Next time you are looking for texts to use to teach standards, introduce a topic, add to students' understanding of a theme, or provide inspiration for a quickwrite, don't forget about picture books. In Secondary ELA, we often forget about these little gems because we have conditioned ourselves to rely on more "adult" forms of literature. However, picture books can be incredibly complex and multilayered. In addition, they can be a great stepping stone into complicated themes, ideas, and discussions, particularly for our striving readers.

Don't just use these as inspiration, either! Do a read-aloud for your students and show them all the picture. Even if you teach middle or high school, it's a fun exercise for both you and students, and can open students' eyes to a genre they haven't seen in years. 

Let's take a look at one example. 

13 Words by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Maira Kalman

Yes, that Lemony Snicket, of A Series of Unfortunate Events fame. This strange little picture book strings together 13 seemingly-unrelated words into a cohesive storyline. Words range from bird and cake to despondent and haberdashery, which makes it really fun to read with kids of ALL ages, and is a lovely example of the interrelatedness of words and how context adds to our understanding as readers. 

I might use this book as a way to cement vocabulary throughout the year or as a creative writing exercise. I'm not a fan of vocabulary out of context or isolated vocabulary exercises, but I also know that one of the ways to make vocabulary permanent is to give students multiple exposures and multiple opportunities to use the words in a real way. If you have been highlighting specific words throughout the year, having students create their own picture book or story using some of those words would be a great way to help them not only practice using them but also consider how those new words might work together. To turn this into a purely creative writing exercise, just have students draw a certain number of words and random and craft their own story. 

Welcome to Bibliognostic! After some inactivity, I'm excited to update some of the MicroUnits and add a page on Style Steals. For more frequent updates, make sure to follow the Facebook page under the same name. Some of those posts will be turned into longer blog posts, but they will be less frequent than the Facebook feed. 

Again, welcome! I'm glad you're here! Please reach out if you have any questions about how to use any of these resources, or suggestions on how I can make this page more useful to you!

The most frequent frustration that I hear from teachers today is the seemingly unbreakable attachment between kids and their cell phones. I had a Twitter thread recently about this, but the gist of it is this: cell phones, like it or not, are the great playing-field-leveler when it comes to text exposure. We complain that kids don't read enough; cell phones are their tools to fix that. If a student lives in a text desert with no nearby libraries and no money for books, their cell phone might be their only exposure to text. The reality of it is, we get frustrated with cell phones because kids are using them to do what THEY want to do instead of what WE want them to do. Instead of fighting against their only autonomous source of information, we need to meld what we need to teach and what they want to learn. 

You can read the whole (lengthy) thread here, but writing it all out got me to thinking about the last unit of the year that I was writing for seniors. What did I want them to know how to do before they left? What was I worried about? What would they encounter and maybe not know how to handle? And then I recalled reading some statistics about teens and how they access news. Surprise, surprise: it's through entertainment and social media. The linked article is from 2016, but I'd wager that numbers are only growing in favor of social media consumption. With that in mind, I decided that in this last unit of the school year, I wanted to lead students through the process of exploring Twitter threads as a genre. 

This was only a section of a full unit that also included a formal debate, resume- and cover-letter-writing, and a student-written and delivered TED-style talk. Even this section segues from Twitter threads into traditional speeches and traditional texts. But it's a good jumping off point for any of you who want to explore Twitter as more than a way to kill time. Because the lessons are on our district's learning management system, I can't link them, but see below for a day-by-day rundown of how the six lessons progressed, what standards were linked to them (I'm in Texas where we have our own special standards, but they should be easily transferable), and what resources I used. 

​Day 1: Words of Wisdom?

• Standards/Skills: Analyzing text to understand the nuances of word meanings, using the relationship between words to understand emotional connotation.
• Lesson: Introduce the lesson set by explaining that students will be exploring writing from the word level on up. Remind them of how connotative language can be used to persuade or manipulate, calm or incite. We need to be aware of the nuances of words so that we can determine whether what we are reading is valid and balanced or skewed and biased. Introduce students to DNA, a connotative meaning analysis strategy. Students will Define the word, Name the emotion/connection they feel from that word, and Apply that emotion to the context of the word in the passage. Does it make sense in the context of the passage? What did the author intend when he/she used the word with that emotion in this context? Is that a valid use of the word, or is it intended to lead you to an irrational reaction? Students will apply this strategy by choosing a hashtag associated with a social justice movement and exploring some of the Tweets with that hashtag (without responding). They will analyze language in the Tweets to determine their validity and analyze how the authors are using language to persuade/manipulate. 
• Resources: The hashtags #failingmasculinity, #guncontrol (or #nra, #notonemore, #neveragain), #healthcare (or #aca, #obamacare, #singlepayer), #blacklivesmatter (or #blm), #weneeddiversebooks (or #ownvoices), #metoo, #dreamactnow (or #daca). 

