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Using picturebooks to talk about Trauma, Anxiety, Stress and COVID-19 [Part II]

4/30/2020

 

BY ANGELA M. WISEMAN

On April 21 I wrote a post on the same topic, in which I addressed some of the anxiety, stress, and trauma that children might be facing during COVID-19. In this follow-up post, I am sharing some books that my colleagues and I have found helpful in talking with adults and children about trauma, in hopes that these books can start facilitating conversations about feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams.
Picture

COVID-19 has created stressful situations for many families - we may be concerned about many issues, including financial issues/job security, trying to meet professional obligations, and staying healthy. Children are experiencing general anxiety and stress, but also often experience negative feelings resulting from missing friends and family, adapting to changes in routines and activities, and fear of getting sick.  In this post, I am going to suggest some ways to use children’s literature to start conversations about anxieties, sadness, and coping mechanisms. In addition, I share some resources for adults and children that might be helpful.

Books for talking about anxieties and fear

Reading and responding to literature can be emotional, empowering, and transformative. When children experience trauma or anxiety, picturebooks can be a powerful way to foster conversations about their experiences and beliefs.  Or, simply, they can offer an opportunity for adults and children to talk about feelings and emotions. The complexity of picturebooks - the visual and textual components - allows for multiple ways to respond and consider topics. Children’s literature can expand readers’ experiences; encouraging readers to relate to others and consider different perspectives. In addition to text, images serve as a central component of picturebooks that allow readers to articulate insightful interpretations that can lead to further discussion.

Here are two books that could cultivate conversations about anxiety and stress. I have used both of these texts with my colleagues in a trauma-informed family literacy program for parents who are in rehabilitation for substance use disorder to foster communication and build relationships. After describing the two books that could facilitate discussions, I provide some suggested ebooks about the CoronaVirus. Finally, I provide a few resources that could be helpful for families.

After the Fall by Dan Santat

This book is a variation on Humpty Dumpty and his great fall. The character in this text falls from a ledge while watching birds. After his recuperation, his fear of falling again affects the things he loves in life and his everyday tasks - from birdwatching to grocery shopping. In this book, we see how Humpty addresses his fears and “learned how to fly”.

While on the outset, this book may seem like an updated nursery rhyme, it is much more complex than that. After the Fall is Santat’s love letter to his wife, acknowledging her journey with anxiety and postpartum depression. You can learn more about the backstory at this Sharpread post. When my colleagues and I have used this book in our family literacy program, we have posed the following questions:
  • How does Humpty Dumpty’s fear prevent him from healing fully?
  • Humpty Dumpty is famous for falling off the wall but this is a continuation of his story. How did Humpty Dumpty’s life change and how will he now be remembered?
  • The author suggests that life begins when you get back up. What does this mean to you?
  • What are your fears and how do they affect your day-to-day life?
Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Weber

Ira is invited to his first sleepover, but he wonders...can he tell his friend Reggie that he needs his teddy bear? While his parents tell him it’s fine, his sister berates him and causes him to feel like his friend would make fun of his teddy bear’s name. Reggie initially decides not to bring him, but in the end, finds out that his friend has one too! So, he gets his own bear and can finally enjoy the sleepover.

While this book is older, it is infinitely relatable. First, we see how anxiety is affected by how others respond to us. Second, we can talk about the idea of security objects - things that make us feel better when we need them. This could be helpful during times of quarantine. One thing our family has done is talk about things that make us feel better when we are stressed. For instance, my sons are taking regular walks together and having time with their friends online.

In our family literacy program, we ask questions such as:
  • Do you have a security blanket (or item) that provides comfort?
  • How does this story relate to you? What are some of your fears and worries?
  • When do you worry and what might help you during these times?

