Paul Fleischman's book Sidewalk Circus is a picturebook that I have seen before at the school media center, but I have never used it before with my classes. I admit that although I thought the illustrations by Kevin Hawkes are engaging, I tend to shy away from using wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks for lessons. I do a couple during the school year, notably Time Flies By: Eric Rohmann and Good Dog, Carl By: Alexandra Day. I have used wordless picturebooks to do mini-lessons at read aloud on the power and connectivity that illustrations possess in partnership with a given story line. As much as I illicit ideas from the kids during read aloud and have th
em orally discuss text with one another in a think-pair-share format, sharing a wordless picture book almost pains some students to not immediately verbalize their predictions and observations with both their peers and myself. For other students, it brings out the necessity to savor drawings that would otherwise be flipped through in a mere minute or two.I decided to share this selection with my students to give it a test run and to garner an authentic reaction from a second grade class. I went really slow and showed the illustrations and no talking was allowed from them or myself during the first viewing. After slowly sharing the book, I told the students that this time they are going to whisper to their pair partner what they noticed, big and small, any inside jokes, and what the story was really about. They took it very seriously, and I loved watching them excitedly softly talk amongst each other, trying to "get" the real story. The kids bubbled with observations that they seem to feel that they were so keen to observe. When we went through the book a third time, that's when I showed each page and asked for three different pairings to share their ideas.
They discussed how the little girl is depicted in bold color while the grown ups around her were depicted in drab colors, all self-absorbed and unobservant of the busy "day to day" life activities on the busy city street. Students commented on how she didn't need to go to the "real" circus being advertised, because her creative imagination and keen connective observations saw the circus all around her. Comparisons to the feats of a circus on the town street range from the "juggling" of pancakes at the cafe window, to the painters on hanging scaffolding on the side of the building slipping as if trapeze artists, to the comparison of the marquee's ad of daring sword swallowers to the dentist down a patient's throat with a tool in a nearby window. The little girl's reaction is depicted in her body language, and the students knew what she was feeling with no words at all. When the little girl's bus leaves, a young boy comes along to sit on the same bench and begins to see the same comparisons, showing the observational nature of young people who are hungry to understand the world around them.
Several students commented on how they loved how the picture filled the whole picture space (as I have often told them about their personal work ;) and one student brought up a text to text connection (and a "mini-lesson to mini-lesson" connection) to Cynthia Rylant's book Scarecrow. In the Fall, we read Rylant's selection and I brought to their attention how the illustrator in her book zoomed up perspectives very close and from afar to make you see things differently. Fleishman and Hawkes have the same perspective represented in different ways, such as looking down the street with the marquee on the right, or the window above zoomed in with just a corner of it showing, all giving the feeling of the little girl looking around the same scene.
The kids wanted their own opportunity to do a "wordless" story, and so next week, we are going to work together with partners. One student will do the pictures, and the other will have to explain or write their own interpretations and share together with the class at author's chair time. The "wordless picture book" will be shown to the students by the illustrator, and then after a complete viewing, the partner student who wrote about the story will share their interpretation. Although simplistic, the children still have to be extra observant with illustrations that some would easily breeze through. This selection by Fleishman and Hawkes served as a great role model for that. I'm glad this made me give a book I was overlooking a second chance.
1 comment:
Wendy, I really like the strategy you used with your students --silent first reading, then pair-share. I also think that the re-reading is awesome. This is exactly what we have been discussing with middle school students: the most powerful comprehension strategy is rereading. I am going to try to reinforce this idea by using a wordless picture book. Thanks so much for the great idea!
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