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.
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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?
Day 2: Say What You Mean--Or Don't
#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
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#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
Day 5: The Judge Is In
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 CategoriesYou,
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 |
AuthorTeacher of English, curriculum writer, conductor of literacy experiments. Archives
December 2021
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