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In the past, prior to this class, I have not given children's books as much thought and care as I will and into the future. In the past I would read the text, and glance at the pictures but not spend much time reviewing and exploring the pictures and taking the time to discuss the pictures. I've not taught in a classroom before so I'm talking about when I read books with my kids. Because my kid is young, first grade, I've focused on reading stories to him so he hear a variety of words to build his vocabulary. What I've learned in this class is to stop and explore all aspects of the book which helps a child learn just as much as the text.

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After reading this week's readings, some ideas/practices I would like to employ is the book as a whole. As Hassett and Curwood said in the article, "in many children's books today, written language is indeed no longer central" (Hassett, pg. 271). What I intend to do in the future before reading a book is do a walk through, explore the cover, beginning and end pages, the pictures, etc. I'd like to show the pictures to the students can make predictions about the story before reading the text. This will help the student's conceptual thinking and start a discussion between the pictures and story. There are many more activities that can be done between writing activities, prediction activities, retelling activities, drawing activities, alternative ending activities, etc. I think it's important to read a variety of books to interact with the students. The authors, Hassett and Curwood, talked about reading a book that contains humor and where you have to sing, but you can do additional things like add movement, or have kids say and mirror some of the words. Additionally, you can have act out a book like a play even. Discussing the text like the size, shape, style, is another way to get the kids to think and learn just as Willa did with her students about the Pigeon book in the Hassett and Curwood article. I understand now that interacting with the book and the story help the children better understand and remember the story which helps with their critical thinking and ability to recall and retell the story. These are critical parts for learning that I hope to help my future students practice and build these skills.

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The Hassett and Curwood article states that "When teachers initiate open-ended activites in response to multimodal texts, the create a space in which to honor the linguistic and cultural differences amont-and between-the students in their classroom" (Hassett, 2008). Wow, that's a powerful statement and stresses the importance of picking and reading the right texts in a classroom. There is such little time to actually teach students with all the other activities going on that it's critical to pick the write books to read and teach in the classroom to get the most out of the student's experience. It's about exploring and interpreting the book as a whole, beyond the words, that help students understand the meaning of the book and helps their cognitive development.

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The reading this week reminded me of my time student teaching in middle school where my supervising teacher suggested we use a pop-up book to create a unit of study about visual elements in storytelling. I can't believe I had forgotten about this until now. I think that someone had donated a class set of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, by Stephen King, only it was the pop-up version. Who knew this prolific horror author's work could be turned into a picturebook? The main character is a young girl who gets lost in the woods while hiking with her family. She experiences a lot of scary situations, including an encounter with a bear. I've never read the original novel on which this book is based, but the pop-up book certainly has many elements of horror.

Initially, I wanted to have the students create their own pop-up books, after we read the book as a class and discussed the different types of 3-D visuals, but the teacher trimmed it down to just a pop-up poster where the students had to include like four different elements. For example, they might have a part on the poster that opened up with something that had been folded like in the book or they might have a springy picture that wasn't hidden at all. I think we discussed how the pop-up elements supported the story and the theme, but I know we could have done more to discuss the interaction with the text and how well it was enhanced or used differently. I connected with Hassett and Curwood (2009) who stated that "in many children's books today, written language is indeed no longer central. Print represents only one mode of communication, and it is not always the most important focus." A pop-up book, though it isn't always a children's book medium, is definitely the type of book where the reader must engage with the art or they will miss out on so much.

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I don't have a current classroom, but I expect to work again with the middle school or junior high age groups in language arts. I was already getting excited to learn more about graphic novels and read more to become familiar with the genre, but in contemplating the possibilities of teaching with picturebooks, I'm interested in using them to workshop all types of writing from personal narrative to fiction. Pantaleo (2015) noted the importance of teaching students "visual literacy" because the definition of literacy is evolving. We don't just read print anymore. We have thankfully moved a little beyond read-a-book-write-a-book-report type of schooling and more into the territory of social engagement with text and images. Sipe and McGuire (2006) concluded that discussing visual elements "broadens children's critical thinking abilities," which is what we want to provide for students so that they are prepared to be critical-thinking citizens.

I would want to employ small-group discussions of picturebooks combined with whole-class sharing, where perhaps we had different groups reading a novel but using picturebooks as a support for making inferences or looking at point of view or whatever elements we were studying in depth maybe on the same theme or in the same genre as the novel. It's like studying Shakespeare. We could just read and discuss a play, but we would miss a lot I think if we didn't actually watch a performance. Using picturebooks to study say, poetry, or anything really, helps the readers understand nuance and inference and differing interpretations based on what background knowledge different people bring.

