Below I would like to display a few authors that are really at the pinnacle of what a wordless book should be. I'll be careful to highlight the age range I would suggest for each title and any suggestions I have for how to utilize each book in the classroom.
Books by Aaron Becker
Journey and Return are fantasy at the very best, filled with landscapes and many ways the story could go.
Age: 4th grade through Middle School
Lesson Suggestion: Have students tell the story, write it out. Have students choose one picture and add onto the story (choose your own adventure-esque). Rewrite the end of the story, and add an illustration to go with it.
A Stone for Sascha was a slight departure from Becker's earlier work and depicts a clear story of a girl leaving home for a trip. On her trip she finds a stone in a lake. Most of the story is about how the stone got to it's spot in the lake, going thought thousands of years of transformation from a large stone (like the ones used in stone hedge) to a small statue, each time chipping off a smaller and smaller piece, until the stone is found by Sascha.
Age: 3rd-Middle School
Lesson Suggestion: I would pair this book with Flotsam, written by David Wiesner. Both stories depict the journey of an object from the past to present day. Compare and contrast these two stories. Imagine an additional place that the objects could have been, write a story from the objects point of view rather than the characters point of view.
Books by David Wiesner
Tuesday tells about about a regular Tuesday night, but some levitating force zooms some unassuming frogs all over town.
Age: These, again, I would read with upper-elementary through middle school. I've found that elementary kids can tell what's going on but middle and high school kids can really understand the more nuanced expressions and catch on to deeper details.
Gosh, this is a cool one! Flotsam, similarly to A
Stone for Sascha has an element of past and present day in the illustrations. This has a clearer story than Tuesday, but is still open to interpretation. A boy finds an old fashioned camera on the beach. When he goes to get the film developed he is amazed to find what the photos show!
Check out these stand alone titles--all wordless and all worth buying a copy!
The Snowman written by Raymond Briggs, tells the story of a snowy day and how a boy builds a snowman, the snowman comes alive and how the boy and snowman go on an adventure together. Drawn in cells like a comic book or graphic novel, kids can easily tell what is going on by the expressive faces and use of light that the illustrator uses to depict mood. Grade: K-8
Activities: Choose one page of panels and have students write in speech bubbles to depict the action.
Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie Depaola Everyone loves pancakes! One morning, a woman wakes up and wants pancakes. But she needs to get all the ingredients to make them. She has to tap the trees to get the syrup, she has to milk a cow and church the milk to make the butter --What a lot of work! Later, she gets a whiff from her neighbors house and pops over for breakfast. A great one to use as an anchor text or shared reading with very young kids.
Grades: K-3
Activities: Read together and write out the action, this is a great shared writing anchor text. Especially for ELL students. Simple actions and simple characters bring this story to life.
Grades: 3-High school
Activities: I use this book when I am practicing inferencing with my students. The story is not obvious right away and students have to take what they know (schema) about the civil war, slavery and the Underground Railroad, and use the pictures to put together a narrative
Float by Daniel Miyares, like A Ball for Daisy has a simply story, but is beautifully illustrated. What I like about these simple wordless stories for young readers, is they depict happenings that many children have participated in: Walking/playing in the rain, watching a dog play in the park--Each situation is very relatable and therefore easy for students to practice their comprehension using visual media.
No comments:
Post a Comment