimination and racism, into the classroom. As a teacher, behaviors like that should not be left in silence.

I would argue that this is a useful passage from the novel. The students would have a great opportunity to discuss this situation. According to A.E. Winans it is very important while learning something new to ask questions. “How do I feel and what do I know about this topic?

Where does my knowledge come from? What is unknown to me? What is unthinkable to me and why?” (105). She explains further that questions designed like these are central to queer pedagogy. The reason for this she argues is that it helps students learn both that knowledge is created and how knowledge is created (105). Instead of just giving the information to the students, it is positive if we can give students the tools to become aware of their own knowledge and how it is constructed through social situations. I believe that it makes them better learners and that it increases their critical thinking ability. Winans information and instructions could be useful while working with this passage. As a teacher I would want the students to ask questions like: How would I react? Am I able to think what this must have been like for Amal? It can be difficult for a teacher to educate students about discrimination.

However, if the teacher would include a passage like this and in addition use it with the benefits D.E. Alverman and S.F. Phelps have come up with, I believe it would be successful.

Conflicts concerning identity

The students I will meet in school have probably seen and heard a lot about Islamist groups.

When there are terrorist attacks around the world, the media starts to write about Muslims and picture Muslims as the group everyone else can blame for many of the terrible things that

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happen. However, as most of us know, this is not a fair picture of Muslims in general.

Therefore I believe by letting them read these two novels, or at least working with passages from them, could give students another perspective on what it can be like to be a Muslim.

Therefore the pedagogical focus would be to try to make them see what it can be like to be a Muslim in a non-Muslim society or in general, being a minority in a society.

Gallo suggests that: “young adult novels are valuable tools for helping teenagers to

understand themselves and to see their place in the world” (Stix and George, 3). One of the benefits I mentioned earlier is: “literature goes beyond the facts” (Stix and George, 2). The fear Jamilah feels about telling her friends could also be useful in the classroom because the students could receive knowledge about other teenagers’ fears and I believe most of them would recognize themselves. I believe Gallo is making an important statement when he says that teenagers would understand themselves. Furthermore, benefit number four shows that literature could make the facts about different cultures and people more alive and real for the students.

Jamilah´s biggest problem is that she has not told anyone at her school that she is a Muslim girl. She hides her identity from all of her friends because she does not want to be seen as a stereotypical Muslim since she believes that all of her friends will have preconceptions about her and her family and life. I think Gallo’s argument that young readers might learn more about themselves would prove to be correct if they read Ten Things I Hate About Me, furthermore I believe that they also would learn about others, for instance individuals like Jamilah.

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Every teenager probably experiences at one time or another that they do not know where they belong or who they really are. A. Bellow states, “They find themselves disoriented, scared and alone. In the teenage years, young people begin their quests for identity”.¹¹ That means that almost every teen I will meet in the future, while I am working as a teacher, will feel like this sometime during the time I have them as my students. So teachers must do what they can to educate, discuss and have a clear pedagogy of how to manage this. One way is to use literature as a tool. Literature that deals with these types of issues, and most importantly, literature that the students can relate to or learn something from.

The two novels that are being discussed in this essay deal with issues of identity and

belonging, and contain many issues I believe students recognize. How can these two novels help students develop a new perspective on things, or help them in their search for identity? I will in this section demonstrate the most important conflicts regarding identity and try to connect them with the secondary literature I have chosen. The pedagogical focus is to make the students notice that it is common to feel lost in the teenage years and my belief as a teacher is that if they read about others with similar difficulties it would help them and give them support in their passage towards becoming young adults.

A. Stix and M. George argue that, “Even when the setting of a novel is far removed from the reader’s own world, the adolescent experience--the pains of growing up and exploring ones own identity--is universal” (3). This is something I believe the students can learn if they read and work with these two novels. Both Jamilah and Amal struggle with a lot of identity conflicts. At first one could argue that their conflicts are just about the same, however I have

11 Bellows, Amy. “Your Teen’s Search for Identity.” PsychCentral.com, June 22 2007, April 2011. Web.

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found that they differ from each other in some ways. Jamilah in Ten things I hate about me wants to find a balance in her life. She wants to erase the stereotypical picture of Muslims and show her friends that she can be the same person even though she is wearing the hijab. Amal on the other hand is afraid of what people around her will think if she starts wearing the hijab.

