Category: Middle Grades

Exploring Portrayals of Creativity Sponsors in Contemporary Children’s Literature

10/6/2020

By Katie Caprino, Elizabethtown College

One of the reasons I became a teacher was because it was a profession in which I thought I could be creative. A writer, I wanted a position in which I could carry on my passion of writing and inspire student writers.

Reflecting back on my work as a middle and high school English teacher, I lament the limitations I feel were put on my work as a creative person. Even my current role as a literacy teacher educator seems overwhelmed at times by elements which I feel are the absolute antithesis to creativity.

My opportunity to teach the creative methods course at my institution gave me a space to engage with creativity and to help future teachers think critically about what creativity looks like in the classroom and inspire them to be creative teachers. Inspired by Brandt’s (1998) work on literacy sponsors, I believe that teachers, students’ peers, and even students themselves play an important role in being creativity sponsors.

In this blog post, I share a few contemporary books that provide portrayals of creativity sponsors, framing my work in the context of research on creativity. I then provide teachers with some ideas on how to use contemporary children’s literature texts as inspiration to facilitate a creative classroom.

The Books

One Time. Creech’s (2001) Love That Dog has been a mentor text for many of my students’ poetry writing. My sixth graders and my preservice teachers laugh at the same parts of this ode to poetry and write beautiful pieces inspired by the poems referenced in the text. It should not be surprising that I was so excited to read Sharon Creech’s (2020) latest middle grades book One Time. Readers are introduced to Gine Filomena, who is an imaginative eleven-year old.

Gina has always had her dad to cultivate her creativity, but she really blooms when Antonio, her creative and somewhat mysterious neighbor joins her class, which is taught by the new and creative teacher Miss Lightstone. Miss Lightstone tries out methods unheard of with the last teacher: time to write, inspiration boards, wordplay, and provocative questions on the board like Who are you? The other students in the class are a bit slower to adopt Miss Lightstone’s methods of giving them choice and few boundaries. They want to know how they will be graded. And exactly what to do. There is mystery and intrigue, and not everything makes complete sense to the characters in or the readers of One Time, but one thing is clear: Gina will always remember her creativity sponsor: Miss Lightstone.

This is a powerful book that touches upon issues of creativity and, more broadly, what our schools have become. It is a book that would make a wonderful read-aloud to younger students, a fabulous read at the middle grades level, and a powerful read for preservice teachers.

Ish. I have come to love the work of Peter H. Reynolds. As part of my work on this project, I came across his 2004 children’s picture book Ish. This book introduces readers to Ramon, a boy who loves to draw. However, when his brother Leon ridicules him, he gives up. That is, until his sister Marisol brings him into her room full of all of his previous drawings. Marisol helps him understand an important lesson: that the process not the product matters (Resnick, 2018). His sister’s creativity sponsorship motivates him to think differently about his art and writing.

In the Draw-ish video embedded below, Peter Reynolds takes viewers to a creating adventure by starting with a single dot.

What Ish helps young children and adults realize is that it only takes one person to inspire an artist. When I use this children’s picture book in my creative methods course, I want to ask my students: Do you want to be more like Leon or Marisol in your classroom?
You can also read more about Peter Reynolds’s Animation-ish, a web-based animation program.

What If. Writer Samantha Berger and illustrator Mike Curato teamed up to create a wonderful children’s picture book about a little girl’s ingenuity. Letting nothing stop her, she is committed to always creating, even when it means figuring out exactly what materials will help her reach her goal. The beauty of this book is not only in its storyline but also in its creative composition. The mixed-media illustrations give texture to a book that embodies creativity.

A perfect read-aloud title, What If is a creativity sponsor on its own, but I believe younger children will really be motivated by seeing a young girl, with no adult intervention, be creative on her own. The little girl does not have a creativity sponsor; she is capable of being her own. Her resourcefulness is inspiring. The story begins with her writing a story and then imagining if the pencil broke and how she would still create stories. She then shares how she would fold the paper to create stories and then chisel the table and carve the chair when she ran out of paper. And on and on.

We want thinkers like this protagonist in our classroom, in our world. We want young children who can create on their own, perhaps with some scaffolds yes, as Resnick (2018) writes in his book Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Passion, Projects, Peers, and Play and as Miss Lightstone realizes in Creech’s (2020) One Time, but we want them to have the resilience and confidence to do some of the creative lifting themselves.