Books for talking about the Corona Virus with children

There are several ebooks that are free that are great resources to read with children to explain about COVID-19. Here are some we recommend:
  • Dr. Li and the Crown-Wearing Virus is a free e-book that provides information about COVID-19 and focuses on scientific information to explain the pandemic. It also focuses on how to stay safe at home.
  • Coronavirus: A Book for Children  explains many aspects of the pandemic, including why you can’t go to school, visit your friends, and why grown-ups are at home with you. It is written in a question and answer format and focuses on questions such as what is the coronavirus, how you catch it and why places are closed.
  • My Hero is You! Is a book that was published about the pandemic and how families and caregivers can talk about it. This link features the book in 35 different languages and was developed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings, and supported by global, regional and country based experts, in addition to parents, caregivers, teachers and children in 104 countries.
The New York City School Library System recently published a list of free ebooks for children about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. The list includes several books in Spanish as well as books in other languages.
Additional Helpful Resources
  • For more resources for children’s literature and supporting teachers and caregivers in dealing with child trauma, read this helpful list from NC State University.
  • UNICEF has a COVID-19 guide for parents to “navigate this health crisis with providing you with accurate, reliable information on the best ways to keep your family safe”.
  • Many health providers are supporting families through waiving co-pays for many services, for instance, Blue Cross  Blue Shield is waving cost sharing for telehealth services for fully insured members. For more information, see AHIP's Blog post on how health insurance providers are taking action.
  • The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearing House has been sponsoring online workshops/twitter chats for dads. They are offering a chat on father/child activities while home on April 30th, 2020. 
  • The National Alliance on Mental Health has curated a free resource guide and FAQ.
  • Some states and insurers have waived mental health care copays and increased telehealth flexibility to ensure increased access/availability as outlined in an article in Psychiatric Times.
  • Sesame Street in colaboration with Headspace will offer free mindfulness meditation shorts for children.
Thank you to Lauren Liang for suggesting the ebooks. I would like to acknowledge Qiana Cryer-Coupet’s and Ashley Atkinson’s collaboration on the family literacy program and Qiana’s contribution of additional helpful resources.
Image by enriquelopezgarre. Pixabay License.

Locating Resources on Global Children’s and YA Literature

4/28/2020

 

BY KATHY G. SHORT

Worlds of Words Logo
Many authors, illustrators, publishers, and literacy organizations offer valuable resources during this time of mandated on-line learning. An ongoing issue, however, is that only a few of these resources highlight global literature, books set in global cultures outside of the U.S. At Worlds of Words, a Center of Global Literacies and Literatures, our goal is to support educators and families in engaging readers with global literature to encourage intercultural understanding across cultures.

If you are a teacher educator searching for on-line readings and book lists for your courses or a teacher creating new inquiry units that are global in focus, the following resources can support your work. You can also use these features as examples for students to create their own reviews, vignettes, or book recommendations:


  • Articles and Classroom Vignettes:
​Articles and vignettes in the online journal, WOW Stories, provide access to the voices of teachers sharing their experiences with global books. These short, practical articles are accessible for undergraduate students as well as teachers and include many examples of children’s work, book ideas, and descriptions of engagements. Teachers can also submit their own experiences with global literature to consider for publication. ​
  • A Guide for Integrating Global Literature into the Classroom
Exploring International and Intercultural Understanding through Global Literature is a short descriptive guide to the work of teacher study groups to integrate global literature into their classrooms. The guide gives a quick overview of their strategies, linked to their vignettes so educators can read about the ideas that most interest them. The guide is organized around different levels of integration so teachers can consider what might work best in their context.

  • Critical Reviews of Multicultural and Global Literature
Critical reviews of multicultural and global literature in the online journal, WOW Review, focus on cultural authenticity and related books. These reviews can be used to locate authentic books for units or as models on writing critical reviews. Students can also submit a book review for consideration to connect an assignment with a broader audience.

  • Authentic Literature in Spanish
Authentic literature in Spanish can be difficult to locate and so the online journal, WOW Libros, highlights reviews of books originally published in Spanish from around the world.

  • Global Issues Blog
WOW Currents has weekly blog entries around a monthly theme on issues related to global literature. The April theme is on the progress in diversifying children’s literature for specific marginalized groups, while February focused on how to critically analyze the linguistic landscapes of bilingual/multilingual books. These blog entries provide quick accessible readings around current issues and can serve as models for writing about current issues.
WOW Stories
Wow Review
WOW Libros
  • Dialogue Between Readers
My Take/Your Take is a dialogue between two readers with different connections and interpretations of the same global book. Other readers are invited to add their comments. Students could add their perspectives to these dialogues on WOW, or a similar assignment could be developed where students with differing perspectives work in pairs to dialogue about a book and post that dialogue on the class site to invite comments from other class members.

  • Global "Book of the Month"
WOW Recommends is a global “book of the month,” a book not to be missed. These highly recommended books provide an excellent starting point for someone new to global literature or as an example of an assignment where students nominate their own book of the month, the one book they would most strongly recommend to classmates.
PictureSpanish/Mexican Language and Culture Book Kit
  • Interviews with Global Authors
Read an interview with a global author in Authors’ Corner as a way to get to know an author who writes global or multicultural literature.

