Students Within the Context Community will host a Scholastic diverse book fair Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the second floor of Teachers College.
The Students Within the Context of Community will showcase a special collection of children’s, middle school and young adult literature portraying characters with disabilities and literature representing the LGBTQ community.
Students Within the Context of Community is one of the longest standing immersive learning projects at Ball State. It was started in 2009 for education majors.
“The idea behind the program is that in order to be an excellent teacher, you don’t just need to know how to write a lesson plan and understand the content that you’re responsible for teaching, but rather, you need to understand the context of children's lives,” said Eva Zygmunt, professor of elementary education.
The Diversity Book Fair has been a three-year-long process within the program. Past years have taken place through Scholastic catalog orders. This year, however, is the first year the program has been able to set up a book fair on and off campus at the Whitely neighborhood school.
The program has been working with Scholastic to diversify their collection for their book fair, professor of elementary education Susan Tancock said.
“This is the first year we were able to have Scholastic offer us books that we can have at a fair that represent cultural diversity, family diversity, some abilities [and] some diversity in exceptionalities,” Tancock said. “We began having our own book fairs because we couldn’t find a book fair that was diverse. So, we’re hoping that through our sale today we’ll be able to show that there is a need and desire for these books from producers as teachers and educators.”
Students can purchase the paperback or hardback book for $1.99 to $8.99.
Contact Devan Sticka with comments at desticka@bsu.edu.