Blog: Take 5 minutes today and write a response to one of the following on your blog:
Children's Literature Project
Much of children's literature is designed to teach children: 1. The alphabet 2. New words or concepts 3. Social mores or traditions and 4. of course to teach them or "edumacate" them about the world we live in (or wish we lived in), and what it means to be human.
Children's books are often written for elementary readers. That means that smart and talented authors target children (and their parents) as their potential audience. Techniques of elementary reading (since the focus is on new words, letters, and concepts) include several of the following tropes (or patterns):
1. Young protagonists
2. Colorful pictures that help match vocabulary to image
3. A lesson or moral
4. Short paragraphs (sometimes a picture book has only pictures) Sentence construction and syntax is simple or paired down. Noun + verb + direct object, etc. See Spot. See Jane. Spot bit Jane.
"Children's" literature, therefore, is NOT meant to be read by adolescents, since adolescents often find it difficult to appreciate simplicity or wild imagination, searching primarily to fit into a common crowd and usually resent being treated like young "children."
As you go about completing the library research project on Children's Literature, consider HOW you approach a children's book. If you are open, this can be a lot of fun. If you are close-minded (this often happens in a group setting since you don't want your peers to know you actually enjoy kids stuff) you may find yourself overly critical.
TASK: Go to the library. Select a children's picture book. Read it. Analyze it (what colors, pictures, style is the book using? How is this designed to catch the attention of a child? What is the story? What fantasy elements and tropes or archetypes are used? Examine the language and how it is paired down or more simplistic than novels we read in school. Think about the lesson/moral about life the book examines, etc.
During period 3, stay in the library and read in a corner. Then check out the book by end of period 3. Bring the book to the lab. Prepare a reading of the book to our peers during 4th period. Practice reading your book to a partner or two.
At the end of class, please respond to this entry about the books you read and your experience reading in the COMMENT section of this blog. Particularly answer: As a writer, what have you learned about children's books?
PLEASE POST A COMMENT BELOW - Please include your real NAME to get full credit!
HOMEWORK: None. Gather ideas for a children's story.
- How did my writing go for the fantasy story assignment? Talk about what worked/didn't work or what you liked/didn't like about the project.
- Write about the film Legend (1985), directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, The Martian, etc.); what did you like, dislike, think about, etc.?
- What's the point of reading a fantasy novel/story? Or writing one? Why might we do it?
- What was one of your favorite children's picture books when you were young? What was the title or the story? Why did you like it?
Children's Literature Project
Much of children's literature is designed to teach children: 1. The alphabet 2. New words or concepts 3. Social mores or traditions and 4. of course to teach them or "edumacate" them about the world we live in (or wish we lived in), and what it means to be human.
Children's books are often written for elementary readers. That means that smart and talented authors target children (and their parents) as their potential audience. Techniques of elementary reading (since the focus is on new words, letters, and concepts) include several of the following tropes (or patterns):
1. Young protagonists
2. Colorful pictures that help match vocabulary to image
3. A lesson or moral
4. Short paragraphs (sometimes a picture book has only pictures) Sentence construction and syntax is simple or paired down. Noun + verb + direct object, etc. See Spot. See Jane. Spot bit Jane.
"Children's" literature, therefore, is NOT meant to be read by adolescents, since adolescents often find it difficult to appreciate simplicity or wild imagination, searching primarily to fit into a common crowd and usually resent being treated like young "children."
As you go about completing the library research project on Children's Literature, consider HOW you approach a children's book. If you are open, this can be a lot of fun. If you are close-minded (this often happens in a group setting since you don't want your peers to know you actually enjoy kids stuff) you may find yourself overly critical.
TASK: Go to the library. Select a children's picture book. Read it. Analyze it (what colors, pictures, style is the book using? How is this designed to catch the attention of a child? What is the story? What fantasy elements and tropes or archetypes are used? Examine the language and how it is paired down or more simplistic than novels we read in school. Think about the lesson/moral about life the book examines, etc.
During period 3, stay in the library and read in a corner. Then check out the book by end of period 3. Bring the book to the lab. Prepare a reading of the book to our peers during 4th period. Practice reading your book to a partner or two.
At the end of class, please respond to this entry about the books you read and your experience reading in the COMMENT section of this blog. Particularly answer: As a writer, what have you learned about children's books?
PLEASE POST A COMMENT BELOW - Please include your real NAME to get full credit!
HOMEWORK: None. Gather ideas for a children's story.
17 comments:
JENNA'S RESPONSE -
reading children's literature, I learned that it doesn't need to make sense at all because kids don't care about that type of thing. Colors and key vocabulary draws the kid into the book and it's good to always have a lesson in the story so that the kid can take something away from the whole book.