Resnick (2018) emphasizes the importance of having students engage in the creative learning spiral, a process by which students imagine, create, play, share, and reflect. What if helps young readers see the power of the first three tenets. Teachers and parents would be smart to organize classrooms that facilitate the creative opportunities the story’s lead creative character has.

In this video, Resnick discusses how to help kids become creative thinkers.

On A Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna

On a Magical Do-Nothing Day. One thing I have noticed during the time of COVID was that the people who told me they were bored the least were people whom I would characterize as having hobbies and being readers. Now certainly, I have not validated my hunch through systematic study, but I do wonder if creativity has served some as a type of buffer to the challenges of this unprecedented time for some people. It’s almost as if we have had almost a half of year of what Beatrice Alemagna’s (2016) character in On a Magical Do-Nothing Day experiences.

A young child laments coming to a cabin with their mother. Wanting to only play an electronic game, the child’s mom takes the game away. Of course, the child finds it and heads outside into what is a miserably rainy day - made more miserable when the game is lost. But what the loss of the game allows is for the child to see the world in a new way. This book is less about a young child creating creative products, like in What If, but it is a book about opening oneself up to notice things in different ways. And this is something play allows.

Emphasizing the importance of play to the creative process, Resnick (2018) discusses how pivotal it is that we allow students to play. The premise of his entire book, indeed, is that all grades should be more like kindergarten used to be, not overwhelmed with curriculum standards and coverage, but with opportunities for students to engage in his 4Ps: projects, passion, peers, and play. Because these, he claims, open up creativity’s doors.

Now What?

Certainly, adding the titles shared above to your classroom library is a good start. Sharing these books with students in a way that invites them to discuss what they think creativity is, whether they are creative, and how their schooling experiences have encouraged or restricted creativity could be the next step.

And then I call for a little self-reflection. Are you, as a teacher, more like Leon or Marisol in Ish? How might you be more of a Miss Lightstone from One Time? When you think about your students, do they take risks like the little girl in What If? Or do they ask so many questions about how assignments will be graded and what you want like Gina’s classmates in One Time? Do your students know what to do with some free time like the little child in On A Magical Do-Nothing Day?

These reflections might prompt you to think about how you might use one of the books shared in this post as a mentor text for a lesson idea. Here are some ideas!

● Let your students freewrite, working up to longer periods of time, and share their work. (One Time)
● Provide students with an object and ask them what they would do if that object broke in order to complete an intended
task. (What If)
● Offer spaces in your classroom where your students can explore and play. (On a Magical Do-Nothing Day)
● Invite your students to draw a picture, and post everyone’s picture in a gallery. (Ish)

It is important to think about how important creativity sponsors are in a child’s life. Teachers can be creativity sponsors, but so, too, can peers and children themselves – if we let them! It is my hope that these book recommendations, along with the reflective prompts and lesson ideas, may inspire creativity in you and your students!

Books Referenced

Alemagna, B. (2016). On a magical do-nothing day. New York: HarperCollins.

Berger, S. (2018). What if. New York: Hachette Book Group.

Brandt, D. (1998). Sponsors of literacy. College Composition and Communication, 49(2), 165- 185.

Creech, S. (2020). One time. New York: HarperCollins.

Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York: HarperCollins.

Resnick, M. (2018). Lifelong kindergarten: Cultivating creativity through projects, passion, peers, and play. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.

Reynolds, P. (2004). Ish. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

Kathryn Caprino is a CLA member and is an Assistant Professor of PK-12 New Literacies at Elizabethtown College. You can follow her on Twitter @KcapLiteracy. She blogs frequently at Katie Reviews Books.

20 Biographies for 2020

9/22/2020

BY MARY ANN CAPPIELLO on behalf of The Biography Clearinghouse

As we approach the final quarter of 2020, fires rage along the West Coast. Many regions of the United States face drought conditions. Gulf communities are inundated by Hurricane Sally while a string of storms line up in the Atlantic, waiting their turn. The impact of climate change is evident.

COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on our lives, our health. We bear witness to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minoritized groups, including Black and Latinx communities, Native Americans, and the elderly.