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It's clear to me now, with all we have read and shared so far in this course, that picturebooks are not just for young children. I always knew that the vocabulary, themes, and complex sentence structures that are in many picturebooks meant that they were geared more for reading to young children than having the children read them independently-they were for sharing and read alouds-but as a teacher I hadn't given enough serious thought to using them with teenagers. As I mentioned in my other Padlet threads on this page, I think that I can certainly use picturebooks to teach various elements of writing.

Some students will connect immediately with picturebooks if they are already aware of their artistic interests and talents. I had two 8th graders who were often drawing elaborate comics during any free or not-so-free moments in class. Students who love to draw or create digital art might already be inclined to notice visual elements in stories that others might miss without guidance and explicit instruction. Some students might initially balk at the idea of using picturebooks in class if they think they are "baby books," but I think we can overcome that with the variety of text available. So many books are about current social themes that they are great discussion points, as long as I, the teacher, learn how to use them in quality discussions.

I'd like to know how middle level teachers in my district are using picturebooks, if they are at all.

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Each illustration in a storybook imbedded the semiotics significance; I used to instruct students to observe what they see in the picture at first and then encourage them to contemplate why the artist try to utilize the features of visual design. Furthermore, to illuminate the affective reflection, they tried to depict the feelings conveyed in the visual design and how do elements of visual design constitute the atmosphere in the story. During the process of articulating the implications and detailed usage of visual design, they could recall the vocabularies they learned and appreciated aesthetic stances. The picture above is from the storybook “The Dragon Machine” written by Helen Ward and illustrated by Wayne Anderson in 2003 exemplifies my instruction of visual design or art. First, students found George, the little boy looked small, and he looked even smaller in the crowds in the busy street. Students described people around the boy wearing in colorful clothes, but the boy was wearing in a plain coat and pants in the same color. When it came to the atmosphere of the illustration, students described the main character, George’s facial expression showed a wired smile and it seemed that he was not belong to there and George was pale as a ghost since he was in transparent color. Students thought the image expresses lonely and isolation.

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I will employ multimodal characteristics as pedagogical practices since students interact with constant changing digital media that imbed multimodal forms. With the practice of multimodal theories, readers/students can make connections with the chosen visual and text design and interpret/express the meaning and feelings behind the multimodal texts and visual design. Take the storybook “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” retold by M.J. York and illustrated by Molly Idle (2012) showing above as an example, I will introduce the color, lines and vertical placement integrated to express nervous and unsafe in the 9th opening. That is, the green might be the least color children like since it reminds them of vegetables and the skin in green might make readers feel strange, which might be the reason why the artist utilized green as the troll's color. In addition, the diagonal composition creates an unbalanced and nervous when describing the little goat is on the shaking bridge. Students will then tell the story in their group, and they are also required to express the likely tone with the narrative.

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To enhances students ‘ability in this literacy-rich environment and helps them relate to the real world. When students share their observation of visual and written elements with peers after my demonstration, they will contemplate in what circumstance they will employ similar visual elements presented in the story, which constructs their understanding of social context and improve empathy.

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As an elementary school teacher, I have use picture books with my students often. When I use them with students I usually have one of two goals. One goal is when teaching a thematic unit, I will use picture books to introduce a theme or add more to a specific lesson that is being taught. I use them for both social studies and science. Surprisingly, there are a lot of science based picture books to help teach and introduce science concepts. A second goal I have with picture books is using them as mentor texts with writing. An example picture book that I have used is The Top Secret Knowledge of Grownups by David Wisniewski. This book written by a grown-up gives away the secrets of adults of why there are certain rules to follow, like eat your veggies. The reasons he gives are hilarious, grown-ups say eat your vegetables because if you don’t they will take over and will eat humans. Kids and adults find this book very entertaining. After reading and analyzing the book, I have students come up with their own grown-up rules and write stories about them. We then create a class Top Secret Knowledge of Grown-Ups and read all of the stories as a class. According to the article by Hassett and Curwood “Theories and Practices of Multimodal Education: The Instrucional Dynamics of Picture Books and Primary Classrooms”, it discussed how picture books are multimodal. This book is an example of being multimodal; it “contains multiple forms of symbolic representations” (page 271). Students have to use the text, illustrations, side notes, etc. to get all of the information.

