Working with some fellow educators this month, we’ve been planning ahead to next year and some of the texts we will be using intentionally with students. We read a lot of different books by different authors and considered what we wanted to discuss. We chose several different books to read aloud, some favourites, and also some new ones that we wanted to try with students. It was a fun project!
While we did a lot of thinking and planning around the literacy block, our main focus was on how to layer texts. Based on our book study of Cultivating Genius by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, we were intentional about layering each read aloud with different experiences. In her book, Dr Muhammad highlights the importance of “layering texts – teaching from multiple powerful and multimodal texts.” The addition of multimodal texts can enhance a child’s learning experience and deepen their understanding of themes and topics. The experience can also help to scaffold knowledge to help students access the information in the book. Layering texts also offers opportunities to integrate other subject areas with literacy classes and allows children to use a variety of skills in different contexts. While it takes a bit of planning, it is well worth it to cultivate a rich experience for students in literacy.
While fun, it was also challenging! Granted, we did plan for approximately 8 texts, so it took us a while to sort through our thinking, explore different options that would work, and develop a cohesive understanding of our goals. If you are thinking about layering texts in your literacy classes, I hope some of these thoughts will help in your journey.
- Identify the theme of the book. Be sure to choose other texts that support the theme. Explore the author’s intent and message to ensure you are honouring their work.
- Consider the conversations you want to have with students. Do they need some scaffolding to enter the conversation or to deepen their understanding?
- Plan what type of written response you want students to engage in. Perhaps one of the texts you explore will be an example of this. This should also be inspired by the theme and conversations you’re identifying.
- Prepare a few different modalities, such as lists, illustrations, photos, designs, art, music, video clips, etc. You may not know your students yet and having a few different ideas can help you to select how they learn best.
An example might look like:
Focus Text
- Eyes that Speak To the Stars
- Author: Joanna Ho
- Illustrator: Dung Ho
Themes to Explore
- Self-acceptance
- Asian heritage and culture
- Family
Layered Texts
- Non-Fiction: Biography/Fun Facts from the author’s website
- Picture book: A Family is A Family is a Family (Author: Sara O’Leary Illustrator: Qin Leng), The Best Part of Me (Author & Illustrator: Wendy Ewald)
- Visuals: Maps of Asia, Maps of the world
- Music: Sesame Street: I Love My Family
- Companion books in series: Eyes that Weave the World’s Wonders, Eyes that Kiss at the Corners
Writing Extensions
- Fun Facts Lists: All About Me or All About My Family
- Illustrate: Family Tree
- Journal: Where is your family from? What is your heritage?
- Poster: Illustrate and describe what you love about yourself and why.
In this example, you’ll notice I found several different texts to support the different themes through different modalities. I’ve also brainstormed different writing experiences and my layered texts support student learning about the themes and the writing forms. This type of plan provides space for responding to the students’ identities and learning styles. As an educator, I would choose a few of these activities to take place over one week to help build your lesson.
I’m so excited to see how these lessons work next school year. It’s always exciting to try something new and even better when educators can collaborate together!
