Blair Thallmayer

Book Arts Reflection

Fall 2007

1. Why did you choose these two formats for a book project?

The first book format that I have selected for a book project was called a somersault

book. The purpose of a somersault book is for the students to independently create a

beautiful book to stimulate, enhance, and inspire visual and verbal literacy. Therefore,

during this social studies lesson plan on The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, these

second grade students will recognize how the “common good” could be strengthened

through various forms of citizen action. The students recreated this story in their own

words by creating sentences, on the bottom section of each page on the BookArt, and a

picture to match it on the top section of each page on the BookArt.

The second book format that I have selected for a book project was called a two-hole

pattern. The purpose of a two-hole pattern book was for the students to complete a

classroom botanical illustrations book that used a full sheet of construction paper per

page. Without damaging any of the student artwork, I placed the student’s original

botanical illustration of their leaf on a brown piece of construction paper. Next, I typed,

with the same format and font for each student, their description list of the leaf that they

observed and critically responded to.

2. What surprises or challenges did you have while making the books (technical,

personal, etc)?

Surprises that I noticed while the students were completing their individual

BookArts about The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush, were that none of the students

had ever created a somersault BookArt before. My mentor teacher thought that this

was such a wonderful idea because it gave all of the students a chance to reach their

learning goals at their own pace. Personally I felt that this style of BookArts looked

basic and clear-cut compared to the other varieties. This classroom is somewhat on

the lower end of the second grade spectrum in curriculum and developmental

activities. Therefore, I felt that these students could handle doing the somersault

BookArt successfully, and they did.

A challenge I came across when putting together the second BookArt on botanical

illustrations was formatting the students’ responses with their illustrations. As you

can tell, there are some marks in which I had to take off the responses piece on the

left hand side, and adjust the view to correctly format the book.

3. Why or why not was this an effective instructional strategy?

The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush Somersault BookArt was, without a doubt, an

effective instruction strategy for these second graders. All of these students successfully

completed this activity with the help of each other. This activity was a critical thinking

activity as well as a writing and drawing lesson. Students needed to critically think about

the story, the characters within the story, the events within the story, the time period in

which the events occur and finally the overall theme/message of this story.

The Botanical Illustrations BookArt turned out to be an effective instructional tool.

All of the strategies and learning goals were met by this second grade classroom. These

students often have difficulties writing down on paper what they are always trying to say.

I had the students create a list of which I had the categories pre-posted before hand.

Then, I demonstrated a model of the botanical illustration and finally had students

illustrate their own from observing a leaf of their choice on the nature walk. This was an

excellent way for the students to complete an integration of science, art and language arts

lessons. Now that this was created, these second graders have a booklet to review and use

in classroom to continue the same topic or go forward with it.

4. What did the children or teacher think about Book Arts?

The students really enjoyed the lessons. With The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush,

they immediately got involved when I showed them the actual BookArt. Upon unfolding

it, the story looked like an accordion and the students really liked that. The story was

simple and informative and they all understood what happened. When they were told to

re-tell the story using pictures, everyone succeeded because they all retained the plot of

the story.

The teacher loved this particular one, as well, even saying that she had never seen it

done before. The students were able to learn the concept of symbols, the concept of

collages, and retain information from an orally read story.

The other BookArt, involving leafs, also went over very well. The students enjoyed it

because they got to choose their own leaves. Being able to pick the ones they want made

it enjoyable for them to list the size, shape, color, and other details. They learned about

the structure of leaves without realizing they were learning, which is usually the best way

for a student to retain information.

The teacher thoroughly enjoyed this lesson because it tied into something she was

teaching, as well. It was as if we were completely on the same page. She had read to

them a book titled The Leaf Man and planned a nature walk. In conjunction with this

lesson on leaves, the students essentially got a full mind workout in the field of botany.

These lessons were both a hit with the students and teacher because they taught while

remaining interactive and got their points across in a short amount of time.