Book Designing in my Classroom

  Designing a picture book is one of the activities of Hello English programme. In my seventh standard classroom all the learners were fully engrossed in the book designing activity. After completing the activity Afra said, “Sir, it was wonderful, we lost track of time”. 

What is book designing activity? How does it help in English language learning? Let’s examine it. 

Let’s find out the leader

 

     I began my class with a simple game. The game is titled “Let’s find out the leader”. Students were asked to stand in a circle. One student goes out of the classroom. Other students in the circle elect a leader. Leader shows some actions. Others mimic the actions. The leader frequently changes his/her actions. Now the student who has gone out comes in. The student who has just entered the class has to find out the leader. The game was a joyful experience for the learners. It further helped them to be ready for the next activity. 

Experiencing children’s books

    After the game, the children were divided into four groups with six or seven members. Before this, I have already collected a number of children’s books published by NBT, CBT and other publishers. These books had attractive pictures and less printed matter in them. I gave four books to each group. As soon as the kids got the books they started turning the pages of the books happily. They didn’t have enough time to read all the books. But they have read one or two short children’s books. 

“Do you like these books?”, I asked them.

 “Yes, these are all very good books”, they shouted in chorus. “Why do you like these books?”, I asked.

 “These books have lovely pictures. Short sentences. We can read and understand them”, said Ansaba loudly.

“Can you make these kind of books?”, I asked.
 "We...!" exclaimed Sreya. “We cannot make these kinds of books, sir”, she said. 
“Let’s try, though not these kind of books”, said Balkees.
 “Don’t you need stories for that? “OK, I will tell you a story”, I said. 
“OK. Then we are ready, sir”, they said loudly.

                                         The story

    I sat down to tell the story. Before telling the story, I made them listen to music in a low tone through the speaker. So I brought them to the mood of actively listening to a story. It was the story of a greedy mouse.  

 “The hungry mouse was walking here and there. It saw a basket full of rice. It entered the basket through a hole and started eating the rice. Its stomach started bulging. The mouse was not able to come out of the basket. A rabbit happened to pass by the scene. The Rabbit said, “Don’t eat anything tonight. Your belly will shrink by tomorrow morning”. The rabbit went way. It was morning. The greedy mouse started eating the rice again. Its belly started bulging. A cat came along the way. It entered the basket and caught the mouse”. I narrated the story dramatically with appropriate voice modulation and gestures. Children liked the story very much.  

Book designing

  I gave each group six sheets of paper. The sheets were at the size of a big chart paper divided into four equal parts. “You have to design a picture story book in six sheets of paper. One sheet is for the cover page and you can write your story on five sheets”, I said. 

Students agreed. They decided to re-narrate the story of the greedy mouse in five pages. It is not an easy work. They have to think about the story they have listened to. They have to illustrate the story in five pages. They have to re-create the story in five pages in their own words. They need to draw appropriate pictures on each page. They also need to maintain the dramatic nature of the story. They sat in groups and started thinking and planning. What sentences need to be written on each page? What kind of pictures should be drawn on the pages? They continued with their planning. There were different opinions. They have arrived at a decision easily. 

  I have given enough sketch pens, oil pastels and crayons to each group. There was division of work among the group. Within each group, one of them started drawing or writing on a single page. Thus they began drawing and writing and colouring the pictures. Though, there were six or seven members in a group, they started working with a single mind. It made me very happy. Before completing the cover page, Husna approached me with an NBT story book. She pointed towards a word on the cover page and asked, “Sir, what is this?” 

“Illustration”, I said. 

“What do you mean by it, sir?”, she asked. 

“Drawing pictures”, I said. 

That group wrote the word “Illustration” on the cover and wrote the names of the artists under it.

Why book designing?

  I was amazed to see the four books designed by the groups. I have been the part of a similar activity during my teacher training session. We have struggled a lot to develop each page of the book. But students have done it so easily and spontaneously. Some of the groups have done the writing part without any grammatical errors. There were some mistakes in the story writing part of other groups. However, whoever looks into the books will realise the confidence level of the students in writing and drawing.

  Re-narrating a story, without sacrificing its ideas, is really a higher order thinking and application level skill in language learning. They have to conceive and picturise the story in five pages. Then they have to transfer each picture in terms of language production and writing. In fact, this is the first step towards enabling children to develop their own story books. It is desirable to do two or three book designing activities prior to that. After this they will be able develop their own picture story books. They will eventually become creative writers of children’s literature.

Translated by: Dr.P.K.Jayaraj

 

Watch this Video