Genres
The following is a list of the genres, thus the content, which will be included in our Curricular Unit.:
1. Informational Books
2. Picture Books
3. Traditional Literature
4. Modern Fantasy
5. Multicultural Books
6. Poetry
Informational Books
Informational books provide information on social studies, science, math, art, music, and other topics. Some are written in a story format, such as The Magic School Bus inside a Hurricane; whereas others are written in a more traditional informational style, with a table of contents, an index, and a glossary. Some informational books are written for young children, with a phrase or sentence of text presented on each page along with a photograph or illustration (Tompkins, 2002). Informational texts can be valuable sources of content knowledge and provide emergent readers and writers with opportunities to explore the workings of written language.
Types of informational books:
1. Traditional informational books
2. Books that present language arts concepts
3. Alphabet books
4. Biographies
5. Concept books
6. Science and Math
7. How-to books
8. Cook books
9. Craft books
10. Sports
11. Cultural books
12. History
13. geography
1) bright, colorful pages
2) lots of photographs and drawings
3) large, easy-to-read type
4) lots of white space
5) maps, charts, and graphs accompany related text
6) facts, statistics, and dates are presented in an appealing fashion
Picture Books
A picture book is a popular form of illustrated literature; more precisely, a book with comparatively few words and at least one picture on each of its openings. The illustrations in picture books use a range of media such as digital, oil paints, acrylics, collage, quilting, watercolor and sometimes pencil. Picture books are most often aimed at young children, and while some may have very basic language especially designed to help children develop their reading skills, most are written with vocabulary a child can understand but not necessarily read. For this reason, picture books tend to have two functions in the lives of children: they are first read to young children by adults, and then children read them themselves once they begin to learn to read. Some picture books are also written with older children in mind, developing themes or topics that are appropriate for children even into early adolescence.
Types of Picture Books:
1. Picture Books:
The most common type of Picture Books, are meant to be read aloud to the intended audience (4-7 years old) and often includes challenging vocabulary.
2. Baby Books:
Are simply designed, brightly illustrated, little or no text have round corners and are often made from cloth or vinyl.
3. Interactive Books:
Ask direct questions, encourages recitation ,chants and repetition. It requires the child to touch and manipulate the book to find objects in the illustration.
4. Toy Books:
Books are engineered to provide pop ups, see through, movable, or tridimensional illustrations. These can be found for all ages and are for children over 3 years old and even adults.
5. Wordless Books:
Depends solely on sequenced illustrations, has none or very limited text, illustrations are highly narrative. Also promotes language development in children.
6. Alphabet Books:
Present the alphabet letters and simple words that begin with each alphabet letter. Most are intended for the non reader or beginner.
7. Counting Books:
Are representative of numbers to acquaint children with numbers, shapes and even counting sequence.
8. Concept Books:
Explore the ideas or concepts of an object or an activity instead of telling the story. Alphabetical and Counting Books are often referred to as “Concept Books”.
9. Pattern Books:
Strongly emphasize word patterns and are also called decodable books, because of their language phonological repetition.
10. Easy to read books:
Created to help the child read independently. Usually have large print and a small amount of text. Often occur in series, are printed in double space and features short and familiar words to the children.
Traditional Literature
Traditional literature is the body of ancient stories and poems that originated out of the oral tradition of storytelling before eventually being written down. Having no known or identifiable authors, these stories and poems are attributed to entire groups of people or cultures (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2007).
Common features in every type of Traditional Literature stories:
1. Plots: they have shorter plots than other genres in literature.
2. Action: is concentrated and fast paced.
3. Characters: are two-dimensional and easily identified as good or bad.
4. Settings: are unimportant and vague (e.g. “Long ago in a land far away…”).
5. Literary Style: is characterized by stock (generic) beginning and ending, motifs, and repeated refrains.
6. Themes: are limited (e.g. good vs. evil, explanations of the ways of the world, etc.).
7. Endings: are almost always happy.
Types of Traditional Literature:
1. Traditional Literature: the entire body of stories passed down from ancient times by the oral tradition.
2. Retold Tale: a version of a tale written in a style that will appeal to a contemporary audience but otherwise remaining true to the ancient tale.
3. Variant: a story that shares elements of plot or character with other stories and is therefore in the same “story family” but differs mainly by culture.
Categories of Traditional Literature:
1. Myths: are stories that recount and explain the origins of the world and the phenomena of nature.
2. Epics: are long stories of human adventure and heroism recounted in many episodes, sometimes in verse.
3. Legends: are stories based on either real or supposedly real individuals and their marvelous deeds.
a. Tall Tales: are highly exaggerated accounts of the exploits of persons, both real and imagined, so they may be considered a subcategory of legends.
4. Folktales: are stories that grew out of the lives and imaginations of the people, or folk.
a. Includes Cumulative tales, Humorous tales, Beast tales, Magic or Fairy tales, Pourquoi tales, and Realistic tales.
5. Fables: is a simple story that incorporates characters (generally animals) whose actions teach a moral lesson or universal truth.