  • Global Reading Lists
​Global K-12 Reading Lists provide recommended grade-level global book lists that are updated annually and include text complexity information as well as annotations to help locate book titles that fit the needs of readers. In addition, the lists include paired books where global books are paired with classic books, such as Pride and Prejudice or The Secret Garden.

  • Book Lists on Global Cultures
Another example of useful global book lists are the Language and Culture Book Kits around a specific global culture, like China or Peru, and Global Story Boxes, which focus on books around a global culture for young children. In addition, the Family Story Backpacks go home with children to invite family stories around themes that families often tell stories about, such as the story of my name, birthday traditions, or losing a tooth. The books and artifacts in these backpacks are listed on the site. Other book lists include an extensive annotated list of children’s and YA literature highlighting refugee experiences.

  • Book Search
A book search to locate book titles around a country or theme is located at the top of the home page and will soon be replaced with an advanced search where you can search based on multiple factors such as theme, age level, country, author, and genre.

  • Global Literacy Community Grants
Finally, global literacy community grants are available to small groups of teachers wanting to explore the use of global literature in their contexts. The grants are due on July 15, 2020.

In this time of global crisis, the need to broaden our world views and develop empathy and knowledge about cultures beyond our own is increasingly critical. Reading globally invites readers to enter story worlds to experience how people live, feel, and think around the world, providing the potential to transform their world views through understanding their current lives and imagining beyond themselves.
Open a Book…Open a Mind…Change the World

​Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona

Worlds of Words images used with permission.

Read Aloud is More the Same Than Different

4/23/2020

 

BY MARY LEE HAHN AND FRANKI SIBBERSON

Read aloud is the cornerstone of our literacy workshop. First and foremost, we use our read alouds to create and build a community of readers, but as we read, our conversations model the mind of the solitary reader. We gasp in surprise together, we stop at a cliffhanger and make predictions, we notice a small detail that we think will be important and jot a note to track what the author does with it, just like we want our students to do in their independent reading. Our read alouds are also models of good writing. We study how the author creates mood, manages the pacing, uses rich language, and structures the entire text (chapter book, picture book, information article, poem) to inform the ways we will write in the writing workshop.

What, then, will read aloud look like in our digital classrooms?
Picture

BOOK CHOICE

Mary Lee: We were about two-thirds of the way through The Last Human by Lee Bacon when we got the news that our schools would be closed. The book is a very middle-grade appropriate dystopian future novel. I chose it to follow We’re Not From Here by Geoff Rodkey, another middle grade dystopian future story, and Indian No More by Charlene Willing Mcmanis and Traci Sorell, which is historical fiction that might be categorized as a story about our “dystopian past.” As you can see, our read aloud journey this year has been filled with important, but difficult conversations about who we are as humans and as Americans.

The premise of The Last Human is that the robots have killed off the human race because it was wrecking the planet. Spoiler alert in the title and the image on the cover of the book -- they didn’t get us all. In our very last read aloud together, one of my students wondered aloud if robots caused the coronavirus and were trying to kill us all off. I assured them that the coronavirus comes from nature, and humans will use all of the science and technology possible to understand the virus and stop its spread. It was at that moment that I knew I must finish The Last Human. We couldn’t leave the story before we got to the part where the robots and humans collaborate to create a sustainable future for the human race and for the planet. We had to get to the hope, to the positives. For our next read aloud, I gave my students the choice of four books I’ve loved. Not ones to shy away from heavy topics, they chose The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart.

Franki:  We were in the middle of a great book, New Kid by Jerry Craft.  We were using the incredible audio along with the Kindle version so kids could see the images as they heard the story.  With all those parts, it seems better to start a new book instead of trying to make this work online as our first online read aloud.

When I think about the kind of book I’d like to read aloud during this time, I know I want a plot-based book - a book that kids will want to hear each day. I want a book they can get lost in and one that has enough to talk about without being too heavy. I’ve decided on The Unicorn Quest by Kamilla Benko and I am excited to begin sharing it with students.


