Elementary Library

Break up read alouds with movement breaks - this could be through dance to wordless music or more rounds of charades.

Step 2: Students Create Their Own Wordless Story Show students the Story Panels and invite them to tell their own stories by being an illustrator. Circulate and support students as they work.

Grades 3-5

Step 1, Option 1: Choose one to two books to “read” aloud using Visual Thinking Strategies and the Whole Book Approach. While reading aloud: ●​ Ask students what an illustrator does and how they contribute to telling a story. ●​ Explicitly point out the use of panels to show time and other visual strategies used by the illustrator. ●​ Define the term “sequence” and help students to recognize the order of events in the illustrations. ●​ Support students retelling the story to partners, small groups, or whole group by identifying characters, setting, beginning, middle, and end Step 1, Option 2: Divide students into groups of 3-4 and give them a wordless book to explore. Their job is to read the book together and then retell the story to another group. Support student exploration of the book with sentence frames either displayed or at their work spaces.

●​ In this frame, I see _____________. ●​ Something I noticed __________. ●​ First, _________________. Then, _____________ ●​ I wonder _________________. ●​ I agree with _________ because _____________. ●​ I noticed something different. It __________________.

As a whole group, discuss the choices illustrators used to show time and action (panels and sequencing). Note how they showed character emotion, created settings, and other visual elements of storytelling. Revisit the objective/compelling question and discuss.

Step 2: Students Create Own Wordless Panels Show students the Story Panels and invite them to tell their own stories by being an illustrator. Circulate and support students as they work.

READER’S ADVISORY, CIRCULATION PROCEDURES & DISMISSAL

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