Picture Books for High School by: The Superhero Teacher

Hello
teachers! I’m here to talk about how we, as middle and high school ELA
teachers, can incorporate children’s books into our classroom.  Specifically, I am going to discuss five ways
you can use BabyLit picture books to teach literary classics!  If you are hesitant, stick with me and you’ll
find some simple tricks that can elevate these incredibly designed books into a
learning tool for teens.
First,
let’s talk a bit about these
BabyLit books you’ll see in the photos throughout
this post. The authors, Alison Oliver and Jennifer Adams, take literary
classics and simplify them for younger ages.
Think of a classic and I’m willing to bet they have it! While at Barnes
& Noble, I had the most challenging time selecting which ones I wanted to
use, but I ended up with:
Romeo & Juliet, Alice in Wonderland, Sense &
Sensibility, The Secret Garden, and The Odyssey.
  I’ll definitely be back to purchase A
Christmas Carol, Little Women, and a few of the other 26 options they have
available, too! So, now that we have the books, how can we teach them? 
 
 
 
Reading
some of these challenging classics can be difficult even for your most
experienced readers. Therefore, using these children’s books to teach literary
elements is a great way to help your students develop a better understanding of
the events taking place throughout the story.

Some literary elements I would use include: theme, main idea, imagery,
conflict, and symbolism.
  For example, in
the BabyLit version of Romeo & Juliet, the authors use numbers to describe
key events in the tragic comedy.
ACTIVITY:
Ask students to describe the symbolism behind each of the pages using textual
evidence from Shakespeare’s original.
 
 
 
 
Using
the BabyLit novels to teach plot structure is probably one of the most
effective ways to use these books! After reading the original classic, use the
children’s version to recap the key events that occurred by labeling the pages:
exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
  For instance, in BabyLit version of The
Odyssey, the characters and major events are all included! Students will be
able to visualize the plot structure with the graphics and text on each of the
pages.
  ACTIVITY: ask students to fill in the missing pieces of the picture
book by designing their own graphics and elements from the text
.
 
 
 
If you
follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or TpT, you know that I am a HUGE proponent
of independent reading assignments.  As
soon as I saw these BabyLit books in the store, my mind immediately went to
assigning students individual classics based on their interests.  ACTIVITY:
Choose 7 classics, split your class into 7 groups, and assign each group an
original version of the classic paired with the BabyLit version of the
classic.  Before reading the original,
ask students to read the BabyLit classic and foreshadow the events that may
occur throughout the text!
 
 
 
 
 
One of
my favorite things about the BabyLit children’s books is the illustrator’s
ability to capture the appearance of the characters and symbols of the original
without appearing too childish.  They are
actually quite accurate—specifically in Sense & Sensibility, Romeo &
Juliet, and The Secret Garden.  You can
easily use these books to teach characterization and quote analysis.  For example, in The Secret Garden, each page
has an important quote from the novel paired with a visual. 
ACTIVITY:
Ask students to describe the importance/relevance of each quote provided in the
BabyLit version using evidence from the text in the original!
 
 
 
This
is my favorite way to use children’s books of any kind (not just BabyLit) in
the classroom.  After reading a novel
with your class, ask students to become authors of their own by assigning a DIY
children’s book activity. Using this FREE resource I created, prompt your
students to choose a literary element and design a children’s book based on the
original text. 
You can download the free DIY Children’s Book for Middle and HighSchool English here! You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how creative your
students can be and how simplifying a classic can truly impact the level of
comprehension.  Be sure to use a BabyLit
book as an example of expectations.
If you’re
interested in more hands-on interactive resources for reading literature,
please visit my Instagram, Facebook, or Teachers pay Teachers store! 
 
 
Learn how to use children’s books in other grades here:
 
Looking for more engaging reading literature resources for middle & high school English? Check out The SuperHERO Teacher’s blog, Instagram, and Facebook page! 
 
All the best, 
Brittany Wheaton
The SuperHERO Teacher

Share this post:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Open the magic

Join my newsletter & gain access to the members only freebie library!

;