KEEPING THE CONVERSATIONS GOING

Franki:  Read aloud has always been an important part of our day and it will hopefully continue to be that. The combination of a great story and our collective thinking is important and I’ve been wondering how to make that work without being together in our classroom meeting area.  I’ve decided to use Google Meet so that any students who are available can meet “live”. (For others, I’ll record the session.)  This will allow us to read and talk and get back to our typical read aloud routine. I’ve also set up a Flipgrid and a Padlet so that we can build on the conversation across each day.
Mary Lee: I finished The Last Human by recording (on a private YouTube channel) a few chapters a day, and reading aloud live once a week in a Google Meet. Reading aloud with students “in front of me” was what began to heal my teacher soul. So with our new book, I’m reading aloud live every day on Google Meet. Students bring their reader’s notebooks and track their thinking as they listen. Before they unmute and we begin our discussion, we share our thinking in the comments. They love the comment tool, and this has given them an authentic way to use it.

While our read alouds look and sound a bit different than they did in our physical classrooms, like so much of what we are doing with online learning, we have found that the closer we hold on to our core values as teachers, the more authentic our digital learning space feels.

Mary Lee Hahn is a CLA Communications Committee Member and a CLA Member. Franki Sibberson is NCTE Past President and a CLA Member. Both Mary Lee and Franki teach fifth grade in the Dublin (OH) City Schools, and they blog together at A Year of Reading.

Link to Blog: A year of reading
Image by geralt. Pixabay License.

Using Picturebooks to Talk about Trauma, Anxiety, Stress and COVID-19 [Part I]

4/21/2020

 

BY ANGELA M. WISEMAN

COVID-19 has created stressful situations for many adults - we may be concerned about many issues, including financial issues/job security, trying to meet professional obligations, and staying healthy. This is often magnified and multiplied with the children in our lives. Many of us are mentoring, supervising, teaching, caring, parenting and communicating with children in new ways due to the quarantine. These children, too, are reacting to this new situation and changes, many with big feelings of sadness and anxiety. The helpful graphic below* provides important insight about what we may see with children. When we understand that children’s behaviors may look different, we can use this information to support them.

In this blogpost, I want to start by addressing some of the anxiety, stress, and trauma that children might be facing during COVID-19. In a second blogpost on Thursday, April 30th, I will share some books that my colleagues and I have found helpful in talking with adults and children about trauma in hopes that these books can start facilitating conversations about feelings, fears, hopes, and dreams.

Kid's sadness about COVID19 may look like anger, resisting the
*Thanks to my friend and colleague Dr. Qiana Cryer-Coupet for sharing this visual. This comes from Dr. Erin Leyba’s page, which is a great resource for parents. Graphic posted with permission by Dr. Leyba.
To understand issues facing children, I have thought about my own experience as a parent and also informally polled people using social media to learn more about what children were experiencing through the eyes of adults, guardians, family and friends. While this does not represent a systematic investigation and relies heavily on personal experiences (I am the mother of three boys, involved in family support groups and have a large extended family), I thought it would be helpful to understand the main concerns of children as perceived by the adults in their lives.
Missing friends - A prevalent concern is that children miss their friends. Adults have shared that many children missed being together with their friends and found it unfulfilling to engage in zoom, FaceTime, or other virtual methods of connecting. While it seems that older children spend a lot of time connecting through electronic means such as multiplayer videogames, texts and conferencing (and I can confirm this as a parent of teenagers!), younger children find it frustrating and wish they could see the person face to face. In addition, even though older children might be used to using technology to keep in touch, many high school children are incredibly disappointed to miss out on milestone events, such as prom, music concerts, sports events, or graduation.

Missing family - In addition to missing friends, many children miss their family. Families may find themselves separated from each other for many reasons, particularly if one family member is an essential worker. One mother shared that “my eight year old is staying with his bio dad/my ex-husband during the quarantine because my husband (his stepdad) is a nurse. He has been missing us terribly and we miss him so much, too!” One caring adult shared that she put together a care package for a child in their life with individual notes for them to open each day. They stated that “I hope this will let him know I’m thinking about him all the time!”

Missing Routines and Activities - Children miss their regular routines and activities that they do outside of school that have been shut down indefinitely, which could include sports and other activities they do with friends and on teams. One parent told me that, “My oldest son is a competitive rock climber, and he hasn’t been in the gym in over a month and really misses that physical outlet of climbing. He’s quite literally climbing the walls in this house.”


