Using Picture Books to Teach Literary Techniques

This is one of my short posts where I say, "Hey, I found something cool! Let's go get it."

In this case, the cool thing is a terrific article titled Using Picture Books to Teach Literary Techniques. Written by author and long-time picture book advocate Shutta Crum, this downloadable resource describes ways to use picture books to teach literary devices (aka figurative language) and provides teachers with a nice starter list of books.

Among her other useful articles for teachers you'll find Simple Plot Structures, a must-have for any teacher who wants students to understand traditional, effective constructs of stories.

Be sure to check out Shutta's own books including Thunder Boomer, Bravest of the Brave, and My Mountain Song. (For middle school teachers, also be sure to check out the novel Spitting Image and the related activities).

Her web site provides awesome resources designed for teachers and media specialists, including printable resources for her own picture books. You gotta love an author who takes this extra step! Overall, her site and her books are a gift to lovers and teachers of picture books everywhere.

Be sure to check out my upcoming posts on the topics of Invention, Art, Animal Communities, and the Civil War. Clever titles to come.

Monsters Inked

I'm not proud to admit it, but I used my own six year-old daughter as a guinea pig to try out I Need My Monster, written by Amanda Noll and illustrated by Howard McWilliam. How would a kindergartener react to a picture book about monsters under the bed just before I sent her off to sleep?

In I Need My Monster, little Ethan looks under his bed for his monster, only to find this note instead: "Gone fishing. Back in a week. Gabe." How can Ethan get to sleep without his monster? Other monsters come to take Gabe's place, but none possess his unique, strangely loveable characteristics. How will Ethan ever get to sleep?

My daughter's reaction? Giggles, and a desire to thoroughly check out each monster in all of its disgusting detail (the illustrations are fabulous!). When we reached the book's end, I asked, "Are there such things as monsters under the bed?"

"No. Just in stories."

"So then why would Ethan want a monster under his bed?"

"He keeps him company. And he reminds Ethan not to get out of bed. Plus Ethan knows he's just a friendly monster."

Well, there you have it. And off she went to bed, quite content with the story's conclusion. And I wasn't surprised in the least; children, after all, have a deep affection for truly loveable monsters. Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, and Elmo are proof enough of that.

What I Need My Monster provides is an excellent opportunity for students to use their imaginations (those same imaginations that dream up really scary monsters at night) to create friendly monsters of their own design. Along with other resources for this book at the Flashlight Press web site, teachers and parents will find a downloadable page titled How to Make a Monster. Students can color, cut, and paste body parts to create their own creatures. (I would have students tape this page to a window, and then lay a plain paper on top and trace parts in that way. This method would require a bit of modeling, but would definitely create excellent results).

Multi-Media Monster Makers

I searched online for some interactive monster makers, and here are the best of the bunch:

• The Make Your Own Monster site allows you to create a simple little monster which can then be posted to an online gallery. Children pick body parts, select their colors, and connect them as they choose.
• Make a Monster is an interactive activity which a teacher designed for use on interactive white boards (IWBs). I'll warn you that some of the sounds linked to the body parts are a little scary, but the activity creator has included some nice lesson plans which integrate simple writing (Flashlight Press also some recommendations and a lesson plan for writing about monsters).

• Want to go Old School? Universal Leonardo, a site which celebrates the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, allows young artists to mix and match Leonardo-inspired animal parts (see the illustration here). The Master himself loved to tinker with fantastical beasts! This site provides cool results which can be printed and colored.

Writing About Monsters

In addition to the integrated art and writing ideas above, students may want to check out My Monster, an easy-to-use fill-in-the-blank template created by Jon Ryder. Students enter words or phrases to complete each line (forming some wonderful similes), and then click on the Create button to see their finished poem.

This would be a terrific cross-grade activity! Younger students could dictate information about their monsters to older students, who could enter the words and then cut and paste the finished poem into another application if desired.

A similar cross-grade activity using monster drawings (based on David Devries fabulous book The Monster Engine) can be found at my Teaching that Sticks blog.