I read the book The Three Pigs. In this spin on the classical story the three pigs go on a marvelous journey that brings tons of laughter. I've learned from reading this book that children's books have little boundaries in their own right and anything can happen,
all children books have a lesson to the story. there's always a meaning to the story to teach the children right from wrong.
So, I learned quite a bit about children's books, I guess. They don't have many words, and aren't that descriptive. There are a lot of pictures, and sometimes the pages are all pictures and no words (y'know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words haha am I right). So, yeah, overall I learned that children's books are really simple, and um. Yeah.
Alquasia Maye- The book I have read was called Sylvester and Magic Pebble. What I learned is that people make stupid decisions when they're afraid of something or someone. Another thing I learned is that you don't go so far away from home because that's just dumb all on its own. Like for real now, I mean, if I had a magic pebble, I would want to be a giraffe or something. This book kind of reminds me of the movie Zootopia. Another thing I learned is that nothing ever makes sense in a children's book.
madeline's rescue:joshua phonharath
ok so its a gr8 book with nice pictures and also gr8 rhyming
ok so tl;dr its a house in france with 12 girls and a nun and one of them is named madeline and she's rlly dumb and succeeds in falling off of a bridge and almost dying also
and then this dog saves her and they like the dog and the dog stays with them
and then inspector people come and are like wtf you cant have a dog in here its a school so the dog (genevieve btw) has to leave
and then they look for the dog because its gone and then they're sad but then one day the dog comes back and gives birth and they're happy
i love children's book especially ones with pictures// i feel like my voice is annoying when i read so idk i try not to think about it when i am reading
i like reading out loud
Jesziah Vazquez. My book "The Book of Mean People" was very educational. It teaches kids to not worry about mean people. It also uses very short lines to sum up what your seeing. It also uses obvious metaphors. Things that are easy for kids to understand. The illustrations worked well with the sentences.
I learned that all children's books have alot of pictures to basically give visuals for the kids so they don't hqave to sit there and struggle to read the book, they can just let the picture do the talking. IT'S always ok to have a little words but never a lot of words because certain children can't read as much as the next so dont over do it with the words.
As a writer I enjoy reading and hearing children books. They practically have the same style. Full with pictures that help the book better to understand. One book that I really enjoyed was The Polar Express, That is one of my favorite children books. Its a long story but the pictures correspond with the words so it helps the young readers and listeners understand it better. With most children books they have wacky works and things that you know cant happen in real life. I learned that every children book has a real story behind with funny things to make the children laugh. When you write a children book or story its good to include pictures that relate to the words and story. I read the One Fine Day By Nonny Hogrogian and it has the lesson of not taking other people stuff because there are lots of problems to go along and you have to make it right.
I have learned that children books tend to stay very cookie cutter and always end with a happy ending and usually end with a moral of some sort. They revolve around themes of adventure and have very few words and the words that are there are very small and understandable.
-Pahz
I read The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg and it was a nostalgic experience. I grew up watching and reading this novel, especially around Christmas time. I've always loved the idea of going to the North Pole, presents, and the sound of sleigh bells. Children's books all have a theme or moral. They teach you important life lessons and often share fantasy traits. Also, they usually have extremely interesting pictures.
Children's books are very imaginative, Children's have an active imagination so that would make sense. They're very colorful the illustrators make the pictures very well to show children the action that is happening in the book and that's really helpful because some children learn better visually rather then verbally. The illustrations make the books more fun. The authors vocabulary has to be in a way the children can understand. The author doesn't use words that the children can't understand. I read the book Office Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann. The book was interesting and it's funny. It includes imagination and it makes me laugh so it would probably make younger kids laugh as well.
The book I read was titled "Hey, Al" by Arthur Yorinks and it was about how a janitor realized his job isn't so bad, and its better than being a bird (long story)
Some of the books were interesting, and it was a fun experience pretending we were teachers in 1st grade XD ok anyway within all seriousness though I learned children's books are used to teach/teach lessons and they are helpful, especially when you just can't remember that one color or letter. Children's books usually (hopefully anyway) end in a happy ending, and there is most usually a moral of some sort, in this case the moral to mine was something around the lines of accept who you are or you should accept your fate or something. Idk but this was a fun project, and its good to have a lesson your kids can follow.
I selected the book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. As I read through this book I noticed that the illustrations were drawn to appeal to the children and the text was simple and basic for children to better understand. That is a common theme throughout many children's books. Keeping it simple and colorful is the key to a great children's novel.
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3602209942621282904#allposts
Post a Comment