Many adults shared how difficult it is to transition to online schooling - both for children and themselves. There are countless memes that reflect these feelings, for example:

Meme created with the Imgflip Meme Generator
Many adults are sharing how challenging it is to help with school requirements, particularly if they have additional work responsibilities, technology challenges, or difficulties engaging with schools. As with their children, they may not be aware of how the change of routines and activities affect their lives or even have the bandwidth to support in ways they would like. As a result, caregivers, teachers, tutors, and parents feel additional stress because they are currently caring for or supporting children in various ways they had not anticipated prior to the pandemic.
Fear of Illness - A very significant fear and anxiety is getting ill. They might be scared that they will get sick, but they also worry about loved ones. I have friends and family who have been affected by COVID-19, experiencing the illness. While no one I know has died from COVID-19, I have family who has suffered from it and friends who have experienced loss. Many children worry about their own family members who are older, immune-suppressed or compromised, who are at higher risk for contracting the virus.

General feelings of anxiety - Finally, many children are sharing general feelings of anxiety that are not necessarily articulated to specific concerns. While it may be hard to pinpoint what the concerns are, these behaviors might show as sleeplessness, acting out, or tiredness. Children might not come out and say, "I'm worried about this!"

For the next blog post which will come out on Thursday April 30, I will share children’s picturebooks and resources that might help support children who are affected by trauma, anxiety and stress from the pandemic. Stay tuned!

April 30, 2020 Update: Part II of post

Imagine the Writing Possibilities!

4/15/2020

 

BY ALLY HAUPTMAN

​One of my greatest joys as a teacher is to see students’ creativity in action. As an elementary teacher, I was amazed at the creative minds of my students, and now as a professor I continue to delight in seeing teacher candidates create lesson plans and ideas to engage their students. As I reflect on my career as an elementary writing teacher, my best lessons were the ones that involved excellent children’s literature and allowed for student writing choice. This is where the creative magic happens! If I am honest with myself, my students were their most creative as writers when I offered a great mentor text and just got out of their way.

So, I offer you a lesson complex in ideas, but simple in delivery that can be presented in person or on-line, really in any context. I have used this lesson in university classrooms, with PreK-12 students, and my own children.

Decorative Picture

The Steps

1. Choose a text. It might be a brilliantly written and illustrated picture book, an excerpt from a middle grades or YA novel, or even an interesting infographic.

2. Share the text with your students and model what writing ideas you have based on this text.

3. After reading, ask the questions, “What writing ideas do you get from this text? What are the possibilities you see as a writer?”

4. Get out of the way and let kids write and create!
​
5. Give students time to share and learn from each other.

That’s it...five steps that lead to important discussion and writing possibilities.


The following is an example of this writing lesson in action with two of my own children. I started by reading Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai. The book begins with Malala talking about a television program she used to watch. The show’s main character was a boy with a magic pencil who Malala saw as a hero, always helping others. She dreamed of having her own magic pencil. She goes on to tell her story of fighting for girls’ education, realizing that she really did have a magic pencil all along. She was able to change the world with her pencil as she fought for educational equality. The last line in the book reads, “One pen, one teacher, one student can change the world.”

Here is the key to this lesson, and this is how I get out of the way of their creativity. I asked my children to write for ten minutes about what ideas they got from Malala’s Magic Pencil. It is as simple as that. I did not give them my prompt that might be presented from this book such as, “What would you do with a magic pencil?” I let them figure out how this book would be a mentor text for their own writing. The beauty of presenting a text and then letting students figure out their own writing possibilities is that they bring their background knowledge, voice, and writing style and combine it with the author’s ideas from the text presented. When you present a mentor text and ask the students to see the writing possibilities, the variety is astounding.

Just with my own daughters, my fifth grader, who is the youngest and always trying to prove herself to her sisters, wrote about a magic tree. In her story, no one believes her that this tree is magic and she hatches a plan to show everyone that she is right. She brought in her ideas and showed strong voice. My eighth grade daughter decided to write about the Infiniti Pen. It is worth mentioning that all of my daughters are obsessed with Marvel movies. So, the Infiniti Pen was inspired by Thor’s hammer in that only the worthiest person in the village could pick up the pen because of its persuasive powers. In this piece, my daughter chose to bring in her own voice and combine Marvel with Malala’s ideas. These writers were able to choose their ideas and use their voices. When we present possibilities through mentor texts, readers also begin to read like writers.
Try it. Read a book and ask your students to find writing possibilities, to write for ten minutes and see where it may lead!

The following list includes texts I have used to spark writing ideas over the past few years with teacher candidates, K-12 students, and my own children.

