“I Gave You An Idea?”

Photo Credit: My daughter, Daphne O’Brian

I try and expose the students in my classes to a variety of children’s authors and books so that they know what is available to them when they are planning literacy instruction. When I shared some of Mo Willems’ books earlier this semester, one of my students commented that she did not know his work.

Based on this, I decided to use Mo’s books to teach the students how to design, plan, and teach interactive read-alouds. I started by modeling an interactive read aloud with the book The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog. I showed them how I would use the text to plan a lesson about how character’s feelings change throughout the text. The text begins with Pigeon being happy and excited that he found a hot dog, but his feelings quickly change when Duckling scoots out and tries to interrupt his hot dog eating. Pigeon becomes frustrated followed by mad and angry because of Duckling’s constant interruptions and questions. By the end of the book, Pigeon is happy with Duckling’s suggestion and is enjoying the hot dog.

In the book, Mo never mentions the word “feelings” nor does he mention the words “happy,” “excited,” “frustrated,” or “angry.” Instead the reader must infer these feeling from the print and the illustrations. When analyzing the book, my students were struck by how much thinking work is required from the reader.

Normally, I require students to find a children’s book of their choosing. This year, I am requiring them to work with a Mo Willems’ book to dive deeper into his work and learn more about him as an author. I told them that based on the comments about just learning about his books, I decided to stick with them for this assignment. I was met with surprised comments - one being, “I gave you an idea?” After hearing this comment, I was happy that I explained the change in my teaching methods - so that my students know that I listen to them and make modifications to support them as learners.

The move to work with one author for the whole class has so far seemed to work well. The students started by analyzing one of Mo’s books (not The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog because I modeled that!) and then were able to move right into planning a lesson with much more confidence.

We’ll see next week how this went, but so far, I am happy with this teaching move!