Day 2: Say What You Mean--Or Don't

• Standards/Skills: Notice, name, and analyze the effects of devices such as contradiction, sarcasm, and irony in digital literary nonfiction (Twitter threads in fancy-speak).
• Lesson: Remind students of yesterday's lesson where they analyzed text at the world level. Today they're moving to the sentence level. Introduce terms like contradiction, paradox, sarcasm, overstatement, and subtlety. Conduct an interactive read-aloud of this Twitter thread where you notice, name, and analyze the effects of these devices. 
• Resources: Students will repeat the analysis process with the linked Twitter thread that matches the hashtag they explored yesterday.

Twitter Thread
#failingmasculinity
Gun Violence and Toxic Masculinity
#guncontrol
The Intersection Between Gun Violence and Racism
#healthcare
An Appeal for Universal Health Care
#blacklivesmatter
Activism and Race
#ownvoices
Reviewing Authors of Color
#metoo
Reading Problematic Authors
#dreamactnow
DREAM Act
 
Day 3: Mapping Author's Craft

• Standards/Skills: Evaluating how an author uses techniques unique to digital media to tell a compelling story, monitor comprehension through a text map to reflect on author's craft.
• Lesson: Introduce various strategies/structures used in traditional and social media such as statistics, anecdotes, images, GIFs, screenshots, hyperlinks, memes, background information, definitions, descriptions, quoted words, details, etc. Remind students that writers on Twitter use these strategies in much the same way and for much the same reasons as more traditional writers do: to persuade, hook, and build relationships with their audience. Mapping a text helps us to visually see the structure of it in a way that is sometimes lost to us when we are wrapped up in content. Show students the following example of a way to map a Twitter thread by its strategies:

TweetStrategies/Examples of CraftQuestions to ConsiderStatistic (# of school police officers hired vs. # of shootings stopped, arrests of students)/Background Information
Hyperlink

• Are these statistics true?
• Is the hyperlink to a reputable source that verifies this statistic? 
• If not, where can we verify this information?

Statistic
Hyperlink
Image

• How old is this data?
• Who collected this data?
• What makes this data so compelling?

Statistic
Background Information/Detail
Hyperlink
 
Statistic
 
Hyperlink (to another thread by the author)

• Are these statistics from reliable sources?
• What is the author's background?
• Do we trust the author?

 Work with students to map the Twitter thread you read with them on Day 2. Kids might want to write out the whole strategy, use abbreviations, use images, or even use colors to create a visual representation of the pattern of a text. Whatever they want is fine!

• Resources: Kids will map the Twitter thread they read yesterday and reflect on what they notice about author's craft. 

Twitter Thread
#failingmasculinity
Gun Violence and Toxic Masculinity
#guncontrol
The Intersection Between Gun Violence and Racism
#healthcare
An Appeal for Universal Health Care
#blacklivesmatter
Activism and Race
#ownvoices
Reviewing Authors of Color
#metoo
Reading Problematic Authors
#dreamactnow
DREAM Act

 
Day 4: The Jury's Out

• Standards/Skills: Analyze the relationship between evidence and assumptions, draw conclusions about the credibility of a text by examining its assumptions.
• Lesson: Remind students of the definition and purpose of evidence and introduce the concept of value assumptions (the author or speaker's belief that the audience shares their values) and descriptive assumptions (the connection between the evidence and the claim that explains how the evidence proves the claim). In a think-aloud (and with student help) practice identifying evidence and assumption types in this speech or this speech (depending on your time frame; also note that they are thematically connected to the Twitter thread you've been using in the lessons) and consider how the evidence and assumptions add to or take away from the merits of the argument. Is the argument credible based on your analysis?
• Resources: With a partner who is exploring the same movement, students will watch the linked speech that aligns with the Twitter thread and movement they have been learning about.  
  Twitter Thread
  Speech
  #failingmasculinity
  Gun Violence and Toxic Masculinity
  Masculinity in America
  #guncontrol
  The Intersection Between Gun Violence and Racism
  Gun Violence and Race
  #healthcare
  An Appeal for Universal Health Care
  Jimmy Kimmel Healthcare Speech
  #blacklivesmatter
  Activism and Race
  Using White Privilege to Fight Racism
  #ownvoices
  Reviewing Authors of Color
  #1000BlackGirlBooks
  #metoo
  Reading Problematic Authors
  Oprah Acceptance Speech
  #dreamactnow
  DREAM Act
  Valedictorian Speech
  
   
  Either in a graphic organizer or a less formal structure, kids will talk about what the balance is between evidence and assumptions, and whether the assumptions take away from the validity of the evidence. They'll talk about whether the assumptions are positive or negative and how their own beliefs factor into their feelings about the evidence and assumptions.
  
