For this session, I have chosen the book “If… : A mind-bending new way of looking at big ideas and numbers”, written by David J. Smith and illustrated by Steve Adams, published in 2014. This picture book is suitable for older students with intermediate reading abilities. In it, the author uses a combination of engaging visuals and succinct text to help students conceptualize big numbers.
For example: “If the history of the last 3000 years were condensed into one month, Buddha was born on the 5th of the month and the computer was built on the 30th.” An image of an illustrated calendar puts this timeline in context. Or “If all the money in the world were a pile of 100 coins, North America would have 32 coins, Europe would have 34, South America 6, Africa 3, Asia 22, and Oceania 3”. This is accompanied by an interesting map showing the distribution of wealth relative to geographical area and population density. The book is 38 pages long, and covers topics such as the planets, species of living things, and life expectancy. I believe it is quite suitable for my students (grades 5-8), who can use it to engage with academic topics such as math, science and social studies.
Why this book?
While creating a lesson plan for this book, I took into account the specific circumstances in which it will be used – a middle school class of English Learners in middle America. This environment creates some unique challenges and opportunities. For example, I might go to one of my specific classrooms, say Grade 6, and pull out 10 students who are in the multilingual (ML) support program. However, there is no guarantee that all 10 of those students are at the same level of language proficiency, since they are grouped together by age / grade rather than English ability. So some students might still be at the emerging level, while others have solid intermediate proficiency. Likewise, there will certainly be different learning styles, abilities and interests represented in my class: one student might be great at reading and writing, but hesitant when it comes to spoken production; another student may be dyslexic; a third might be extremely interested in math and science, but shut down when it comes to language arts and social studies.
Another factor unique to ML programs in the American public school system is the requirement to focus on academic language. Many students already have functional social language skills; they can chat with friends and follow instructions to varying degrees. But the real need is to maximize academic language, help them understand core subjects and achieve on standardized tests.
Given the factor of such diverse student language abilities, it is an interesting challenge to choose one book suitable for an entire class. This is where scaffolding comes in. As described by Graves and Fitzgerald, scaffolding is a teaching technique in which the teachers “build structures” that assist the students in learning and carrying out tasks that would be otherwise too challenging for them to complete unassisted. The authors give the example of how a parent might teach their child to read over the years: first pointing to pictures in a picture book and saying the words aloud, next pointing to individual letters in CVC words and correlating the sounds to the pictures, and eventually encouraging the child to read simple words while still helping them to sound out the more advanced phonics (97). These activities provide support for the young child to engage with the text which would have been otherwise inaccessible to them because it is beyond their literacy abilities.
By properly scaffolding activities, I can create learning equity for my students. While individual students may bring varying levels of language proficiency and content knowledge to the text, a properly scaffolded lesson plan will ensure each student stays within the Zone of Proximal Development (Graves 98). In a school such as mine, in which the majority of students are coming from at risk communities, creating equitable opportunities is always a top priority.
An ecocritical perspective
According to Goga and Pujol-Valls, we may think of ecocriticism as an approach to literature which considers how the narrative and human characters interact with their physical environment, especially the natural world (3). The book I’ve chosen clearly lends itself to surface level Ecocritical Literature Conversations, as the main subject of the book is our galaxy, planet, natural resources, and human demographic statistics.
I’m interested in a deeper application of ecocriticism, – social ecology – which owes much to Murray Bookchin’s 1982 work The Ecology of Freedom: The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. Here, Bookchin extends an ecological approach to social hierarchies. This work has been especially influential in the democratic federalist movement of modern Kurdistan (therefore having links to other autonomous movements such as those found in Catalonia, Hong Kong, Northern Ireland, and Palestine). Bookchin states:
“My use of the word hierarchy in the subtitle of this work is meant to be provocative. There is a strong theoretical need to contrast hierarchy with the more widespread use of the words class and State; careless use of these terms can produce a dangerous simplification of social reality. To use the words hierarchy, class, and State interchangeably, as many social theorists do, is insidious and obscurantist. This practice, in the name of a “classless” or “libertarian” society, could easily conceal the existence of hierarchical relationships and a hierarchical sensibility, both of which – even in the absence of economic exploitation or political coercion – would serve to perpetuate unfreedom” (3).
From an ecological consciousness, my goal as a teacher isn’t only to help students rethink their connection to the natural world, it’s to rethink their connection to their social and civic community and hierarchy. Therefore, I find it imperative to plan a decentralized and student-led lesson in which the teacher facilitates student-centered, project-based learning. For this reason I have included student-led (and translinguistic) activities at every stage of my storytelling session.
The session plan
Pre-reading (15 minutes)
Instructions: While speaking both English and students’ native language, we look through the table of contents and ask which topics correspond to something they are currently studying in one of their other core subject classes. In groups of 2 or 3, students choose one topic, than go to that page, where they will skim for key vocabulary (guided by the teacher), and create a bilingual dictionary of the terms. If necessary, teacher may quickly pre-teach a concept (in English or Spanish) if it’s completely unfamiliar to the students.
Reading (15 minutes)
Instructions: During this time, the groups will rotate. One group will come sit with the teacher, where they will read the pages together. The teacher will read one paragraph out loud for the students, then a student volunteer will read one paragraph out loud. During that time, the other groups will engage in silent reading. For example, if there are 3 groups, one group will come read out loud with the teacher for 5 minutes while the other groups silent read, then rotate every five minutes.
When the teacher is reading aloud, they should consciously use expressive techniques (Ellis and Mourão, 25) using body language, vocal variety, directing attention to the relevant illustrations, asking questions, clarifying, and commenting.
Post-reading (15 minutes)
Instructions: Students will have 5 minutes to write in their notebook the key points of the pages they read. Then groups will take turns presenting their findings to the class. Students should connect it to something they are learning in their core subjects class (for example: “In Ms. Green’s class we are learning about the solar system. In my page I learned that Earth is like the size of a baseball but Jupiter is like the size of that big medicine ball [points to medicine ball in the classroom]”.)
Time permitting, students may draw a poster recreating some of the graphic representations of the text and numbers they have encountered.
References
Bookchin, Murray. (1982). The ecology of freedom: The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. Cheshire Books.
Graves, Michael F. & Fitzgerald, Jill. (2003). “Scaffolding reading experiences for multilingual classrooms”. In G.B. Garcia’s English learners: Reaching the highest level of English literacy. (pp. 96 – 124). International Reading Association.
Goga, Nina & Pujol-Valls, Maria. (2020). “Ecocritical engagement with picture book through literature conversations about Beatrice Alemagne’s On a magical do-nothing day”. Sustainability, 12, 7653; DOI:10.3390/su12187653
Murão, Sandy & Ellis, Gail. (1 Sept 2021). “Demystifying the read aloud”. English Teaching Professional, 136. Pp 22-25. DOI: https://www.modernenglishteacher.com/demystifying-the-read-aloud
Smith, David J. (2014). If…: A mind-bending new way of looking at big ideas and numbers. Kids Can Press.
Simeon Brown 