Length: 40 pages

Grade: 5-8 years, Preschool-3rd grade

Qualitative:

Levels of meaning: This book shows how technology can easily consume one's life and wants to encourage the readers to get away from that and learning to have a good balance between digital and outside life.

Text structure: Follows a direct narrative arc from introduction, development/plot, and the resolutions.

Language features: The language features a humorous tone, conversational, and using repeated structures throughout the picture book.

Knowledge demands: This book shows modern technology, representing how valueable it is to go outside and get fresh air than being stuck inside with technology. This text does a good job on adding a playful tone as it's not too harsh on readers understanding the lesson.

Task/Context/Is it challenging?:

This text and context of this picture book is easy to follow, allowing readers to understand through a light hearted message and pictures. This book can spark discussion or engagement between students about their own personal experiences with their own balance between outside and technology life.

Length: 384 pages

Grade: 14+ years, 9th grade and up

Qualitative:

Levels of meaning: This text set explores the world of fame, identity, and the obsession with fame. By exploring these themes, it also opens up doors with self worth, determination, and how the public eye can negatively and positively affect a person.

Text Structure: The text structure is a first person narrative with chapters, with memory flashbacks of the author's life, reflections of his life, and some humerous points. This memoir is known to be engaging with humor and some seriousness throughout.

Language features: This book has a very light, conversational, and humerous tone even while sharing serious scenes.

Knowledge demands: This text set explores fame such as celebrity culture, reality TV, and social media and fully understanding it. This is a memoir so there is a biographical sense to it, giving a deeper meaning to the author and understanding him.

Task/Context/Is it challenging?: This text will engage students in their own personal experiences of how they feel about fame or if they've pursured that fame route. This will also show students to not let this fame and popularity on social media consume you, your happiness will not be fufilled fully by this.

Length: 31 pages

Grade: Ages 6-11, Grades 1st-6th

Qualitative:

Levels of meaning: This picture book shows that what we say and post on the internet matters and will follow you and affect you in your outside life and others. This reveals to readers that they must be mindful and kind when on the internet because there's consequences to their actions.

Text Structure: The structure of this book goes by a pretty straight forward narrative and focusing on the progression of the digital tail which symbolizes the digital trail of the child.

Language features: The language used in this text is in a playful but kind tone, making a serious topic more light to make sure children fully understand the severity of a digital trail.

Knowledge demands: This text assumes that the reader understands what technology is but makes the point of what the child posts and says leaves a trail and how serious it is to watch what you do on the internet.

Task/Context/Is it challenging?: The context of this set is making children understand their digital citzenship and their trail that they leave while on the internet. This may be challenging for some students who do not have social media or understanding that just deleting something does not make it disappear. This opens discussions throughout the classroom of the importance and what we can do to be better digital citzenships and thinking of what we post and do on the internet.

Length: 384 pages

Grade: 10-12 years, 3rd-7th grades

Qualitative:

Levels of meaning: This text reveals how the internet can bring out emotions like fear, loneliness, and insecurity. The pressures teenagers have to face within the real world and digital world.

Text Structure: The text is structured as an introduction to the main character, the rising action, falling action, and resolution of the story.

Language features: The language featured in this reading is conversational between the characters, humor and wit sprinkled throughout, symbolism, and internal monologue with the characters.

Knowledge demands: It's best to have an understanding of digital cuture, middle school social dynamics, cyberbullying, and identity/self image.

Task/Context/Is it challenging?: This reading will provide a great insight for students' on digital culture and cyberbullying. This can open discussion of how to prevent cyberbullying, what can we do to help, and having good digital culture.

Length: 496 pages

Grade: 12+ years old, 6th-12th grade

Qualitative:

Levels of meaning: This text will present themes of racism, digital responsibility, and the consequences that come with online actions.

Text Structure: The text is structered with the viral post in the introduction, the after events unfolding such as the impact on the student long term and short term, reactions from teachers, classmates, etc. The ending reflects on the racist incident, the consequences of bad online behavior, and educational and personal growth after this.

Language features: This reading is serious and reflective, the wording using very detailed descriptions of each scene to really create that visual for the reader to see the severity of the incident. Direct and rhetorical questions are presented throughout this book to engage readers and show the authenticity of this moment.

Knowledge demands: This text recommends that the reader be aware of ongoing racism before taking on this book, being known of social media literacy, and taking accountability and knowing there's consequences to our actions.

Task/Context/Is it challenging?: This text will be incredibly challening to be presented in a class because of the severity and how sensitive this topic is. Presenting this text will mean making sure students know how serious this book is and to be mature about it all whilst learning about moments of history and digital responsibility. Although this text will be a hard one, this will enagage and encourage students to stand up for what is wrong, report something to a trusted adult when something is wrong, and learning to be digitally responsible.

Et Al, L. (2017). Building Background Knowledge Through Reading: Rethinking Text Sets.