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After reading this week’s articles my biggest “aha” came from the Sipe and McGuire article “Picturebook Endpapers: Resources for Literary and Aesthetic Interpretation”. Even though I teach upper elementary and use picture books regularly, I didn’t realize how much teaching potential there really was available with the “peritext” of a book. The article discussed that its hope was, “by discussing the variety of ways in which endpapers function in picture books, their importance will become evident to teachers, who will then invite their students to engage in meaningful interpretation of this important peritextual element” (page 293). I would like to employ students to be analytical when looking at the peritextual elements of a picture book. There is a lot of potential for students to make predictions, inferences, connections, and look for foreshadowing. They can accomplish this by analyzing the covers, endpapers, title page, etc. Another idea I had was to analyze before reading the book and after to see if any predictions/foreshadowing were accurate. Even after reading the story students could then make connections or identify possible foreshadowing by looking at the “peritext” of a book. This article did open my eyes to the importance of all of the parts of a picture book.

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The Hassett and Curwood article stated, “meaning no longer lies in the text itself because there are many possible meanings, which change according to who the reader is” (page 272).  I think my students will get an appreciation and understanding of how many parts and pieces really go into a picture book. It really depends on the reader to look and interpret all of the moving parts and to create their own meaning of a book. To also understand that depending on cultural and social backgrounds, the meaning of a book will be different from person to person. Finally, I hope that students will see an appreciation for picture books and not only think of them for younger children. To think of them as tools and resources to deepen understanding about a specific topic, interest, or life in general.

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My goal/purpose of using picture books in my classroom.

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I've used picture books in my classroom quite a bit over the years, and loved to read with my own children when they were small. I think my foremost reason has always been to foster a love of books and reading. I wanted my own children to have warm memories of curling up together with a book and laughing and learning. With my students, I want them to see that books can be fun  and exciting and encourage their desire to learn how to read independently.
I use picture books to get students excited about upcoming topics or events, such as holidays or field trips. I use picture books as a way to build background knowledge and make connections to their own lives and experiences. Picture books are great examples of good writing. I want my students to see themselves as authors and illustrators.
I also use picture books to help teach my students the difference between fiction and nonfiction. They also learn how to define realistic fiction. Picture books are a great way to teach critical thinking skills and comprehension skills like making inference and predictions. Picture books are great prompts for discussions and/or debates.
I often use picture books with my students to help them relax and unwind after testing, recess, P.E., etc. I am very careful what promises I make to 6-year olds but I do promise to read them at least one book each school day. Now, with the use of Class Dojo, I use picture books to build connections before school starts and over long breaks.

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As an elementary teacher, I used picture books for everything. If I could find a way to include a picture book into the lesson, I would do it. I often used picture books to introduce a topic and get the students excited for what was to come. I used them as mentor texts in writing, teaching vocabulary in context, and as I modeled a think aloud for comprehension. I used picture books for every subject I taught. But my favorite way, and my goal of using picture books, was as a read aloud to instill the love of reading with my students.

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Last week’s readings got me excited about endpapers, of all things, so I was pleased to see an entire article all about endpapers this week. I have never paid close attention to the endpapers before other than to notice if there was a picture on them or not, so I certainly did not understand how the endpaper can set the tone for the entire book. I don’t have a class right now but in the future, I intend to begin by showing the class the front endpapers and the back endpapers. I will lead them into a discussion about the significance of the endpapers; are they illustrated or not, is the front endpaper similar to the back endpaper, are there pictures of the main character, and could that represent the plot of the story, etc? After reading the book I will lead them back to the endpapers and discuss whether our predictions were correct and whether there was any significance to the colors or illustrations that we didn't catch before we read the book.

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The endpapers “provide a playful arena for the production of textual meaning, as well as presenting a rich orienting experience to the reader.” (Sipe & McGuire, 2006) I think my students will have a greater appreciation and a better experience reading a picture book by learning about the endpapers. I also think it is a great opportunity for them to learn about making predictions. There are many different features to the endpapers and having students discuss what they think their significance to the story is will make them think more critically and beyond the "who, what, when, where, and how" that we typically ask from them.

