See Yourself in a Story: My Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World

How do we improve attitudes towards reading and writing in school?  In my experience as a classroom teacher in grades 4-9 and as a school librarian in grades K-8, I have found that the more social and collaborative it is approached, the more students tend to join in the games, discussion, and yes, even the writing prompts that result.  

For example, for Children's Book Week 2021, the theme is Reading is a Superpower.

I asked students to share why they thought that reading gives you superpowers and what you can do in your life as a reader.  We even talked about if you could go a single day without reading?  Does reading pictures count?  What if you see a stop sign?  Having students point out the importance of everyday literacy is valuable for them to see that beyond school it is to their benefit to learn to read, write, speak and listen.  As a bonus, we took turns showing our superpower poses, like the girl who is flexing in the middle of the poster and we mimicked each other's stances and facial expressions.  

That brought us to  Malcolm Mitchell ,our featured author and his picture book, My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World which is about a boy named Henley who cannot find a good book to read. I asked students if they had to pick one favorite book of theirs, could they do it?  Those who could shared their titles and I shared some of mine, too.  I told them about Malcolm Mitchell's background as a pro-football player whose team won the Super Bowl and how he is currently an author and poet with a children's reading foundation.  We watched his interview on GMA and listened to him read aloud his book:

After listening to the story we discussed how we connected to the book and why it was so hard for so many people to find a good book to read.  The picture book ends with Henley writing a story about himself and turning that into his favorite book.  That took us to talk about how often we use our own lives or people we know in our own writing.  

Finally, the creative writing challenge was introduced with a game that Peter H. Reynolds likes to play when he does author visits.  He will take an illustration and turn it into an imaginary book cover while asking the audience to help him come up with a catchy title.  For our challenge I asked students to come up with creative book titles first.  I rolled 2 storytelling dice and based on the pictures we made up book titles and I wrote them on sticky-notes.  We had enough for everyone in the class to have one sticky-note.

Then we made a circle and as I played music, students passed the sticky notes one direction.  When the music stopped, they looked at the sticky note in their hand, read the title out loud and tried to imagine what the story would be like.  We did this for several rounds and even reversed the direction of our passing.  After the last round, students returned to their seats with their final sticky note.  I could've put the notes into a hat and had students draw them randomly or pass them out or have them projected and they pick the one they wanted, too.

With their imaginary book title in hand, they finish the lesson with designing a book cover for it.  They must include the title, a design or drawing and their name as the author.  If they have time or if they choose, they can brainstorm what happens in the beginning, middle, and end or what the problem/solution is for their story.  They can do this with words or drawings.  As students work I ask the whole class who is incorporating magical elements into their story? Who is making theirs funny? Spooky?  

 

For those students who don't know where to begin with their book covers, we watch the first few minutes of Peter H. Reynold's Ready Set Draw-ISH! video:

The results of this lesson are that students see themselves as readers, writers, speakers, and listeners.  They see that it doesn't come easy for everyone and despite set-backs there are strategies to use to improve one's skills.  They have a common experience of brainstorming with classmates and connecting with one another by sharing their ideas, writing, and drawings.