6. Religious Stories: are based on religious writings or taken intact from religious manuscripts.
Modern Fantasy
Modern Fantasy is the body of literature in which the events, the settings, or the characters are outside the realm of possibility. A fantasy is a story that cannot happen in the real world, and for this reason this genre has been called the literature of the fanciful impossible. In these stories: animals talk, inanimate objects come to life, people are giants or thumb sized, imaginary worlds are inhabited, and future worlds are explored, just to name a few possibilities . (Lynch-Brown & Tomlinson, 2007):
a. Modern Folktales
Modern folktales, or literary folktales, are tales told in a form similar to that of a traditional tale with the accompanying typical elements; little character description, strong conflict, fast-moving plot with a sudden resolution, vague setting, and in some cases, magical elements. But these modern tales have known, identifiable author who has written the tale in this form. The tales do not spring from the cultural heritage of a group of people through the oral tradition but rather from the mind of one creator.
b. Fractured Folktales:
Fractured folktales can be defined as traditional folktales with a contemporary twist or tale told from a new perspective. Modern folktales are more important counter balance to traditional tales and many of these tales present more assertive female characters that are clearly in charge of their own destinies.
c. Animal Fantasy:
Animal fantasies are stories in which animals behave as human begins in they experience emotions, talk, and have the ability to reason. Usually, the animals in the fantasies will retain many their characteristics. In the best of the animal fantasies, the author will interpret the animal for the reader in human terms without destroying the animal’s integrity or removing it from membership in the animal world.
d. Personified toys and objects:
Stories in which admired objects or beloved toys are brought to life and believed in by a child or adult character in the story are the focus of this type of fantasy. An early classic example of these stories is The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini).
e. Unusual Characters and Strange Situations:
Some authors approach fantasy through reality but take it beyond reality to the ridiculous or exaggerated (Example: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll).
f. Worlds of Little People:
Some authors have written about worlds inhabited by miniature people who have developed a culture of their own in this world or who live in another world. Stories of little people delight children because they can identify with the indignities foisted on little and powerless people and because the big people in these stories are invariably outdone by the more ingenious little people (Example: Thumbelina).
g. Supernatural Events and Mystery Fantasy:
Many recent fantasies evoke the supernatural. One common form of supernatural literature found in children’s book is the ghost story. Some ghost stories intrigue younger children, especially when the topic is treated humorously and reassuringly. Ghost in children’s book can be fearful threats or helpful protectors. Many authors write mysteries for children in which the solution is partially supernatural or arrived at supernatural assistance.
h. Historical Fantasy:
Historical Fantasy, sometimes called time-warp fantasy, is a story in which a present –day protagonist goes back in time to a different era. A contrast between the two periods is shown to readers through the modern –day protagonist’s discoveries of and astonishment with earlier customs.
i. Quest/High Fantasy Stories:
Quest stories - are adventure with a search motif. The quest may be pursuit for a lofty purpose, such as justice or love, or for a rich reward, such as a magical power or a hidden treasure.
High fantasies - are the quest stories that are serious in tone. Many of these novels are set in medieval times and are reminiscent of the search for the Holy Grail.
Multicultural Books
"Literature that represents any distinct cultural group through accurate portrayal and rich detail" (Yokota, 1993). Such literature appears in different genre which together presents a multitude of perspectives about the lives, culture, and contributions of each cultural group to American society. Books are categorized by genre: realistic fiction, information (non-fiction), traditional literature, biography, historical fiction, poetry, and fantasy. Each annotation includes an approximate grade level designation, e.g., K-3 and 4th-6th grade.
A teacher has to determine each book's ppropriateness/relevance to his/her children and curriculum and its integration in their classroom. What is most important about these books is that they teach integration, tolerance and acceptance to other cultures in our children and students. This is a very valuable lesson that can be taught at home, but is best to be learned in school where diversity takes place.
Most popular categories of Multicultural Books are:
-African American
-Chinese American
-Native American
-Jewish American
-Latin American and Latin
-Middle Eastern
-European
Poetry
Children's poetry is poetry written for or appropriate for children. The category includes folk poetry (for example, Mother Goose rhymes); poetry written intentionally for young people; poetry written originally for adults, but appropriate for young people; and poems taken form prose works. According to Tompkins (2003) many delightful books of poetry for children are available. Some are collections of poems on a single topic written by one poet. Others are anthologies of poems written by different poets.
Types of poems:
1. Formula Poems: The poetic forms may seem like recipes, but they are not intended to be followed rigidly. Rather, they provide a scaffold, organization, or skeleton for students’ poems. Meaning of the poem is more important, and form follows the search for meaning. Example of formula poems are:
· “I wish…” Poems: Children begin each line of their poems with the words I wish and complete the line with a wish (Koch, 1980).
· Color Poems: Students begin each line of their poems with a color. They can repeat the seam color in each line or choose a different color (Koch, 1980).
· Five senses Poems: Students write about a topic using each of the five senses.
· “If I were…” Poem: Children write about how they World feel and what they World do if they were something else.
· Definition Poems: Students experiment with comparisons as they write definition poems. The teacher or students begin by identifying a topic, and then they brainstorm descriptions and examples.
· Acrostic Poems: They choose a key word and write it vertically on a sheet of paper. Then they create line of poetry, each one beginning with a letter of the word or words they have written vertically.
2. Free- Form Poems: Students choose words to describe something and put the words together to express a thought or tell a story, without concern for rhyme or other arrangements. Example of this type of poems:
· Concrete Poems: Students create concrete poems through art and the careful arrangement of words on a page. Words, phrases, and sentences can be written in the shape of an object, or word pictures can be inserted within poems written left to right and top to bottom.
3. Syllable- and Word- Count Poems: These types of poems provide a structure that helps students succeed in writing; however, the need to adhere to these poems’ formulas may restrict freedom of expression.
· Haiku: A Japanese poetic form consisting of 17 syllables arranged in three lines of 5, 7,5 syllables.
· Cinquain: A five-line poem containing 22 syllables in 2-4-6-8-2 syllable pattern. Often, they describe something, but they may also tell a story.
· Diamante: A seven-line contrast poem written in the shape of a diamond. This poetic form helps students apply their knowledge of opposites and parts of speech.
4. Rhymed Verse Forms:
· Limeriks: The limerick is a form f Light verse that uses both rhyme and rythm. The poem consists of five lines; the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, while the third and fourth lines rhyme with each other and are shorter than the other three.
