Children's books can offer a great deal to slightly older learners as well; in this multi-session lesson from ReadWriteThink (see the 7-17-2015 Scout Report), high school students "plan, write, illustrate, and publish their own children's picture books" over eight 50-minute sessions. Students begin by reviewing their favorite books from childhood in small groups using a provided guide "to gain an understanding of the creative process and the elements that help make a children's book successful." Subsequent sessions incorporate journaling, brainstorming exercises, and interactive digital tools to help students plan out their own children's stories, as well as small group presentations where students "pitch" their story ideas and provide written constructive feedback to each other. In later sessions, students create rough storyboards of their children's books and manually bind these storyboards into finished books. As a suggested extension activity, students may also visit a kindergarten classroom and read some of the best books to younger children. Numerous printable grading rubrics, worksheets, and handouts are included. This fully-developed, standards-aligned lesson unit was published by the National Council of Teachers of English and written by Junius Wright, a European literature and creative writing teacher at the Academic Magnet High School in Charleston, South Carolina.
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