25 books with endless possibilities…

After the Fall by Dan Santat
Animals by the Numbers by Steve Jenkins
Bookjoy, Wordjoy by Pat Mora, illustrated by Raúl Colón
Camela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Christian Robinson
Claymates by Dev Petty, illustrated by Lauren Eldridge
Coco: Miguel and the Grand Harmony by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Ana Ramírez
Cute as an Axolotl by Jess Keating, illustrated by David DeGrand
Drawn Together by Minh Lê, illustrated by Dan Santat
Dude! by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Dan Santat
Dreamers/Sonadores by Yuyi Morales
Friends and Foes: Poems About Us All by Douglas Florian
Imagine by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Lauren Castillo
Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall
Love by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Loren Long
Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai, illustrated by Kerascoёt
Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell, illustrated by Rafael López
Nope! by Drew Sheneman
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael López
The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story of Raye Montague by Julia Finley Mosca, illustrated by Daniel Rieley
The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds
They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel
Water Land by Christy Hale
What Makes a Monster? by Jess Keating, illustrated by David DeGrand
Wild World by Angela McAllister, illustrated by Hvass & Hannibal

​Ally Hauptman is a CLA Board Member and is the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. She is an associate professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN.
​Image by Tookapic from Pixabay

Audiobooks, Assistive Software, and Adaptations: Inclusive and Accessible Online Literacy Resources

4/14/2020

 

 BY ALEXANDRA LAMPP BERGLUND 

Transitioning to online education isn’t an easy task for educators, parents, and students by any means, and adapting and modifying online instruction for students with (dis)abilities presents unique challenges. Providing accessible literature in both print and audio versions is essential to many learners that have (dis)abilities. However, this can be quite challenging in distance learning contexts as students may not have access to a variety of resources and assistive devices available at school. Several apps exist to support this need, particularly in the realm of literacy learning. As discussed in previous posts, Epic! is an excellent resource that offers a wide array of children’s literature in a visual format alongside audio tracks with a “read-to-me” tool for many of its texts. Another app that I’ve found particularly helpful in my own preschool classroom is Tales2Go.
Person with headphones
Tales2Go is an online audiobook service for readers of all ages, which provides instant and unlimited access to over 10,000 book titles. These audiobooks can be accessed on a desktop computer, laptop, and mobile device. While facilitating online learning, educators can use these audiobooks to engage in lessons that work to build comprehension, fluency, and phonemic awareness, explore new vocabulary and more, depending on grade level. For instance, in an early childhood setting, after selecting a text, students can listen to the audiobook at their own pace. When finished, students can be asked to recount the story, in their own words, through whatever means of communication your digital classroom uses (Google Classroom, email, FlipGrid, Seesaw, etc.). After subsequent listens and additional prompts, students can also create story maps, complete graphic organizers, or devise their own version of the story that follows the same narrative structure.
While creating lessons like these using Tales2Go can be fun and impactful for your digital classroom, using only one app or service isn’t feasible. Print texts will need to be implemented in numerous and similarly beneficial ways. When doing so, it is crucial to use or share other modifications for this type of media. Text to speech software can convert many text files and webpages directly into audio and is readily available on different devices, under Settings or within the Control Panel. This includes Apple products (MacBooks, iPads, and iPhones), technology that uses Windows software, Android devices, and Chromebooks. Additionally, dictation or speech recognition software, found within word processing programs and on mobile devices, can assist students in expressing themselves through speech, without writing by hand or with a keyboard or worrying about spelling or grammar.

Providing audio material by using apps like Tales2Go and other resources such as text to speech software or sharing how to create audio materials with students are just a few small steps in making online literacy learning accessible to students with (dis)abilities, but they are important ones. Accessibility is essential, as we continue to navigate this digital landscape together, as educators, students, and family and community members. Together, we can all make small adaptations that make big differences in our online classrooms which we continually strive to make inclusive for all learners.

​Alexandra Lampp Berglund is the Chair of the CLA student committee. She is a doctoral student in Language and Literacy Education at The University of Georgia.
Photo by StockSnap

Empowering Student Voice: Digital Book Talks with Flipgrid

4/8/2020

 

BY JANET K. OUTLAW

​Experiencing online education is a completely different experience from in-person teaching and learning. Simply transferring what you would normally do to an online platform doesn’t offer the same kind of experience. During this time of social distancing, I’ve been particularly interested in thinking about platforms that still allow teachers and students to engage in literacy in socially participative ways. 