My Own Monster

If your child really struggles with the monster issue, then the only solution is for her to get her very own personal monster. At Make My Own Monster your child submits a drawing of an original monster, and the North American Bear Company will render that design as a huggable stuffed animal, one that will scare away all other uninvited monsters.

Other Recommended Reading on Monsters

Everything I Know About Monsters : A Collection of Made-up Facts, Educated Guesses, and Silly Pictures about Creatures of Creepiness is an unconventional field guide of sorts, which removes the scariness of monsters by revealing everything about them, from their horrible hygiene to their hilarious habits. It even includes a handy Monster Avoidance Chart, which may help young readers sleep better!

Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberly is a book of bright, die-cut pages that page by page reveal a monster and then page by page make the scary features disappear. The text concludes with, "And don't come back! Until I say so." It's a clever book that students will want to check out again and again on their own. It also teaches that belief in monsters is a choice.

As Seen on TV! Media Messages Unmasked

Our students represent a lucrative target audience. Companies bombard them daily with ads through every possible venue, so much so that most advertising is now an integral, barely noticed part of the American landscape.

And there's the rub. Barely noticed, yet there, exerting a powerful influence on how children choose to buy, think, and act.

In previous posts I've discussed persuasive writing (Convince Me: Real-Life Uses for Persuasive Writing and So What’s Your Point? Persuasive Writing Using Picture Books) as well as financial literacy (Dollars and Sense for Students). Now Scholastic has teamed up with the Federal Trade Commission to combine these two ideas, plus the concept of media literacy, to produce the Admongo site and its related teacher resources.

The FTC site explains that

Advertising is a multi-million dollar business. Truthful advertising provides benefits to consumers and competition. It gives consumers the information they need to make better-informed purchasing and product use decisions. It also gives companies an incentive to modify their products to provide features that customers want. By contrast, false advertising interferes with decision-making and hinders competition.

Tweens have their own money to spend, and parents report that children play an important role in family buying decisions. Because kids are an important part of the marketplace, they often are the targets of advertising and marketing programs. The result is that American kids see ads wherever they go.

The four components of the campaign (a game-based website at Admongo.gov, sample ads that can be used in the classroom; a free curriculum, and teacher training videos) are designed to help students learn to ask three key "critical thinking" questions when they encounter advertising:

• Who is responsible for the ad?
• What is the ad actually saying?
• What does the ad want me to do?

While I personally used authentic ads that children know (and strangely love), I appreciate that this program offers fictitious yet genuine-looking ads and videos for classroom discussion. The advantage to the fake ads is that children can't assume they know the product and its merits; students definitely paid closer attention to the details.

So why study advertising? There is perhaps no better real-world use of critical thinking and reading skills than the accurate interpretation of mainstream media. Because so many of our daily thoughts and actions are based upon what we're told to believe, it's imperative that we become more educated and discerning in our media consumption. Media literacy allows students to put discrete reading and writing skills to work as they learn advertising's tricks of the trade.

Additional Recommended Sites

While the Scholastic resources and the Admongo site are impressive and complete in themselves, I also recommend the following resources:

• Co-Co's AdverSmarts: An Interactive Unit on Food Marketing on the Web is "an interactive unit designed to help kids between the ages of 5 and 8 recognize the marketing techniques used on commercial web sites that target children." I'd use this site for the younger set (up to fourth grade).
• Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is an intelligent and innovative program aimed at helping girls understand that self-image isn't dependent upon media messages. While you're at that site, be sure to check out the teacher resources.
• The Ad Council has provided access to many of the campaigns from its 60 years of existence. The quality and impact of their PSAs (Public Service Announcements) is legendary, and students should see that ad techniques can actually be used for good rather than evil. Need an example? Check out this video on Reducing Gun Crime (also embedded below).

Viral

Reducing Gun Violence-Babies | Viral/Other | SPIKE.com

Recommended Books

One terrific companion book for the classroom is Made You Look: How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know by Shari Graydon (Annick Press). For older students, this book is a terrific expose of how persuasive writing is used to influence consumers. It's also a pretty cool "idea book" for putting persuasive writing skills to work.