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In this classroom I have experienced using picturebooks to teach topics related to the ELA goals. For example, if our goal is to learn about informational text and compare that against narrative texts, we would compare. Another example may be identifying setting, characters, moral, theme, etc. These would be story elements found in narrative texts. I have also used  picturebooks to help my students connect text to their lives, other texts, and the world around them. Although, there are a lot of other elements included in pictures that are important for students to see when looking at the illustrations and reading the text.

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As a student who has yet to teach in a classroom, my picturebook experience with children has been somewhat limited outside of reading to the children I nanny or to my younger siblings growing up. Reading aloud to them is always a favorite pass-time of both mine and theirs, as you can make the stories come to life with your tone and voice as well as by making any story interactive by discussing the imagery happening alongside the text. The goal/purpose of using the books has always been to promote literacy and expose kiddos to the learnings and joys found in stories.

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"Creating Meaning through Art and Design" -Lauren Herzberg 

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"Creating Meaning through Art and Design" -Lauren Herzberg 

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Pantaleo mentioned that, “living in a visually rich world does not mean that youth are naturally visually literate”  (Pantaleo, 2015,  pg.14) There were a few strategies that stood out to me after reading these articles. One was to use writing so students can reflect on their interpretation of picturebook images in relation to art and design. As stated in Pantaleo’s article (pg. 114) teachers do not only have to use picturebooks to show these artistic elements. The use of multimodalities like magazines,  music, websites, etc. are just as useful when interacting with illustrations and constructing meaning from art. It is also important for teachers to consider the sociocultural contexts within the book.

To teach these strategies explicit instruction on visual design, composition principles, and image analysis is needed. To do this students must consider color, shade, perspective, etc. Since this topic is very specific to the world of art and design this would mean students would need to learn new vocabulary. Two specific activities or lessons stood out to me during the reading. These activities are  something I would do in a 1-3rd  grade classroom. Activity one would be comparing and contrasting student color pallet interpretations from the same text. In other words, students would identify the meaning of the colors then share their interpretations. This activity can  be repeated by analyzing  typographical features in a text. In the picture book, “Froggy Gets Dressed” the font changes but the emotions of the character did not. Students still commented that Froggy’s mother was getting more angry as pages went on. One activity that can be done in relation to font is having students create their own personal fonts on paper displaying themselves in different social situations and illustrating how their font might look.

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These types of activities and perspectives will allow students to open their mind to new creative elements of literature and see picturebooks (and images in general) in a different light. Student will be able to express their personal creativity by analyzing images and art and using literacy skills like writing, comprehension, etc. I also think if students are taught through multimodalities then they will have a broader idea of what text is. This will give them a wide range of learning opportunities and tools to work with.

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After diving into this weeks readings, I am more excited to incorporate some practices into my future classroom because I have a greater understanding of why it is so beneficial to read picturebooks aloud to the kiddos. Hasset acknowledges a quote by Siegel that really stuck with me, “language arts education can no longer ignore the way that our social, cultural, and economic worlds now require facility with texts and practices involving the full range of representational modes” (Hasset 2009). Children's picturebooks contain a wide array of stories, content, and information that are integral to the way children begin to perceive the world, and that information is no longer just held within the text itself, but in the blank space in imagery, use of color, borders, size of text, style of illustration, etc. This definitely will lead me to practice observation with my future students so that we can critically think together about what the author and illustrator are trying to convey. Opening up a discussion and making reading a more interactive experience will promote critical thinking and observation that I hope to instill in my kiddos.

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By using these instructional activities, students will be able to gain a greater knowledge base to view, comprehend, and interpret visual texts (Pantaleo 2015). It has been shown that even limited exposure and instruction of the elements of picturebooks helped develop awareness and understanding of the difficulty of creating and reading visual texts. By paying closer attention to the visual elements, students actually gain a greater comprehension of the written words as well. Reading books with different sociocultural backgrounds, stories, and authors can also expose students at an early age to the beautiful differences of the human experience which could greatly impact their openness and acceptance for others later in life as well.