Flipgrid

One platform that is really interesting for students to share out responses to children’s literature is Flipgrid. It is a great way for all children, or college students, to share their experiences, their learning, and reflections! As the teacher, you can add members of your class to Flipgrid and ask them to share out about what they’re reading at home. Since children have varying accesses to high-speed internet or media devices, I also like Flipgrid because it can be used on a tablet or mobile phone. It’s free to create an account and join. It offers wonderful learning opportunities, where each student can highlight an amazing new book they read, what they may have personally connected to in the story, or how they felt while reading it.
I’m not a technologically savvy person at all, but Flipgrid is very user-friendly. I first used it a couple of years ago in an online graduate course. It helped the course to feel more socially engaged than typical online courses. Watching classmates’ videos and hearing about their experiences brought the class to life in a way online discussion boards just don’t. If it’s your first time using Flipgrid, below is a brief tutorial video to show you how to set it up as an instructor. 

Once you have gotten your account and topic set up, you can share it with your students for a variety of different discussions. One great idea would be for every student to give a book talk of a new children’s book they read at home!


​As mentioned in an earlier blog post, there are several resources for free access to children’s books right now:
  • Unite for Literacy has books that are great for primary grade students.
  • Epic has an amazing collection of children’s literature.

Some of my favorite texts that are available on Epic are A Different Pond (by Bao Phi, Illustrated by Thi Bui) and We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga (by Traci Sorell, Illustrated by Frané Lessac). A Different Pond touches on themes of immigration, loss from war, and family pride. We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga prompts you to think again about all of the people and things in your life you are grateful for.

These are just a couple of books you can recommend to your students or allow them the choice to read a book of interest to them! Using Flipgrid, you can have discussion question prompts to guide students through their book talk, such as:
  • What happened in the story?
  • Did the characters change during the story?
  • How did the story connect you or your experiences?
During this time, it’s nice to be able to find ways to continue to connect to our students through stories!
​Janet K. Outlaw is a member of the CLA student committee. She is a doctoral candidate in Literacy and English Language Arts at North Carolina State University.

Further Resources

  • Check out a recent article on Flipgrid by Kathy Schmidt published in the School Library Journal: VIDEO: A Librarian's Guide to Flipgrid, the Basics and Library-Specific Tips.
  • Flipgrid offers a helpful video tutorial for students on Vimeo: Getting Started Students.

@Instagram’s #KidLit Community

4/5/2020

 

LORA M. DEWALT

Instagram is a great social media platform for connecting with authors, illustrators, and publishers. If you are not familiar, Instagram is a photography-based social media platform where people share posts (usually one photo with a caption) or stories (usually multi-page photos with embedded text or gifs). Instagram accounts can be set up as public or private.
​
Authors and illustrators of picturebooks, middle grade novels, and YA texts are active on Instagram with public accounts. They often give sneak peeks into their lives by showcasing their writing studios, inspiring quotes, or their latest doodles

Instagram Logo
Instagram Logo (Pixabay)

Instagram Inquiry Project

Children’s literature courses are material heavy and right now we are not able to guarantee our students have access to the books we would otherwise read and explore. However, through Instagram, students can have access directly to the book creators themselves.

One assignment could be an Instagram Inquiry. I envision that undergraduate or graduate students might inquire into their personal interests with a particular author or illustrator on Instagram. Possible topics might include “What can we learn about an illustrator’s process from watching their Instagram stories and posts?” or “What do I notice about the way an author crafts their captions, how does that reflect (or differ) from their writing in books?” Perhaps a student might ask “What did a particular author share prior to March 2020—what do they seem to be sharing now?”'

This inquiry assignment might be offered as a follow up to an author study, which Erika Thulin Dawes wrote about on the 3/24/2020 CLA Blog.


​Instagram TV (IGTV)


​Sometimes authors and illustrators host an “Instagram Live” or pre-record videos for IGTV. IGTV videos are generally 3-10 minutes and currently run ad free. This feature is available for anyone with an Instagram account. You can tell when an Instagram post connects to IGTV because it has a little white TV with a swiggle/lightning bolt on it.

Members of the children’s literature community have been hosting Q&As, doodling sessions, and even read alouds. Mac Barnett is posting a series he calls Live Cartoons in which he shares his drawings with hilarious voice overs. Mac Barnett also shares an evening read aloud in his series Mac’s Book Club Show. Other great IGTV read alouds include Marla Frazee’s reading of her wordless picturebook The Farmer and the Clown which she shared in collaboration with #SaveWithStories, which is available on Marla's Instagram.

Other authors are giving great heart to hearts with their audiences about being a creator and artist in this period of #StayAtHome. Jason Reynolds recently shared a creative game he plays with a card deck (Disruptus) to keep his mind in an imaginative space by putting two random items together. Christian Robinson recently shared a story in which he demonstrated how to create a mosaic rainbow with recycled materials as a symbol of gratitude.
         
