Picture This

This past week, one of our English/Language Arts teachers wanted me to teach her students how to give a book talk for a multimedia project they are working on. The lesson included a discussion of the elements of a good book talk, a rubric with the success criteria that would show mastery, and me doing a couple of book talks as exemplars. The students were able to recognize and assess the required elements within my book talks, but how could they quickly demonstrate application of what they had learned?
 
Enter picture books.
 
Students were grouped at tables, so I gave each table a picture book. The groups had 5 minutes to read and discuss the story, then 5 minutes to devise a book talk about it.
 
The looks on students' faces when I handed out the books? Utter joy. Pandemonium ensued as they all tried to read aloud the stories to each other, but it was an awesome, productive noise where everyone was completely engaged. Each group was able to complete the task and, in most cases, meet the success criteria on a high level.

---

By using picture books for the task, students were not struggling with the content of what they read, but focusing their concentration on creating a book talk meeting the required elements – the thrust of the lesson. By successfully completing the task with the simpler books, they demonstrated readiness to repeat the process with the novels they are reading in class.

---

Should you use picture books in a middle school? You bet! The clever, yet easily grasped stories in them are a great way to illustrate more complex literary concepts.

• Teaching voice? Plop Mirror, Mirror: a book of reverse poems by Marilyn Singer under your document camera and have 2 students read it aloud to the class.
• Want your students to understand foreshadowing? Have students carefully examine the pictures in The Spider and the Fly by Tony DiTerlizzi as you do a dramatic reading.
• Trying to underscore the human side of the Civil War? Patricia Polacco’s Pink and Say does this beautifully.

 
For more ideas, check out this article from School Library Journal: http://ow.ly/TOPiN

​P.S. - If you ever want to see middle school boys wrestle with a “make good decisions” moment, tell them to book talk It’s a Book by Lane Smith. 

---