Again, this reading continues to support the idea of education as a tool for student empowerment and questioning of traditional practices and power structures in society. This time, however, the focus shifts to what kinds of text to use to educate and engage students, and why they should be used. I liked how in this reading the author talked about how any text can be taught in a multicultural way depending on how the lesson is taught. I agree with the author that a good story can have positive lessons to teach to almost any person who reads it. I like the idea of students looking not just for differences but with similarities between themselves and the authors or characters of stories hundreds or even thousands of years old, and using is as an opportunity to get them used to considering those different from themselves.

I like the idea of using popular culture to engage students. As a student, I always found class more interesting when something relevant to my personal interests was included in instruction. By looking at many different samples of popular culture in an organized, critical light, students can learn to better see the cultural forces that are acting on them, and learn how to participate in creating the culture that they want to live in.

Certain works in popular culture, particularly fiction, can serve to inspire people, and I liked the part of the reading where, through making connections with modern popular culture, students could see that they are not alone in whatever difficult situation they find themselves in, including poverty. Perhaps even more importantly, they could see that there are ways that they can get out of those situations, or at least they can be inspired to hope and try to find such a way. I also enjoyed the part where the author discussed the intelligence of students who were assumed to be unintelligent when adults actually bothered to look at the areas of a students life that they were interested in, in this case, their preferred variety of music.