Day of the Dead as a Forum for Grief Education and Literacy Learning

Abstract

Teachers are uniquely positioned to educate about grief, but we do not always know how. Drawing from findings of a qualitative research study, this article describes how K‐5 teachers provide literacy lessons connected to the Day of the Dead. Examples include opinion writing, analyzing characters, and comparing concepts in informational texts. Importantly, lessons engage students in discovering diverse and healthy ways to grieve loss, which may include losing a loved one or losing one's homeland. This article shows how teachers can foster thinking, reading, and writing about a topic that is difficult, critical, humanizing, and universal.