Adler explains the state of being a multicultural person partly like this: “He or she is neither totally a part of nor totally apart from his or her culture; instead, he or she lives on the

boundary.”When Amal starts to wear the hijab she shows her multicultural identity more than before, and therefore she lives even more on the boundary now than earlier. If the students become more aware and used to the fact that every one has their own struggles and that it is common for teenagers to search for an identity, they might see who a person like Amal really is.

In Does My Head Look Big In This there is a scene where Adam asks Amal if she saw a documentary about Muslim the day before, Amal becomes very upset and starts to yell at Adam. He tries to explain to Amal that not everyone is trying to judge her (152-153). It must be hard for Amal to have these two identities to struggle with. With that I mean, she wants to be proud of who she is, but on the other hand she feels that she has to defend herself when people ask questions. She had this conflict as much even when she did not wear the veil, but it was not until she started to wear it that she became aware of the problems for real. This passage could work would well in the classroom. It would provide students with an

opportunity to understand other human beings on another level. The pedagogical focus would be to make the students aqcuire knowledge about perspectives and an understanding for others. My suggestion is that after they have read the passage on page 152-153, they could write a letter. Either they could do it as Amal writing to Adam, where she explains why it is hard for her to get these questions. Or they could do it as Adam writing to Amal, where he

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step in this task, the students would have to do some research on the event on 9/11 and about Muslims.

I would argue that finding an identity is hard for almost every teenager. A. Bellows describes in her article that there are five typical ways that teenagers use to demonstrate their struggles with identity.¹² They are: status symbols, forbidden behaviors, rebellion, Idols and Cliquish exclusion. She explains all these ways closer and describes them as common ways of behavior while searching for identity. A lot of different ethnic groups are represented at the school Jamilah attends and she explains that all of them are labeled (5). I would assume that many of these teenagers have issues with their identity and in addition I would also argue that many of the represented personalities could be found in any given classroom I would visit.

Therefore I think it is important to help the students understand that this is “normal” and that they can learn about it through fiction.

When it comes to creating an identity I believe it can be difficult to know the difference between right and wrong. When Jamilah’s friends say insulting things about others she tries to adjust, however she feels that she is being very dishonest. She is tired of lying and keeping a distance between herself and her friends, but how could she tell them know? Would they think that she has been a terrible person and a liar? Could she keep the people that she cares about in her life after she tells them about her background? This indicates that Jamilah knows the difference between right and wrong, however she does not know how to relate to it. I would state that this could make an interesting task in the classroom. To discuss and analyze

12 Bellows, Amy. “Your Teen’s Search for Identity.” PsychCentral.com, June 22 2007, April 2011. Web.

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what the students think Jamilah should do and why. This might prove to them that it is a process to build an identity and that it can be difficult.

P. Adler states: “It is an identity based not on a ‘belongingness’ which implies either owning or being owned by culture, but on a style of self-consciousness that is capable of negotiating ever new formations of reality”.¹³ Aside from going to her regular school, Jamilah also attends an Arabic school once a week. In that class she is not Jamie, there she is Jamilah, her other identity can show without risking others having preconceptions about her. As I

understand it, Jamilah does not have to decide which culture she wants to belong to, it is about accepting and relating to them both. Therefore I am convinced that fiction can be a good tool to use when one wants to make it easier for teenagers with their own search for identity.

In the novel there is a chapter where Jamilah writes down the ten things she hates about herself (86-87). This list shows the reader how she looks at herself. She does not have a good self-image and it becomes quite clear that she does have a rather big problem with finding herself and who she really is. Once again Adler shows how one could look at this:

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Nation, culture, and society exert tremendous influence on each of our lives, structuring our values, engineering our view of the world, and patterning our responses to

experience. Human beings cannot hold themselves apart from some form of cultural influence. No one is culture free.¹⁴

Jamilah is affected by the environment she lives in, she belongs to two cultures, on the one hand, she belongs to her school and the life in Australia and on the other hand, to the culture she has from her family and their background. It is obvious that she is in between these two and does not know how to handle it. Gonzalez-Mena and Pulido-Tobiassen state in their article that: “Because young children form ideas about themselves and other people long before they start kindergarten, it is important to begin teaching anti-bias lessons early. If we reinforce these lessons, children will learn to appreciate, rather than fear, differences and to recognize bias and stereotypes when they see them”.¹⁵ If this would work in the classroom maybe we could prevent our students feeling like Jamilah.