For younger students, Do I Need It? Or Do I Want It? by Jennifer S. Larson (Lerner) is an attractive yet informative choice, allowing opportunities for lots of discussion about what we choose to buy and why. (Be sure to check out other titles in Lerner's Exploring Economics series).

Pretty in Print: Questioning Magazines by Stergios Botzakis, TV Takeover: Questioning TV by Guofang Wan, and Virtually True: Questioning Online Media by Guofang Wan are part of the Media Literacy series published by Capstone Press. All of the titles are organized around five basic questions:

• Who made the message and why?
• Who is the message for?
• How might others view the message differently?
• What is left out of the media?
• How does the message get and keep my attention?

An easy to read style, plenty of photos and illustrations, and try-it-out activities help students see that advertising isn't entirely about "going over to the dark side." Students instead realize that persuasive media offers many opportunities for creative people who are up to the challenge of getting messages across to audiences in the most effective ways possible.

Explore the World with Soccer

For some time now, American kids have been crazy about soccer! While the United States seems slow to embrace this sport which is loved worldwide, the first soccer team in this country was actually established back in the 1860s, and the U.S. Soccer Federation was formed in 1913 (joining the world governing body FIFA in that same year). While professional teams and matches still take a back seat to baseball, football, basketball, and even hockey, kids have embraced soccer as one of their favorite pastimes (of the 18 million Americans who play soccer, 78% of them are under the age of eighteen).

So it's only natural that we can use kids' obsession with this sport to get them interested in reading and world culture. Enter Nomad Press's innovative Soccer World Series, beginning with Soccer World: South Africa and Soccer World: Mexico.

The Soccer World Series follows former pro player Ethan Zohn as he visits different countries, learning about diverse cultures as well as the people who live there. A young player in each country introduces Ethan the nation's unique geography, natural wonders, history, customs, traditions, and sites. In context of these explorations are challenges for kids to act on the social and environmental problems of each country.

In addition to the clear and easily accessible text and colorful illustrations, the books in this series also contain key vocabulary, hands-on projects and activities (including recipes!), and a thorough glossary and index. Students can also visit the series' web site to find additional activities and resources, as well as the opportunity to share their own projects with Ethan.

To help get your students psyched about soccer, you might want to encourage some research into its history and rules of play. Kids First Soccer is a great place to start, and World Almanac for Kids offer the latest up-to-date information on teams and the World Cup.

Speaking of the World Cup, this once-every-four-years event is on for 2010, so what better way to get kids psyched? While the FIFA official web site doesn't have a kids' section, you can find some preliminary activities and print-outs at Activity Village. At EFL Club you can find an interesting listening activity involving drawing flags of the 2010 World Cup nations using geometry vocabulary.

For dozens of additional links, check out the teacher approved links at the Soccer Section at Edgate. And for lots of free, awesome resources on a number of topics, be sure to visit the Nomad Press site. Read more about their titles and downloadable activities at a previous post here.

Nat'l Picture Book Writing Week

National Picture Book Writing Week (aka NaPiBoWriWee) 2010 is upon us! Read more about it at event creator Paula Yoo's web site.

During the first week of May, writers will create one picture book per day for seven days. This event is meant to spur those reluctant writers who've always wanted to write for children but have never taken the plunge.

Paula Yoo (author of Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story, Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds: The Sammy Lee Story, and the YA novel Good Enough) warns prospective writers:

This is NOT to say writing a picture book is easy. On the contrary, it's EXTREMELY difficult and challenging to write a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, an original plotline, and a unique character with a compelling voice for the picture book genre. Every word has to count. Every image and every action has to speak volumes in terms of theme and deeper meaning... while still being kid friendly, fun, and appropriate for the tone of the book (be it a quiet literary picture book or a hilarious, laugh out of loud funny picture book).

When I first heard about this project a year ago, I had strong reservations. But author Daniel Kirk (Library Mouse, Dogs Rule, and Elf Realm: The Low Road) argued convincingly for its merit, and I've since come to realize the value behind NaPiBoWriWe.

So swing over to Paula Yoo's site and see if you're up for the challenge. (She's written posts providing tips for writers all through the month of April).

Who knows? Perhaps in a year I'll be discussing a picture book that you created on this very week!