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Power of Picture Books, The: Using Content Area Literature in Middle School
by Mary Jo Fresch and Margaret Harkins
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| Grades | 5 – 9 |
| Type | Book |
| Pages | 147 |
| Published | August 2009 |
| Publisher |  |
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Description |
Picture books aren’t just for little kids.
They are powerful and engaging texts that can help all middle school students succeed in language arts, math, science, social studies, and the arts. Picture books appeal to students of all readiness levels, interests, and learning styles.
Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas.
The authors provide a synopsis of each title along with discipline-specific and cross-curricular activities that illustrate how picture books can be used to supplement—and sometimes even replace—traditional textbooks. They also offer title suggestions that create a “text set” of supporting resources.
By incorporating picture books into the classroom, teachers across the disciplines can introduce new topics into their curriculum, help students develop nonfiction literacy skills, provide authentic and meaningful cultural perspectives, and help meet a wide range of learning needs.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers
Students use picture books as framing texts for research, freeing them from the language of encyclopedia sources and allowing them to focus their attention on the content of their papers.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Critical Discussion of Social Issues
Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Standard Lesson
Comparing and Contrasting: Picturing an Organizational Pattern
Using picture books as mentor texts, students learn effective strategies for organizing information that compares and contrasts. Students can then apply appropriate organizational strategies to their own papers.
Grades 6 – 8 | Lesson Plan | Unit
Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project
Students explore a variety of resources as they learn about the Holocaust. Working collaboratively, they investigate the materials, prepare oral responses, and produce a topic-based newspaper to complete their research.
