Text Sets

As strategy presentations begin, here are my expectations for the text sets. Text sets will be posted here on the blog - you will be responsible for posting them. Elements of a text set:

* 3 books per person in the group.
* Graphic of the book cover. You can upload pictures you take yourself of the book covers. There is a button on the blog posting page that will walk you through uploading photos from your computer:

* You must link to a webpage where we could purchase the book. You can use Amazon, Powells, etc. to create this link. The link button is five buttons from the left, next to the text color button.
* There must be a synopsis of the book.
* You must connect the book with the strategy you presented on.

I've put together a text set for schema that shows you how I would like the set laid out:

Fox, M. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Patridge.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Patridge, a boy who isn't very old, lives next door to an old people's home. His favorite old person is Miss Nancy Alison Delacourt Cooper, who he tells all his secrets to and how has, according to his parents, lost her memory. Wilfrid begins to ask various people at the old people's home what a memory is and collects objects that spark his own memories to share with Miss Cooper. He shares his box with her, his shells, puppet, grandfather's medal, football, and an egg, and she begins to rememeber her own memories.

Strategy Connection: As children begin to think about schema and strategy instruction, memories and the objects, visuals, and experiences that trigger them, become very important. This book provides a jumping off point to begin talking about experience and how our experiences shape how we interpret texts, objects, and experiences. It calls to attention that our schemas are different and may lead to different interpretations. This would be an excellent book to utilize before a strategy unit on activating and connecting previous knowledge.


Lionni, L. Swimmy

Swimmy lives in a corner of the sea with a school of little red fish. Swimmy, however, is "black as a mussel shell," which allows him to escape when a hungry tuna gulps up the school of little red fish. Swimmy is left alone and wanders the sea, finding a jelly fish, a lobster, strange fish, seaweed, an eel, and sea anemones, until he finds another school of little red fish hiding in a cluster of rocks and weeds. They hide because the big fish will see them, which Swimmy finds sad and declares they must think of something so they may play in the sea. Swimmy begins to arrange the small red fish into the shape of a large fish and they learned to swim together like a big fish, chasing other big fish away.

Strategy Connection: This book highlights how we use experiences to shape our thinking. Swimmy is the lone survivor of the Tuna fish attack on his school of friends and uses that experience to help his new friends think of a way to avoid becoming lunch for another tuna. This book is a great conversation about how do we figure out how to do things? How much do our previous experiences shape how we solve problems? Excellent questions as we begin to be more conscious of our own reading and book choices.

Yolen, J & Teague, M. How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?

This story follows a group of dinosaurs as they prepare for bed. The book starts out with the dinos doing all of the things that could be considered unpleasant: pouting, shouting for another book, and even roaring. The book concludes with the dinosaurs going to bed quietly, with just one more kiss and a hug.

Strategy Connection: The power of this book is in how children know when the dinosaurs are not going to bed in the "correct" way versus when the dinosaurs are. They are using their schema about how to go to bed to make a value judgement about the dinosaur's behavior. How have they learned these concepts of right and wrong? Probably through experience, which has influenced their schema.

As always, comment with questions.