Departments : Teaching With Children's Books :
Resource Roundup
By Lisa Von Drasek
Support reading groups at any grade level with these professional books and reading guides
Scholastic BookFiles reading guides help to illuminate many beloved classroom titles.
At my school, teachers and students select books for discussion. Sometimes it's a class novel like Pharaoh's Daughter by Julius Lester (Harper, 2002, ISBN: 0-064-40969-4), The Giver by Lois Lowry (Houghton Mifflin, 1993 ISBN: 0-395-64566-2) or Mildred Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Puffin, 1991, ISBN: 0-140-34893-X). Sometimes the kids are selecting books for reading response groups or literature circles – books like The Million Dollar Shot by Dan Gutman (Hyperion, 2003, ISBN: 0-786-81220-6) for third and fourth graders, Henry and Mudge by Cynthia Rylant (Aladdin, 1996, ISBN: 0-689-81005-9) for younger kids and Sharon Creech's Love that Dog (HarperTrophy, 2003, ISBN: 0-064-40959-7) for kids in upper grades. These units are part of our balanced literacy program; they're a context in which to apply reading and writing skills.
Guides for good books
For guidance in using trade books in the classroom, check out the terrific Scholastic BookFiles reading guides for classroom favorites such as Sounder by William Armstrong, A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle and Holes by Louis Sachar. Each $4.99 paperback gives background on the author, questions to guide reading, clues to themes, plot, characters and setting, a glossary and activities.
For example, A Reading Guide To The Giver by Lois Lowry (Scholastic Reference, 2003, ISBN: 0-439-46356-4) contains a biography of Lowry, and an interview in which she answers questions like, "If a reader took away only one thing from this book, what would you want it to be?"
The Chapter Charter section contains questions to guide discussion, such as, for Chapter 1, "What are some clues that Jonas' community is different from the one in which you live?" Teachers will appreciate the activity suggestions, such as "Become a Receiver of Memory: Jonas was chosen to become the Receiver of Memory in his community. You can become a Receiver, too, simply by interviewing an elderly friend or relative about his or her past." The guides conclude with a bibliography of resources used in the guide, that would be helpful further reading for educators.
Books in a box
Also from Scholastic Professional Books is Books Don't Have to Be Flat!: Innovative Ways to Publish Students' Writing in Every Curriculum Area by Kathy Pike and Jean Mumper (Scholastic, 1999, ISBN: 0-590-12049-2). This volume contains directions for creating 10 unique books such as Baggie Books, Artifact-Box Books, Graduated-Pages Books, Accordion Books, Wisdom Books, Traveling Books, Hanger Books, Stories in a Can and Matchbook Books. The chapters include helpful curriculum connections and a list of children's books for inspiration.
As an example the authors display an artifact-box book response to Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan (HarperTrophy, 1987, ISBN: 0-064-40205-3), which included a quill, soap, a tintype photograph, dried flowers, a paintbrush and marbles.
Chatting about chapters
Talk About Books!: Guide for Book Clubs, Literature Circles, and Discussion Groups, Grades 4-8 by Elizabeth Knowles and Martha Smith (Libraries Unlimited, 2003, ISBN: 1-591-58023-4) examines 15 new titles including Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century American Art edited by Jan Greenberg (Harry Abrams, 2001, ISBN: 0-810-94386-7), Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen (Knopf, 2001, ISBN: 0-375-82544-4) and Monster by Walter Dean Myers, (HarperCollins, 2001, ISBN: 0-064-40731-4). Each chapter focuses on one title – the theme, a summary, discussion questions, information about the author and content area connections, additional titles and a list of more resources for teachers.
Heart to Heart, a book of poems inspired by artwork, is one of the 15 books you'll find profiled in Talk About Books!.
I find the suggested activities inspiring. For example, Flipped is a novel about friendship, told from two points of view. Talk About Books! suggests content area connections for each book and offers additional titles that relate to the themes of each book. Each chapter concludes with websites on the book's topic, and how to contact each author.
More resources
Check out Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Web Site at www.carolhurst.com The site is rich with reviews as well as suggestions for guided reading and using children's literature in the classroom.
There's also the Literature Circles Resource Center from the School of Education, Seattle University at www.litcircles.org The Resource Center is designed to support teachers as they plan and use literature circles. The site supplements the book Getting Started with Literature Circles by Katherine L. Schlick Noe and Nancy J. Johnson (Christopher-Gordon, 1999, ISBN: 0-926-84297-8), but it's also designed to stand on its own.
My own favorite resource for planning reading response activities and children's literature curriculum is Children's Literature in the Elementary School by Charlotte S. Huck, Barbara Z. Kiefer, Susan Hepler, Janet Hickman (McGraw-Hill Humanities, 2003, ISBN: 0-072-87841-X).
I hope these resources help you as much as they've helped the teachers and students at Bank Street.
Lisa Von Drasek is Children's Librarian at the School for Children, Bank Street College of Education, in New York, NY.
November/December, 2003, Vol.34, No.3
