Introduction: Picturebooks provide powerful opportunities to learn and connect. Emphasizing and playing with the language and concepts they contain can inspire academic and social success. 

Picturebooks are also microcosms of society. They are filled with hints about what is socially celebrated at any moment in time. They subtly introduce and reinforce ideologies about what is expected and who is accepted. Noticing and questioning the messaging they contain inspires empathy and expands media literacy for adults as well as children.

My research centers picturebooks, especially the ones in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, and I am excited to share what I am learning! There are many strategies for noticing and talking about subtle messages in the media that surrounds us. Picturebook analysis is the perfect platform for adults to play and learn together.

Read It Again and Again is a bookclub for adults to talk about and analyze picturebooks. Each week I will read a book, analyze it through two vastly different theoretical lenses, then I’ll read it again, so that you have a chance to reconsider my analyses. Then, we’ll talk about the book, so that we can develop our own critical media literacy skills.

FAQs

Who is this for?: any adult who is interested in exploring picturebooks through multiple theoretical lenses

Why?: 

1. for FUN!

2. to learn together

3. to increase critical literacy skills for ourselves and the children we love

How will each session go?: 

1. Introductions: (15 minutes)

   a. Plan to give a brief introduction of yourself (1-2 minutes), including your positionality (identities and perspectives that inform your opinions…all are welcome, and diversities make us better!)

2. Reading and analysis presentation(20 minutes)
   a. I’ll read the chosen picturebook aloud, then analyze the book through two theoretical lenses.

   1. Public health/education framework for opportunities to teach literacy skills

   2. Social equity and liberation framework to explore themes surrounding social power systems.

3. I’ll re-read the picturebook

4. Discussion (40 minutes)

5. Closing (Brief wrap up and farewell)

What: I'm drawing on many resources, including these three:

1.Poetry Unbound is a podcast where the host reads a poem, analyzes it, then reads it again. I love listening from my perspective, then learning his, then listening again with his analysis in mind. It's fun to do with picturebooks, too!

2.Five in a Row (FIAR) is a series of books that show ways that picturebooks can be used to teach math, science, art, language arts, etc. I love looking for specific topics to learn and teach each time I read.

3.Critical media literacy is a strategy for analyzing how social power systems show up in all forms of media, including picturebooks. Learning, noticing, and interrogating the ways social power systems circulate through picturebooks can be a playful and impactful social justice practice.