Five years ago I was introduced to Frank Serafini's work at the Wisconsin Reading Research Symposium through his latest publication, Reading the Visual. This text was exactly what I needed at the time to jumpstart the design of my multiliteracies unit (now Digital Writes) as it helped me to think about how reading the visual in picturebooks could be an entry into author's craft for digital writing. Since then, my students have explored texts using his framework alongside a similarly focused framework provided by Dawnene Hassett. Recently, I found myself wondering how I might adapt this workshop experience to attend to relevant instructional practices beyond teaching author's craft. Why it took me this long to make the connection...no idea. But, I am so excited about the workshop redesign I cannot wait to put it into action!

PBS recently hosted A Chat with Marley Dias, creator of #1000BlackGirlBooks. Marley's efforts have led to the creation of 1000BlackGirlBooks Resource Guide which speaks directly to educators who are looking for text recommendations to broaden their classroom libraries and use of mentor texts. While Marley's work addresses the need for black female protagonists at the center of children and YA literature, a number of additional resources were shared to broaden the scope of representation and culturally relevant reading material.

I've used some of these resources in the past, but two new resources are helping me to rethink how I frame these discussions in future courses. For the past few years, my students at UW have been mostly white, upper-middle class, monolingual females interested in teaching in urban settings. All of our student teaching experiences take place in culturally and linguistically diverse schools, so they are very much motivated to develop understandings and practices to support culturally responsive teachers. There is a very high likelihood that while my future students may share similar demographic backgrounds, they may be less motivated to embrace these perspectives and have less opportunities to teach in diverse contexts. I plan to be more strategic and explicit in addressing the need to broaden representation, themes, and perspectives--within all classroom contexts. Using 'Mirrors & Windows' to frame this process seems like an encouraging route to take.
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In addition, I am interested in the following analysis activity for selecting anti-bias children's books. While these ideas are integrated throughout our discussions, I imagine that completing this type of analysis would help to connect the ideas and their importance to practice (much as I've seen happen with our picturebook analysis that addresses multimodal meaning-making).

Additional resources to draw from include:

• Booklists from the CCBC
• This ppt resource does a wonderful job of synthesizing and articulating the ideas I've been thinking about with clear examples to help students make connections to their current and future teaching contexts. ​​

Finally, I was most interested in attending this webinar because I've decided my Reading Resolution this year will focus on cultural representations in children's texts focusing on the range of middle elementary readers (with selections on both ends). Here is the list I've compiled so far:
1. Aminas Voice
2. Drita My Homegirl
3. Love
4. Looking Like Me
5. Last Stop on Market Street
6. Cinderelly
7. Amazing Grace
8. My Name is Maria Isabel
9. Claudette Colvin
10.  Ninth Ward
11. Another Brooklyn
12. The Skin I'm In

Books provide a venue for making sense of ourselves, our emotions, our experiences, our identities-- even from the youngest years. Sometimes simplicity can go far in helping to introduce complex concepts, feelings, and events to our students. I'll never forget when I first realized the power of this approach when teaching a Holocaust unit to my 7th graders. We read Rose Blanche, a heartbreaking story which approaches the topic in a similar plot to that of The Boy in Striped Pajamas. As one of our opening activities, this story helped to personalize the historical background we had explored and to frame the challenging conversations that would lead us into our longer-term reading of the memoir, The Cage.

It's not surprising that children's books would help students to explore social situations, interpersonal relationships, overarching human themes. However, lately I've been struck by the range of issues being addressed in picturebooks and the opportunities they provide for children to imagine themselves and their worlds in much more nuanced and flexible ways that mirror larger social trends. 

Here I'm keeping ongoing note of some of the recent texts I've been sharing with T.

This workshop has become one of my favorites to teach and has evolved into a framing activity for the multilieracies unit (my baby). The goal of this workshop is to open student perspectives to multimodality through analysis of children's picturebooks. Using frameworks from Dawnene Hassett and Frank Serafini, students are guided to consider a variety of ways in which meaning is communicated through reader engagement with the text. 

In the past, I have taught this workshop in a face-to-face setting where students partner up and work through the steps collaboratively. At a later point, we use their findings as a launching point to multimodal composition and thinking like designers. We then transition this understanding from the familiarity of the printed text world to that of the digital text world in order to examine how writers/designers make intentional choices throughout the digital writing process.

Moving to a blended format enabled me to capitalize on two particular shifts for this workshop:

Love this great find shared by Daniel in our ELA methods course. Definitely speaks to many of the ideas we are discussing about children's literature!