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This week's reading made me realize that I don't emphasize the illustrations as much as I could when reading aloud to my students. I really didn't own any picture books as a child and the first ones I can remember were read to me by my teachers at school. I think that because I was already reading fluently, I never really looked at the pictures much and just focused on the text, only glancing at the illustrations.  Even now, my students will point out details in the illustrations that I hadn't noticed before. Yet picture books today cannot be fully understood if we don't pay attention to features other than the text.
"In many children's books today, written language is indeed no longer central. Print represents only one mode of communication, and it is not always the most important focus. When reading these books in the classroom, students and teachers alike need to focus on all of the various textual elements  (e.g., print, images, graphics) as well as other modes of communication that can occur within the social context of the classroom" (Hassett, p. 271).
Hassett & Curwood state, "Emergent research on literacy highlights the imaginative, interpretive, nonlinear, interactive, dynamic, visual and mobile features of communication.  Although these interactive features of text are evident in many educational technologies, such as computers or SMART boards, they also are present in recently published children's books" (p. 270). The importance of multiliteracy sometimes makes teachers feel that need to incorporate a lot of different technology.  But this article reminds us that picture books can also help our students  understand and interpret multiple modalities.
In my class, I would like to employ the strategy of doing 'picture walks' with my students. By first noticing visual elements, including the cover, endpapers, size and shape, color, lines, etc., they will be better able to notice how those attributes contribute to the story when we do read the text.
Another idea I would like to use in my classroom is to replicate what we've done in this class. I would love to explain the Caldecott award, read a Caldecott winner and then have the children discuss why they think the book won the award. Children tend to be naturally artistic and I would genuinely love to hear their thoughts. Although I often ask them what their favorite part of the story is, I'd like to also start asking which illustration was their favorite and why.

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My students will develop an appreciation for the illustrations in a picture book and notice the physical features and how they contribute to the story. Just as they learn to think about the author's purpose, they might think about why the illustrator chose the colors, medium, style, etc.
The picture walk will teach students to stop and make predictions based on the cover and endpapers. In Pantaleo's research, the first graders "used peritextual elements to predict and to confirm their interpretations about characters, plot, setting, and tone of the book" (Sipe, p.292).
By noticing the illustrations first prior to reading the text, my students will be in a better position to detect a mismatch or secondary storyline, as well as the use of irony. These skills are crucial in "determining meaning in an age where access to the visual content of communication is becoming more important" (Anstey, p. 338).
In the past, I've had students point out and ask about Caldecott medals and I think they would love analyzing why they won. I find that they love to voice their opinions and feel that they are valued. They could write their response or try their hand at the same type of illustrations. This could even morph into a school-wide "Kid's Choice Award".
All of these types of discussions will help students make meaning of what they read as well as what they see. In order to provide better explicit instruction, I need to educate myself a bit more. I had one course on art methods but as pointed out in the article by Panteleo, "Explicit instruction of elements of visual art and design requires teacher knowledge and instructional design...some practitioners may need to engage in professional development to develop their own understandings of the design of multimodal texts" (p.125).

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I have read aloud picturebooks to my own children to develop their interest in reading and to teach them new things. When they were younger, I selected alphabet and item board books that were easy to hold and point to the images and items. We paused on each page to discuss what was happening in the pictures, and I asked many open-ended questions or explained what I saw. I also selected picturebooks with a rhyming format to the text and bold colorful pictures to hold their interest. When I worked or volunteered in schools, I read aloud picturebooks to teach new concepts, and the images were present to provide more information and support the text.

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Curwood and Hassett’s article pointed out that print represents only one mode of communication, and our society is becoming more focused on multimodal communication formats that incorporate more visual elements (2009, p. 271). I would like to focus on the explicit teaching of vocabulary to describe an analyze the aesthetic design and features of print and multimodal texts, including color, point of view, perspective, typography, line, shape, framing, paneling, and thought bubbles. The depth of analysis would depend on the age or grade level of students, and I would focus on one feature at a time. I would always model for my students how to discuss and infer meaning from the elements of visual art and design in the texts they are presented as a group before asking them to collaborate in small groups or complete individual writing assignments based on artwork they find on their own. All discussions would be guided by focus questions. I liked the idea of creating a notebook with examples for the element different elements, especially color, including a color wheel and examples of the use of color in illustrations. Once students have a good idea of what elements can be used to create illustrations and digital images, they can participate in the creation of their own stories with images that include some of the elements of design.

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The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Official Animated Film | Made For Kids | Eric Carle Book

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One of the purposes of education is to encourage the next generation to create something of their own. Not only do instructional activities using picturebooks help students to understand the visual components of picturebook and multimodal communication design, they also facilitate discussions that lead to the acquisition of new vocabulary. They help the students to understand that there are many ways to communicate ideas and feelings, and they can incorporate visual elements of design into their own communications.

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Book Creator - Love Learning - Book Creator app

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Teachers love it. Students love it. Book Creator is the simplest, most inclusive way to create content in the classroom.