One of my favourites from this text, for inferring, is using Chris Van Allsburg's children's book, The Wretched Stone. This book available from the Thunder Bay Public Library, but I also checked our Insignia library catalogue and many of our elementary schools have this book as well. Remember you can access the Insignia Library System by going to the Staff Resources page of our board's website. The Wretched Stone is a very interesting picture book that definitely leads into higher order thinking discussions - is it about the end of the world, a discourse on media... ? My Mom, my sister and I had a huge discussion about it, and then my Dad mocked us by interpreting it on its literal level. That's what we get for taking ourselves too seriously! :) There is a lot to talk about with many opportunities for students to give specific evidence, from the pictures/words of the text, to support their opinions.
Now that I'm talking about Chris Van Allsburg's work, I'll add in a couple more of his titles that I like. Two Bad Ants is also a great picture book to use for helping students access making inferences. The ants find their way into a house and we see them in various human spaces overwhelmed by the size of everything, and wondering what everything is. Students can say what they think it is and how they made that decision. I have used this with locally developed and essential level English classes to talk about making inferences.
The final Chris Van Allsburg title that I'll mention today (but he has so many) is The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. It is not actually a book, but a collection of pictures with a caption for each picture. There is also an explanation of the collection at the very beginning. The pictures are very creative and I've used them as a starting point for creating pieces of writing.
Both Two Bad Ants and The Mysteries of Harris Burdick are available in many of our elementary school libraries. Check them out!
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