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Conclusion

Studying the novels, Ten Thing I Hate About Me and Does My Head Look Big In This?, reveals that they would work well in teaching students about conflicts concerning identity and Islam, but also about perspectives and diversity. In this essay, I have shown that these novels could be used, for example by creating tasks in the classroom that give the students

knowledge about the search for an identity, how to relate to multiculturalism and a view on different perspectives. I have also argued why they would be helpful for a teacher by using support from theories about teaching about diversity and using fiction as a tool. Throughout the essay I have argued that educating with diversity is very important, and that this can be done by using fictional texts.

Furthermore, the essay deals with what being a teenager can be like and what kinds of conflicts most teenagers experience sometimes in their teen years. It suggests, with support from theories, that almost every teenager might feel disoriented and scared sometimes. All through the essay there has been a special focus on how the books would work in the classroom, with the perspective on a common value-system. It reveals that the novels deal with many issues such as, identity, religion, friendship, school etc. that one can use in the classroom while teaching.

Furthermore I wanted to apply these things to teenagers in general and look at it from a classroom perspective. How the teacher can use this knowledge while teaching about identity, religion, and perspectives and diversity. This has been done and the analysis and discussion proves that the two protagonists have many conflicts that teenagers in general might

recognize such as, identity issues, diversity and religion. With support from secondary literature and theoretical viewpoints it has been shown that many passages and parts from the books proven could work well in the classroom.

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The three Alverman and Phelps benefits I have had as an anchor, ”literature goes beyond the facts”, ”literature allows readers to experience other times, other places, other people and other cultures with empathy” and “literature can be a powerful catalyst for thoughtful analysis and critical thinking” (Stix and George, 2) have proven to work very well as a basis while educating about multiculturalism, identity and religion through fiction. The teacher should use remember benefits of fiction and this literature is a good tool to use while teaching about identity, multiculturalism and religion.

This study has not contained any field investigation, although I believe much more could be done on this subject. This essay could be a base for deeper research. One could try to

implement it in school and keep track of results how it really works in practice. Further research could also be done about democracy in the novels in relation to the Swedish curriculum.

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Works cited

Abdel-Fattah, Randa. Does My Head Look Big In This?. Marion Lloyd Books, 2006.

Abdel-Fattah, Randa, Ten Things I Hate About Me, Marion Lloyd Book, 2006.

Adler, Peter. “Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Multiculturalism.” Intercultural Communication, 1976. 2002, April 2011. Web.

Bellows, Amy. “Your Teen’s Search for Identity.” PsychCentral.com, June 22 2007, April 2011. Web.

Coleman, Simon and Collins, Peter. Religion, Identity and Change – perspectives on Global Transformations. Hants: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004.

Gonzalez-Mena, Janet and Pulido-Tobiassen, Dora. “Teaching “Diversity”: A Place to Begin.” Early Childhood Today, Nov. 1999. April 2011. Web.

Hafiz, Dilara. In: McKinnell, Julia. “What’s a Muslim Teenager to do?” Maclean's. 2009, Vol. 122 Issue 15, p67-67, 8/9p. April 2011. Web.

Modood, Tariq, Triandafyllidou, Anna and Zapata-Barrero, Ricard. Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European Approach. Routledge, 2006.

Stix, Andi and George, Marshall. “Using Multi-level Young Adult Literature in the Middle School American Studies.” Social Studies Journal. 1998. April 2011. Web

Winans E, Amy. “Queering Pedagogy in the English Classroom: Engaging with the Places where Thinking Stops.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. Volume 6, Number 1. Duke University Press, 2006.