Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors

‘Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors’ is a strategy developed by Dr Bishop in 1990. It was designed to teach empathy, validate identity and foster a deeper understanding of the diverse world in which we live. However, I also think it is useful as a strategy to help students develop evaluative comprehension skills.

Below is an overview of the strategy and how it could be applied to a reading program:

Introduction

• Begin with discussing the three different concepts and discuss the impact the different types of text have on the reader.
• Sharing an example of each type of text (from your perspective) and discuss why you have classified the texts as a mirror, window or sliding glass door.
• Each time a text is read, ensure that students reflect on whether that particular text for them was a mirror, window or sliding glass door and most importantly explain why.
• All three types of text help promote reflection and a deeper understanding of oneself and society.
• It also helps create inclusive classrooms where all students feel ‘seen’ while supporting global citizenship and acceptance of difference.
• Ensure you don’t limit the mirror, windows and sliding glass doors concept to just cultural or socio-economic parameters. It can also include personality (outgoing, shy, conscientious), physical differences (hair colour, size, eye-sight, hearing), brain functioning (ADHD, autism, dyslexia, Down syndrome), era, family type, experiences (snow skiing, mud-bike racing, scuba diving, working), etc.
• Interacting with material that acts as a window or sliding glass door can be difficult. Use ‘think out loud’ strategies to show how you keep an open mind and reflect on the texts.
• Your feedback to students’ responses can be very influential. Consider how your feedback might be alienating versus affirming students’ reflections. How might it be encouraging them to remain in a prison of their own perceptions versus expanding or challenging their thinking
• Use a range of texts that represent diverse protagonists and situations, preferably written by authors from the communities they’re writing about.
• For every mirror book, choose a window and/or a sliding glass door book. Include texts that show discrimination alongside texts that show every day, normal life. Diversity should be seen as ‘real people’ engaging in life, not just as a problem
• Ensure students perceive the classroom as a safe place for sharing and asking questions. This might include giving students the opportunity to be knowledge-leaders and honouring their expertise. One student I know found it particularly empowering to be able to share her recent diagnosis of dyslexia with the class and to explain what it means, how it affected her ability to accomplish particular tasks in the classroom and how her fellow students could best support her.
• When reading ‘older texts’ with stereotyped characters, identify these stereotypes and discuss why authors of that era might have represented characters in that way. It is also important to recognise that you can enjoy books that are inaccurate as long as you recognise this bias.

Mirrors (Reflection)

• Definition: Texts that reflect the reader’s own experiences, culture or identity.
• Purpose: These texts build self-esteem, affirm your values and foster a sense of belonging to your community. It is particularly important that mirror texts are provided to students who belong to groups who are often under-represented in texts and mass-media. Seeing oneself in books validates a person’s existence and experiences.
• Focus: Use these texts to provide a simple framework for discussing representation and fairness. Look for mirror books that have relatable connections (dreams, challenges, friends, adventure), accurate depictions of characters, and do not perpetuate stereotypes or bias.

Windows (Perspective)

• Definition: Texts that offer a view into lives, cultures, and experiences that are different from the reader’s.
• Purpose: These texts expand students’ worldview and foster empathy. It helps them connect with, and understand, multiple perspectives and people different to themselves. These texts could also include historical perspectives and other places or situations.
• Focus: Use these texts to expose students to people, places and eras which they may not have encountered or even known about. Compare and contrast concepts raised in the text with the students’ own lives and experiences.

Sliding Glass Doors (Immersion)

• Definition: Texts that are deeply engaging and temporarily transport the reader into becoming part of another world or connect with a character’s identity.
• Purpose: These texts create profound emotional connections and broaden horizons through deep immersion, changing the reader’s perspective. 
• Focus: Make sure you ‘dig deep’ into these texts and have students really think about what it would be like to be a particular character, how they felt and to explore those emotional responses. What made reading the text absolutely terrifying or why were they enamoured with the text and would love to be actually living the story they are reading?

Teaching Strategies

• Book Guess: This is a good starting point. Provide a selection of books (ensuring you cater for different interests and reading abilities) for students to explore. Have students select a book that from an initial investigation appears to be either a mirror, window or sliding glass door. Students read the book and then decide whether or not their initial assessment was correct. They can then reflect on why it was a mirror, window or sliding glass door book for them. This reflection can be done in multiple ways – writing, recording, mind-map, drawing, partner share, etc.
• Sharing is Caring: Choose a book/text that is representative of some but not all students in the class. After reading, have students pair up and give them two minutes to discuss whether the text was a mirror, window or sliding glass door for them and why. Change partners and repeat several times.
• Ask Questions: Many students, especially initially, may benefit from some guidance in helping them reflect on both the experiences and circumstances depicted in the text and their own experiences and circumstances before deciding whether a text is a mirror, window or sliding glass door for them.
  • Who do we see in the text?
  • Whose stories are missing from the text?
  • Is this text fair? Why or why not?
  • Does it show people the way they really are? Explain.
  • Is this a mirror, a window or a sliding glass door for you? Which specific elements in the text led to that decision? It could be a character (and how that character was portrayed – actions, speech, interaction with others, appearance), the setting (time, place, era) or the events.
• Diagrams and Tables: Diagrams and tables can be useful tools for helping students identify components in a text that are a mirror versus a window. A text is rarely just a mirror or just a window.
• Repeat Often. Try to incorporate these strategies in all or as many texts as possible. It will have little benefit as a once off exercise. Also, remind students to focus on more than just the obvious (see the point made regarding this in the introduction).
• Sentence Starters: For those students who are finding it difficult to make connections provide a range of sentence starters.
  • ______ is a mirror for me because _______. It feels familiar because ______.
  •  ______ is a window for me because _______. I didn’t consider this before because _____.
  • ____ is a sliding glass door for me because ____. I felt ____ because ____.
  • After the ‘because‘ in the first statement, make sure the student provides a specific example. It could be a particular aspect of the character, the setting, a particular event.
  • After the ‘because‘ in the second statement, make sure the student shares something about their own life.

Reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AAu58SNSyc