The right to write: Preservice teachers' evolving understandings of authenticity and aesthetic heat in multicultural literature

This study begins with the following question: Can an author authentically represent; a culture of which she is not a part Same advocates believe that "insiders" are better able to write a culturally specific story that captu res the themes, languages, and tropes-essentially thee social worlds-that g roups claim as their own. In opposition, others argue that what matters is not a question of perfect parallels between author and culture but what exi sts in the imaginative gifts-or aesthetic heat-of the author. Although thes e controversies have been debated in academic journal and textbooks, the is sues were quite new to the Preservice vice teachers enrolled in a rear-long children's literature course in a state research university. Thus, the que stion of the right to write surrounds our mare focused research query: Give n multiple opportunities to explore issues of authenticity and aesthetic he at, what kinds of Shifts if any) will occur in preservice teachers' underst andings of the right to write in this article, two of the participants in t he study Darcy and Lisa, joined Shelby, the course professor, in chroniclin g the journey that 10 preservice teachers made in understanding these compl ex issues. The data came fram two central sources: fa) an assignment in whi ch the preservice teachers analyzed a multicultural text and (b) interview, questions that focused an the right to write. The results show that as the preservice teachers learned more and more about the current debate through class readings and discussions, they moved from fairly straight forward st atements to hesitations over the hard issues raised. These issues included their emphasis on the need to examine texts critically and to consider the complex social and political ramifications of the wars insiders and outside rs tell stories.