                                                

One possible assignment could to be watch a particular video or a few episodes of an author/illustrator’s series and reflect on the intended audience, the genre of multimedia art, or a comparison/contrast with pre-recorded YouTube read alouds. IGTV could also be used as a host for students to respond to authors and illustrators with videos of their own.
​

Active Instagram Authors & Illustrators


​Many authors, illustrators, and publishers are active on Instagram. You (or your students) can engage with them by asking questions in their comments section. A lot of them are very prompt at replying! Most of the time, authors and illustrators will share glimpses into their lives (well, the life they are willing to share on a public social media account).

Earlier this semester I shared Erin Entrada Kelly’s Instagram account with some undergraduate students while we read Hello Universe. In particular, I was showcasing Erin’s love of sharing the international covers for her books. A week or so later, one student told me that she had started following Erin on Instagram and ordered all the books Erin posts about so she can read them too! This was a great reminder to me that even when students are not “assigned” a task, just providing them access into the world of authors and illustrators can be powerful.

Here are a few of my favorite authors and illustrators to follow on Instagram:
@aishacs (Aisha Saeed)
@andominguezzzz (Angela Dominguez)
@authorderrickdbarnes (Derrick Barnes)
@colleenaf (Coleen AF Venable)
@cordell_matthew (Matthew Cordell)
@erikalsanchez (Erika L. Sanchez)
@erinentrada (Erin Entrada Kelly)
@jessicalovedraws (Jessica Love)
@macbarnett (Mac Barnett)
@marlafrazee (Marla Frazee)
@nicolayoon (Nicola Yoon)
@oge_mora (Oge Mora)
@rainbowrowell (Rainbow Rowell)
@Sean_qualls (Sean G. Qualls)
@theartoffun (Christian Robinson)

This list is not exhaustive. However, once you start following some authors/illustrators/publishers the Instagram algorithm will continue to recommend more and more!
​
​Lo DeWalt is a CLA member. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. Lo co-teaches an undergraduate children’s literature course and works as a district administrator in Manor, Texas.

Publishers are Here to Help

4/1/2020

 

BY PATTY ROSATI

This is Patty Rosati from HarperCollins Children’s Books, and I’m so happy to be the new Publisher Liaison to CLA! On behalf of my publishing colleagues, we’d like you to know that we are here for you. We know things are overwhelming right now and that you're being bombarded with information from every angle. I hope that we can all take a collective deep breath. We’ve got this. And we publishers, well, we’ve got you!
Many publishers have compiled their best online resources in central locations to help you find what you’re looking for and to spark your imagination. Here are some details about what HarperCollins and other publishers are doing to support you through these uncertain times.

HarperCollins has collected free, sharable resources for all reading levels on Harper at Home. This is also where you can find our updated permissions policy for online story time, live events and classroom read-aloud videos. Many other publishers have expanded their permissions policies to help meet current needs, so be sure to check their websites and social platforms for more information.
Picture
Content created specifically for teachers and librarians lives at HarperStacks at Home.

Every Monday afternoon, HarperStacks posts videos, blogs, and other resources for teachers, librarians, and parents to keep kids learning while keeping it fun! Our first video was with Newbery-Medal winning author Erin Entrada Kelly who talked about Creative Bravery.

We have videos scheduled with Elizabeth Acevedo, Rita Williams Garcia, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Kelly Yang coming this month and next. You can get all of this content on Facebook and Twitter.
Scholastic quickly set up Learn at Home that houses day-by-day projects to keep kids reading, thinking, and growing. And they offer Teaching Tools for specific authors like Dav Pilkey whose page includes fun and games with some of Pilkey’s best characters from Dog Man and Captain Underpants.

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has picture book activities for kids, videos, and educator guides for many of their titles, including the book that many librarians and educators are currently buzzing about, Stamped.

Random House Children’s Books features activities and guides for a number of their titles used in schools, including Wonder and the Magic Tree House books.

There are so many other good, free materials available from a variety of big and smaller publishers. Our friends at The Children’s Book Council have been compiling a list of publisher content that supports educators. Please check them out to find out what other publishers are offering.

Please feel free to be in touch to let us know if there is anything else that we publishers can do for you. We are here to help!

Patty Rosati
Publisher Liaison

    Authors:
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    Supporting PreK-12 and university teachers as they share children’s literature with their students in all classroom contexts.

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