Al Capone Does My Shirts

As a special education major I am very passionate about how people with disabilities are represented in novels. After reading Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Goldenko, I was upset about how Natalie’s behavior was not explained as being autistic. Since Goldenko was trying to be authentic to the time period of 1935, where autism had yet to be diagnosed, she chose not to explain her disability. Even in the author note, she explained Natalie has someone who displayed autistic tendencies not actually being autistic.

As someone who understands the negative impact of labeling, I am concerned because of the negative stereotypes that could arise from this novel about children who are “different”. I fear children may look at someone as “different” rather than recognizing their disability after reading this novel. I believe this novel could have been a perfect opportunity to explain autism rather than just describing autistic tendencies. Since Natalie’s disability is never explained in the novel, the people in the novel looked at her as “different”. As someone who advocates for children with disabilities to be mainstreamed in to society, I worry because Goldenko chose a time period where people were not accepting of children with disabilities. While writing my paper, I struggled questioning the text because I already had developed my opinion on the topic. Since I believe questioning the author’s chose of the time period of the novel, I persevered. However, subsequently I struggled to show both perspectives of the topic.

Personal Philosophy

As a Special Education/English major, I believe multicultural literature is important for not only me, but for my future students. I strongly believe in relating to the students that I may teach. In order to be prepared to relate to my future students, I need to learn and literature from a variety of diverse backgrounds. Ultimately, being the main reason that I am taking this course. Not only do I need to encompass literature from a variety of diverse backgrounds, but also be prepared to teach students about other cultures and/or societies. By having multicultural literature in my future classroom it will allow my students to challenge and question what they already know and/or experience.

I believe using literature is an excellent way to integrate new information of a culture and/or society. When presenting new information of a culture to students, I believe it is important to present a nonbiased opinion as well as sure to evaluate the text for any stereotypes of the given culture it may portray. I also believe it is important to teach students how to question the literature we read in class by challenging their previous beliefs and thinking critically about the given text.