  

Day 5: The Judge Is In

• Standards/Skills: Make inferences about text and use evidence to support them, evaluate how an issue is represented across media and examine bias, audience, and purpose.
• Lesson: Remind students of the definitions of bias, audience, and purpose, and how those three things are interconnected. Conduct a think-aloud where you consider bias, audience, and purpose in this more traditional text and compare it to the Twitter thread and speech that you explored together in previous lessons. 
• Resources: With a partner or partners who have been exploring the same movement as they have in these past few lessons, students will read the traditional text that aligns with their topic and review the other texts they have used in this lesson set. As they read, they will consider them through the lens of bias, audience, and purpose. 
  Twitter Thread
  Speech
  Traditional Text
  #failingmasculinity
  Gun Violence and Toxic Masculinity
  Masculinity in America
  Boys Are Broken
  #guncontrol
  The Intersection Between Gun Violence and Racism
  Gun Violence and Race
  Gun Control  And Racism
  #healthcare
  An Appeal for Universal Health Care
  Jimmy Kimmel Healthcare Speech
  A Bi-Partisan Argument for Universal Healthcare
  #blacklivesmatter
  Activism and Race
  Using White Privilege to Fight Racism
  Activism and Race
  #ownvoices
  Reviewing Authors of Color
  #1000BlackGirlBooks
  Diversity in Publishing
  #metoo
  Reading Problematic Authors
  Oprah Acceptance Speech
  Native Authors and Literature
  #dreamactnow
  DREAM Act
  Valedictorian Speech
  Teens and Activism
  
  
  

Day 6: What's the Big Picture?

• Standards/Skills: Evaluate how media messages reflect social and cultural values in a unique way and evaluate how an issue is presented across various media.
• Lesson: Students will engage in a Socratic Seminar over the following questions:

What are the most crucial elements of persuasion?
What are the pluses and minuses of communication and persuasion on social media?
How are communication and persuasion on social media unique?
What do you as soon-to-be graduates need to know about social media communication?
Were you convinced by any of the texts you read? Why and how?
Should your classmates join the movement you explored? Why or why not?


Twitter Thread
#failingmasculinity
Gun Violence and Toxic Masculinity
#guncontrol
The Intersection Between Gun Violence and Racism
#healthcare
An Appeal for Universal Health Care
#blacklivesmatter
Activism and Race
#ownvoices
Reviewing Authors of Color
#metoo
Reading Problematic Authors
#dreamactnow
DREAM Act
 

You,
mix tape,
begin in the gut.
Borne of butterflies,
of goose flesh,
of feeling seen.
You inspire flight: 
a defiance
of
gravity
a launch
across
the room
to hit
record.
You are a love letter to my
Dear Self,
a mix of truth
and
lies,
as love letters always are,
promises
about who I could be
if my life
were lived
in harmony.
You are a photograph
of fear and faith,
of risk and reward.
You are a record of time
spent
thinking of me.
You are a message from
some long ago civilization
from 
to
about
a stranger.
Like youth, like young love,
you,
mix tape,
are fragile.
You are an unspooling
of the past.
You catch and snag
on 
hungry
teeth.
You are re-emboweled
with panicked pencils.
But
time and technology
march on
and even though your notes remain,
nothing 
will play
you 
anymore.

​Written by Sarah Honore for a WITS Writing Workshop, 2018

Welcome to the very beginnings of Bibliognostic! Right now, this is just a small collection of strategies for use in (primarily) English classes. As an English teacher, one of the most time consuming things I did was search for supplemental resources that would help deepen students' understanding of our central theme/text. It took forever, but was so important, especially if you're working with students who sometime struggle with identifying and analyzing the big picture or "so what?" of a text. 

My next step for this site is to gather collections of supplemental resources by central text. For example, if you're going to be reading The Great Gatsby with your class, I'd like you to be able to click on The Great Gatsby and find a selection of supplemental resources that you can use to help your students build meaning and find footholds in the text.

More is coming! In the meantime, follow me on Facebook, enjoy exploring, and I welcome your feedback!

​--Sarah