Across America, Black Lives Matter protests carry on, demanding that our nation invest in the essential work necessary to achieve a more perfect union through racial justice.

In 2020, we remember moments of historic change, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

The intensity of this moment can’t be denied. It’s demanding. It’s exhausting. Whether you are a teacher, librarian, or university faculty member, you are likely teaching in multiple new formats and modalities, facing daily logistical challenges. Caregivers also face new hurdles in supporting young people’s learning.

How do you meet the needs of students and the needs of this moment in history? How do you find hope in literature?

Perhaps one way is to turn to the people of the past and the present who are working on the edges of scientific knowledge. Or, to turn to the people of the past and the present who have acted as champions of social justice. Their life stories offer young people models of agency and action, blueprints for change.

To that end, The Biography Clearinghouse shares 20 biographies for 2020, a list of recent picturebook and collected biographies to connect with the challenges of the moment. This list is not comprehensive. It is simply a starting place. We hope these recently published biographies of diverse changemakers can become part of your curriculum or part of your read aloud calendar, in-person or over video conferencing software.

Biographies About Scientists

A Sporting Chance: How Ludwig Guttman Created the Paralympic Games (2020) by Lori Alexander, illustrated by Alan Drummond

Born Curious: 20 Girls Who Grew Up to be Awesome Scientists (2020) by Martha Freeman, illustrated by Katy Wu

Buzzing with Questions: The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner (2019) by Janice Harrington, illustrated by Theodore Taylor

Mario and the Hole in the Sky: How a Chemist Saved Our Planet (2019) by Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Teresa Martinez

Ocean Speaks: How Maria Tharp Revealed the Ocean’s Biggest Secret (2020) by Jess Keating, illustrated by Katie Hickey

Patricia’s Vision: The Doctor Who Saved Sight (2020) by Michelle Lord, illustrated by Alleana Charris.

Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom (2019) by Teresa Robeson, illustrated by Rebecca Huang

The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver (2020) by Gene Berretta, illustrated by Frank Morrison

Sharuko: El arqueólogo Peruano Julio C. Tello / Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello (2020) by Monica Brown; illus. by Elisa Chavarri; trans. into Spanish by Adriana Domínguez

The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just (2018) by Melina Mangal, illustrated by Luisa Uribe

Biographies About Champions for Change

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything (2020) by Annette Bay Pimental, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

Althea Gibson: The Story of Tennis’ Fleet-Footed Girl (2020) by Megan Reid, illustrated by Laura Freeman

Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote (2020) by Veronica Chambers and the staff of The New York Times, illustrated by Monica Ahanonu, Rachelle Baker, Kristen Buchholz, Alex Cabal, Noa Denmon, Ellen Duda, Shyama Golden, Johnalynn Holland, Hillary Kempenich, Nhung Lê , Ella Trujillo, and Steffi Walthall

I am Not a Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists from Past and Present (2020) by Cerrie Burnell, illustrated by Lauren Mark Baldo

Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box (2020) by Evette Dion

Lizzie Demands a Seat! Elizabeth Jennings Fights for Streetcar Rights (2020) by Beth Anderson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

She was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm (2020) by Katheryn Russell-Brown, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

Soldier for Equality: José de la Luz Sáenz and The Great War (2019) by Duncan Tonatiuh

Spotted Tail (2019) by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk and Pat Kinsella

The Teachers March: How Selma’s Teachers Changed History (2020) by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rick Wallace, illustrated by Charly Palmer

If you have any picture book or chapter-length biographies or collected biographies for young people that you would like to recommend, please email us at thebiographyclearinghouse@gmail.com. We’re also interested in hearing more about how you’re using life stories in the classroom this year.

Mary Ann Cappiello teaches courses in children’s literature and literacy methods at Lesley University, blogs about teaching with children’s literature at The Classroom Bookshelf, a School Library Journal blog, and is a former chair of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction K-8.

Ideas for Change with Tonya Bolden’s Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl

9/1/2020

By Jennifer Graff and Courtney Shimek on behalf of the Biography Clearinghouse

As shared in our initial Biography Clearinghouse post, we are committed to showcasing how biographies can help connect youths with each other and the world. Offering curricular possibilities that are easily adaptable to grade level, time, and other contexts and providing “behind-the-scenes” content from biography creators are central components of our commitment.

Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl Cover

In the spirit of returning to school and the desire to amplify the historical achievements of Black people in the U.S., we showcase the story of someone committed to justice and equity her entire life. “A child of New York City’s striving class of Blacks in the mid-1800s" (p.5) whose ideals were to “Aim high! Stand tall! Be strong! -- and do!” (p.5); a girl whose mother was “an ace operator for the Underground Railroad” (p.21); and an educator who wrote, “I never forgot that I had to sue for a privilege which any but a colored girl could have without asking” (p.36). Thus, our first featured biography on the Biography Clearinghouse website is Tonya Bolden’s award-winning Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl.

Bolden felt compelled to write about Maritcha after coming across her memoir at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Bolden’s rich, descriptive language and use of primary and secondary sources illuminate the life and experiences of Maritcha Rémond Lyons and her family in New York City during the latter half of the 19th century. Readers discover what life for Blacks was like in New York City, witness the terror and violence of the Draft Riots in 1863, and experience the fight for education and equal treatment. Bolden’s discussion of her research and writing process in the front and back matter as well as Maritcha’s perseverance, determination, and legacy inspired us to interview Bolden and imagine how we could incorporate this powerful biography into our classrooms.

Operating within our Investigate, Explore, and Create model, we designed teaching ideas geared toward literacy and content area learning as well as opportunities for socio-emotional learning and strengthening community connections.

Investigate focuses on authors’ and illustrators’ craft and structure. Suggested mini-lessons, writing opportunities, and talking points invite students to take composition-focused “closer looks” and “tryouts,” accentuating the importance of authors’ and illustrators’ craft from multiple perspectives. Bolden’s use of rich, vivid language and a medley of source material in Maritcha inspired our suggestions that connect the power of word choice and text structure as well as differentiate between facts and informed hypotheses.

Explore offers resources to connect ideas, historical events, and scientific discoveries and inventions within the featured biographies to our world. These resources are selected to help readers deepen and extend their understandings of and connections between historical events and eras, scientific progress and modern conveniences, and to illustrate the interconnectedness of life across geographical places/spaces and disciplinary perspectives. For Maritcha, we found resources about the Draft Riots of 1863 as well as other education desegregation cases from the United States that happened between a decade and a century prior to Brown v. the Board of Education.

Create invites readers to apply what they learn and know from the biographies to their current communities and contexts. Acutely aware of time and resources, our suggestions are typically designed to meet educators where they are and offer additional opportunities.

Investigate, Explore, and Create Model

Diagram of interconnected circles involving Investigate research & writing process craft and structure, Explore content and disciplinary thinking social and emotional learning, Create new texts and artifacts

Create with Maritcha

Featured here is one of the Create ideas inspired by Maritcha. We mirror Bolden’s focus on family, community, and equity by having students think about their individual families, situate themselves within their communities, and then engage in positive action and change. While Bolden’s Maritcha is geared toward upper elementary or intermediate grades, the Create ideas speak to primary and intermediate grade levels, work with varying amounts of time, and stimulate new ideas rather than prescribe curricular engagements.

Getting to Know Your Community Leaders

Community networks were central to Maritcha’s story as well as her and her family’s accomplishments. The importance of community networks is still present today. But how often do we have opportunities to delve deeper into the community networks that help us survive, if not thrive?

If you have 1-2 hours . . .	If you have 1-2 days . . .	If you have 1 week or longer . . .
Discuss the ways in which Maritcha’s community helped her succeed and who the leaders were in her community.	As a class or in small groups, brainstorm who (people and/or organizations) are part of their communities, who they consider to be leaders in their communities, and why (e.g., leadership qualities, character traits, etc.). Sample discussion starters: Who does a community look up to/learn from most and why? What qualities do these individuals have that inspire members of the community?	In small groups, students identify someone from their community network. Students generate interview questions and then conduct in-person or virtual interviews with their identified community members about the importance of community, leadership, etc. (connect back to key ideas from Maritcha).

By investigating biographers’ research and writing processes and connecting people and historical events to our modern lives, we hope to motivate change in how readers engage with biographies, each other, and the larger world. To see more classroom possibilities and helpful resources connected to Marticha: A Nineteenth Century American Girl, visit the Biography Clearinghouse. Additionally, we’d love to hear how the interview and these ideas inspired you. Email us at thebiographyclearinghouse@gmail.com with your connections, creations, questions, or comment below if you’re reading this on Twitter or Facebook.

