Untitled Slide

MY NAME IS YOON

• By: Helen Recorvits
• Illustrations: Gabi Swiatkowska
• Awards: ALA Notable Book, Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award
• Genre: Realistic Fiction

Major Themes:
Immigration & Moving

"The teacher looked at my paper. She shook her head and frowned. "So you are CAT?" she asked.
The ponytail girl sitting behind my giggled.
After school I said to my father, "We should go back to Korea. It is better there."
"Do not talk like that," he said. "America is your home now."

Luminous pictures filled with dreamscapes

HOW ITS CULTURALLY RELEVANT & AUTHENTIC:

• Has an overall appealing format & is of endearing quality
• Includes characters within two or more cultural groups that interact authentically
• Honors & celebrates diversity

Grade Level: 2nd
ELA Standard:
Reading Standards for Literature
Key Ideas and Details
RL.2.3 - Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
Have students explain from their point of view what it would be like to move to a new country and not speak the native language. Would it be hard? How would you react?

If a new student comes to our classroom, and they are from a different country or even state, it will be important for my students to understand where that new student is from and why they may not hold the same beliefs, language, or even learning style as we do. It will be important to explore, through books and research, where that new student comes from so we are not only more informed but also so we can relate to the student even more.

To really get the students involved with getting to know one another, I would have them complete some activities. The activities might include doing student interviews where students are paired with someone they don't know and they then must find out more about them before writing a short summary and presenting it to the class. Another activity may be the class creating a collage that displays something unique about each student that they create through pair work.

Untitled Slide

• Recorvits, H. (2003). My Name Is Yoon. New York, New York: Square Fish.
• My Name Is Yoon. (2014). Retrieved October 29, 2015, from us.macmillan.com/mynameisyoon/helenrecorvits.
• My Name Is Yoon. (2014). Retrieved October 29, 2015, from us.macmillan.com/mynameisyoon/helenrecorvits.