USING PICTURE BOOKS TO BUILD COMMON SCHEMA IN THE MIDDLE SCHOOL ENGLISH CLASSROOM

Kristina Albarello

THE BACKGROUND

Literacy Instruction within the Middle School Curriculum with Dr. Shelly Furuness Introduced the value of using

children’s picture books in the middle or high school classroom

Example: Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss before reading a novel about the Holocaust

Tapping individual prior knowledge and creating common, shared knowledge

THE BACKGROUND

Middle Grades Curriculum & Instructional Methods with Dr. Roger Boop Created and taught lesson about paraphrasing to

an 8th grade Language Arts class Created a shared experience to begin the lesson Students and I referenced the shared experience

throughout the ensuing lesson

THE QUESTION

Reflecting on the theory and practice, the two ideas merged and led to the central question of my investigation:

What happens when a teacher uses picture books in a middle school English

Language Arts classroom to create a common experience that all share, to

which all can relate and reference throughout the ensuing lesson?

THE EXISTING LITERATURE

Theoretical Considerations Schema Theory

Schemata: The frameworks/networks of ideas that help us make sense of experiences (Chapman, 1993, 24)

Schema: The “hooks” onto which new information can “hang” (Gipe, 2002, 221)

Students need schema to understand new information

Schema vary from student to student For students without schema about a topic,

stories are the best for developing new schema (Marzano, 2003, 113; Gipe, 2002, 222)

THE EXISTING LITERATURE

Picture Books Advantages

Short length Students completely engage (Giorgis, 1999, 51-52) Experience a complete story rather than an excerpt

(Giorgis, 1999, 51-52) Sophisticated Language & Topics (Kasten, Kristo,

McClure, & Garthwait, 2005) Art and Visual Aids

Help students who struggle to form mental images (Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson, 2003)

Art valuable for its aesthetics alone (Carr, Buchanan, Wentz, Weiss, & Brant, 2001, 147).

THE EXISTING LITERATURE

Specific Kinds of Students Who Benefit English Language Learners: there are visual

clues and less language in picture books (Hadaway & Mundy, 1999,465)

Visual learners Multi-level

classrooms

THE APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

The Question: What happens when a teacher uses picture books in a middle school English Language Arts classroom to create a common experience that all share, to which all can relate and reference throughout the ensuing lesson?

Hypothesis: positive learning experience students would make connections to the picture

books during the rest of the lesson

THE APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

The Setting 7th grade Language Arts classroom Middle school located in a metropolitan school

district in Indianapolis, IN The Participants

2 groups of 5 students, selected by classroom teacher

Diverse in ability, participation, personality, background

To establish trust, I taught the students two dates before beginning the data collection

THE APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

Research Design Used teacher action research Study spanned 5 weeks with no more than 2

meetings per week: total of 7 lessons Format of Lessons

1. Began lesson with a picture book that helped teach lesson’s objectives

2. Made connection from picture book to lesson’s topic3. Taught same lesson as the classroom teacher,

referring back to the picture book4. Students work on own with independent reading

books

THE APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

Data Sources Post-Lesson Rating Scales Quick notes in a field journal Video recordings of lessons (later viewed and

transcribed) Post-Study Rating Scale Post-Study Survey

THE APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

Data Analysis Used indexing: creating a table of contents of

reoccurring categories found in my data (Shagoury & Power, 1993, 99) Found common themes in notes, observations, and

student responses Narrowed categories

Used the constant comparison method: relating categories within a larger framework to make theoretical claims (Shagoury & Power, 1993, 115)

THE APPROACH & METHODOLOGY

The data analysis led to the following categories: Teacher-Made Connections

using the picture book as a model to prepare students for what they need to be able to do

giving more examples/providing comparisons returning to the shared picture book experience for

students struggling to understand the concept Student-Made Connections

Through further analysis and triangulation of these categories, I was able to draw conclusions for my findings and implications

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections1. Using the picture book as a model to prepare students for

what they need to be able to do The Findings

14 occurrences Using Freedom River by Doreen Rappaport to teach how to

provide definitions of vocabulary words in writing using the context

• Used concrete examples of how the author used this skill to guide students to accomplishing the same skills

• “If your first vocab word is Luxor, what context clues can you include? In here [Freedom River], they show us them travelling under straw in a wagon to give us an idea of what the Underground Railroad is like. What is important to Luxor? What context clues can you provide just like they did for the Underground Railroad in here?”

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections1. Using the picture book as a

model to prepare students for what they need to be able to do

The Implications Use picture books as mentor

texts to provide concrete models the class can share

Reduce the amount of time spent coming up with abstract examples or searching the students’ independent reading books

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections2. Giving More Examples/Providing Comparisons

The Findings 8 occurrences Compared Fire on the Mountainside and Too Many Tamales

to teach falling action and resolution• Provided multiple examples

and comparisons • Allowed students to see the

literary term as not solely

one example

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections2. Giving More Examples/Providing Comparisons

The Findings Qualities of Good Examples

• Basic Students struggled to understand novel excerpts Students’ reading comprehension should not inhibit their

ability to learn an unrelated skill

• In Context Identifying the climax allowed the students to more easily

identify the rising action, when teaching rising action using Saving Sweetness

Teaching the rising action isolated, out of context, would have been nearly impossible

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections

2. Giving More Examples/Providing Comparisons

The Implications Use picture books for

additional examples and comparisons

• Increase the number of accessible examples students receive

• Focus on the skill rather than reading comprehension

• Provide examples in context

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections3. Returning to the shared picture book experience for

students struggling to understand the concept The Findings

4 occurrences After using Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio to teach 3rd

person point of view, we moved onto more difficult mentor texts from novels. Students struggled with the excerpts from the novels.

• Returned to the picture book for a more basic, concrete example they understood

• Afterward, were able to successfully move to the difficult mentor texts again

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Teacher-Made Connections3. Returning to the shared picture book experience for

students struggling to understand the concept The Findings

Examined other occurrences—Saving Sweetness by Diane Stanley used to teach rising action and Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto for falling action

• Recognized that the value was in having a shared experience, rather than a new shared experience for each skill

• One book could teach multiple skills

The Implications Use picture books because of their simpler, concrete

examples Consider all the skills and concepts to be covered in a unit

and choose a picture book that fits all/most of them

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Student-Made ConnectionsSeeing the picture book as an instructional tool Findings

Only one student verbally made a reference to a picture book later in the lesson: Writing their own children’s books, one girl used it as a model for her plot line

Students saw picture books as instructional tools Students responded with averages of 3.99 and 3.75 for:

Was the picture book relevant to the lesson? Did the picture book enhance understanding of the skill later

discussed in the lesson? Of the 10 total students, 9 made a comment about the picture

book: introducing the lesson helping them learn the lesson better, or providing examples of what the lesson was about

Yet students still enjoyed the picture books: Students scores averaged a 4 on the rating scale

FINDINGS & IMPLICATIONS

Student-Made Connections

Seeing the picture book as an instructional tool

Implications Students were not “tricked”

into learning The novelty of picture books

likely will not wear off as quickly

Can use picture books as shared experiences multiple times

FOR FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS

Which students benefit the most and why

Establish criteria for determining high quality picture books

Other kinds of shared experiences—simulations, videos, magazines, etc.

QUESTIONS?

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