Nancy Boyles - Classroom Reading to Engage the Heart and Mind: 200+ Picture Books to Start SEL Conversations

ADVANCE PRAISE

Nancy Boyless new book, Classroom Reading to Engage the Heart and Mind , will help teachers start conversations around social and emotional learning by using well-vetted picture books. Once again she writes what teachers want to know now, using literature that she has specifically selected on current topics students face daily. She creates an engaging template as the perfect resource for student responses, using strategies to help students reflect and connect to characters.

Elizabeth Gilmore, Reading Specialist, Plainfield CT

Classroom Reading to Engage the Heart and Mind is a beautiful text for any educator who longs for their students to be enlightened by literature and develop a deeper understanding of the story and of themselves. Nancy Boyles provides abundant selections of stunning literary stories as well as thought-provoking questions for teachers and students that help facilitate social and emotional competencies that are now recognized as an integral part of educating the whole child.

Meg Morrison, School Adjustment Counselor, Mental Health Counselor, Mindfulness Teacher

If youre in the field of education and you love a good childrens book, then you know the positive impact of stories on students. Nancy Boyless Classroom Reading to Engage the Heart and Mind takes all of the guesswork out of choosing quality childrens literature and guides you to the right texts, lessons, and rigorous activities for all of the competencies of social and emotional learning.

Bridget Vaughan, M.Ed., Childrens Literature Professor, Literacy and English Language Arts Curriculum Coordinator

After spending a career in the elementary classroom, I still have times when words fail me. Sometimes I struggle with how to express the deep, important ideas that make teaching less about grades and tests and more about the human condition. Ive come to believe that picture books can stand in the gap. This book proves that picture books hold power. Children deserve to encounter and experience powerful stories to discover the power in themselves.

Tanny McGregor, teacher and author of Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading , Comprehension Going Forward: Where We Are and Whats Next , Genre Connections: Lessons to Launch Literary and Nonfiction Texts , and Ink & Ideas: Sketchnotes for Engagement, Comprehension, and Thinking

Norton Books in Education

CLASSROOM READING

TO ENGAGE THE

HEART & MIND

200+ Picture Books
to Start SEL Conversations

NANCY BOYLES

Note to Readers: Models and/or techniques described in this volume are illustrative or are included for general informational purposes only; neither the publisher nor the author(s) can guarantee the efficacy or appropriateness of any particular recommendation in every circumstance.

Copyright 2020 by Nancy Boyles

All rights reserved

First Edition

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact W. W. Norton Special Sales at specialsales@wwnorton.com or 800-233-4830

Cover design: Sally Rinehart

Cover art: maroznc / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Book design by Anna Reich

Production manager: Katelyn MacKenzie

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Names: Boyles, Nancy N., 1948- author.

Title: Classroom reading to engage the heart and mind : 200+ picture books to start SEL conversations / Nancy Boyles.

Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 2020. | Series: Norton books in education | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019030181 | ISBN 9780393714203 (paperback) | ISBN 9780393714210 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Picture books for childrenEducational aspects. | Affective education.

Classification: LCC LB1044.9.P49 B68 2020 | DDC 372.45/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030181

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle Street, London W1D 3BS

T his is a book about stories

Stories that engage the heart and mind

Stories we read aloud to children

And the stories of our own lives

For even when the story

Is a picture book

A good story invites us to journey back

Days or decades

Because that characters experience

Was so much like our own

Inside our classroom or beyond

And we grow socially and emotionally

Along with our students

T his book is dedicated

To all the teachers and children

Lucky enough to hold these stories

In their hands

And in their hearts

CONTENTS

Coming Home to Social Emotional Learning

With the publication of this book, Ive come full circle. Way, way back in a time before Smart Boards (and even before white boards), when teachers still wrote with chalk on blackboards, I became a teacher. I graduated from my small liberal arts college with an elementary teaching certification in hand and lots of enthusiasm for my future in the classroom, but pitifully few skills. Even then, I wanted to specialize in literacy, but my coursework in the area had only consisted of a three-credit class that covered methods in both reading and math. There was a single textbook. The first half was devoted to math. You flipped it over and began anew for reading. Im not making this up.

When I arrived at Boston University the following fall to pursue a Masters degree with a focus in literacy, I was not disappointed. The program was exactly what I needed, and I knew I would leave it prepared to hit the ground running. But early on I had to make a choice. I could take 36 credits of coursework, or I could take 30 credits and write a thesis for the remaining six credits. I decided on the latter, as I was an impoverished graduate student, and this was the less costly option.

I needed a topic. It was the 1970s and things like sensitivity training, affective education, and bibliotherapy were trending. Back then we had yet to invent the term social emotional learning (SEL), but educators were focusing a lot on the notion of a students self-concept, an early effort toward some of the same goals now addressed through SEL. So I designed a study that explored the link between self-concept and childrens literature. I had a passion for kids books, and this seemed like a perfect way to connect the mind and the spirit.

I remember that the outcome of the study was positive. Childrens feelings about themselves could indeed be impacted by the characters they met in books. And although now I might not vouch for the reliability of my fledgling methodology, my research set in motion a path I followed throughout my career: students emotions matter, and our curriculum needs to reflect that idea.

I hope mine always did. But somewhere along that path, I took a fork in the road. Its not that I cared less about how children feel , but that I became similarly fascinated by how they think . If you were to know me only through my publicationsbooks about comprehension strategies, writing scaffolds, close reading, and Depth of Knowledgeyou might conclude that I was solely invested in the rigor of brainwork. In fact, some people are surprised to see my name attached to conference presentations about synthesizing social emotional learning and literacy.