Turning the pages …

While sitting in a school library one afternoon, I looked around and saw a poster: “Turn the pages of your imagination. READ!!” That would be a great writing topic for students. I can imagine inviting children to brainstorm about what they think that message means. Here are a few guiding questions that came to mind:

• How might your imagination have pages?
• How does reading help jumpstart your imagination?
• Why do you think writers want the readers to imagine when they read?
• How do the things you imagine help you understand what you are reading?
• How might the things you imagine cause you to not understand what you are reading?
• If reading helps you turn the pages of your imagination, what could you do next?

That brainstorming or journal idea could be used as a pre-reading activity to get students thinking about or imagining what could happen in a certain story. That activity could be used to activate prior knowledge and/or generate a purpose for reading.

Another way that brainstorming or journal idea could be used is as a post-reading activity for students to reflect on what they read and how they used imagination in the story.

Students could also provide illustrations of what they imagine. Those illustrations could be connected with the before reading activity and/or the post reading activity.

So while the idea mentioned above could be used before or after reading, students could keep track of the things they imagine while they read. A small notebook, a piece of paper, or even a program like bubbl.us could be used to help student notice things in the story that cause imagination to take place.

Imagination plays a role in reading … before … during … and after

Why don’t you pick a book from Big Universe and see how it turns the pages of your imagination?

image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/24113168@N03/3803641352/