Picture Books in the Secondary Classroom

This is the first year I have used picture books in my sixth grade classroom, and I am KICKING myself for not doing it sooner! As secondary teachers, sometimes we look down on "little kid" books, but the more of them I read, the more I realize how valuable they are to building classroom community, positive reading experiences, and background knowledge.

This week, we learned about personification, and I read The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors out loud to all of my classes. If you want twenty-five sixth graders to pipe down quickly, read a picture book out loud. Really. When I read picture books, all of my big tough twelve year olds turn into little, wide-eyed children, as if the classroom management fairy has visited and sprinkled them all with magical hormone-zapping pixie dust. Better yet, because they feel so secure with picture books, they start to make more inferences, ask more critical questions, and dig deeper into the layers of meaning hidden in the art. As English teachers, what more can we ask for?

My students don't always remember off the cuff what personification is. But when I say, "Remember the book we read?" they come up with it immediately! The joy of reading this silly book has burned the meaning of personification into their minds more permanently than any worksheet or Google Slide. (Bonus: There is STRONG vocabulary in this book like victorious, foe, depart, adhesive, and more. These may not seem like tough words to you, but for a lot of my students, they are, and this book is an accessible way to learn them.)

When I first tried this strategy at the beginning of the year, I was worried my students would think it was too babyish. Instead, something wonderful happened. The minute I stopped treating picture books like "baby" books, so did my students. Students who won't read a novel will read thirty picture books in a month and will digest them with more care and critical thinking than any young adult novel I put in front of them. Students who scoff at traditional biographies have learned all about Jacques Cousteau, Jean Henri Fabre, and Kate Sessions through the picture book versions of their lives. Though my classroom contains hundreds of novels, my collection of picture books are the most frequently read and loved books in the room.

Do you use picture books? What results have you seen? What fears do you have about using picture books in your secondary classroom?