Jennifer M. Graff is an associate professor at the University of Georgia, the current past-president of CLA, and a former committee member of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children.

Courtney Shimek is an assistant professor at West Virginia University and has been a member of CLA since 2015.

Creating at Home: Focusing on Pictures

5/14/2020

BY ASHLEY A. ATKINSON

As we enter another week of sheltering in place and remote learning, it is clear that COVID19 will continue to impact our educational practices for the foreseeable future. As I talk to friends and colleagues still in the classroom, they share some beautiful moments of success that should be celebrated. However, I also hear stories highlighting the difficulty of continuing to maintain student engagement. During this time of stress on a global level, we, as educators, have to reach deep into our toolboxes to find new ways to engage with our students and their families.

One silver lining that has stemmed from COVID19 is the influx of resources provided by authors and illustrators to assist parents and teachers in engaging with literacy learning at home. I have seen several blog posts, including Lora M. Dewalt's Post on this blog @Instagram’s #KidLit Community, that highlight amazing opportunities to engage with authors. In today’s post, I am going to focus on the illustrators.

Visual images are an important aspect of meaning making for young children. Often in the classroom, we focus on the words authors pen and less on ways in which the illustrator is a crucial part of the story. Larry Sipe in his book, Storytime: Young Children's Literary Understanding in the Classroom, highlighted the interplay and interconnectedness between images and text, what he called synergy. The synergistic relationship of illustrations and text makes clear the greater impact when viewed together. Giving students a chance to engage and create both text and illustrations honors this relationship and expands the possibilities for how children make meaning.

A perfect example of this powerful union is Drawn Together, written by Minh Lê and illustrated by Dan Santat. This picturebook starts with panels where images begin the story. Throughout the story as the words and images collide, they both become more impactful and moving, highlighting their synergistic relationship. Watch the video to the right as Dan Santat shares his process for creating the art in this text.

Resources for Creation

As we attempt to engage our students in rich reading and writing from afar, we can encourage families to create together. Below I have shared some new resources created by some amazing picturebook illustrators to facilitate this creation process.

Mo Lunch Doodles

You may be familiar with Mo Willems as the well-known author and illustrator of the Elephant and Piggie book series, but did you know he is also the Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence at Home? In partnership with the Kennedy Center, he has created 15 episodes of Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems. In his own words, Mo Willems says, “You might be isolated, but you’re not alone. You are an art maker. Let’s make some together.” The series offers downloadable activities that focus on his creative process as well as some “how to draw” activities. In an effort to isolate together, students can tag their artwork on social media with #MoLunchDoodles. What a great way for students to see how a single image can be the seed that grows into a whole picturebook!

How to Draw Disney

Disney is offering its own how to draw series which allows students to create their own stories around some of their favorite characters.

Dav Pilkey at Home

Another great resource comes from Dav Pilkey, author and illustrator of Captain Underpants and Dog Man. He is working in conjunction with Scholastic and the Library of Congress to offer weekly video lessons that focus on a chance to read, to draw, to create, and to engage with other multimodal fun. What is great about this resource is that it offers a chance for families to have conversations around books and create art together.

Ready- Set- Draw

Kidlit.tv, a great resource on its own, has a subpage called Ready-Set-Draw that includes how to draw characters from several current children’s picturebooks. This is a great resource to pair with read-aloud videos and book talks

#KidsDailyDebbieOhi

Lastly, Debbie Ridpath Ohi offers daily creation challenges via her twitter that allows another way for students to work together while apart. Each day offers an art creation project that can be down with things around the house. Some recent challenges... broken crayon story/art, creating a dog character, and laundry art! Check out other children’s responses by searching for her tag #KidsDailyDebbieOhi.

These resources can offer entry into discussions of the images within picturebooks or a great springboard into students creating their own stories. They also create opportunities for students and families to engage with literacy in a new way. I hope you enjoy using these resources to help your students and families have a little fun as they imagine and create together.

Ashley A. Atkinson is a member of the CLA student committee. She is a doctoral candidate in Literacy and English Language Arts at North Carolina State University.

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.

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

The CLA Blog