Monday 23 February 2015

Margaret Wild


One of my favourite children's authors is Margaret Wild.  I'm sure I've mentioned her before. In fact, I know I have at least once just recently: here. Last year my class indulged my passion by agreeing to go along with an author study focussing on her. Our school's literacy scope and sequence suggests that year 6/7s undertake an author study during term 4 so it all worked out quite nicely. 

Studying an author of picture fiction enabled all of my students to access multiple texts.  Last year's cohort had a reading age spread well over 10 years from well below year level. Assigning a shared text was NOT an easy option: welcome the picture fiction books of Margaret Wild!

With over 30 of Margaret Wild's book in our class library we were able to compare, contrast, respond, identify patterns, find common themes, and much much more.  Different people found interviews with her (our favourite can be read here), and it was fascinating to see the different ways she is profiled on different publishers' websites.

Some of our favourites that I'm sure the VRPs would be happy for me to recommend to you:

What is treasure to you? This tale of a refugee
 child's life journey examines this beautifully.
A beautiful story of family and friendship.
A story about friendship, trust and betrayal
told with strong imagery and descriptive writing.
Guaranteed to make ME cry.
Poignant story of love and death.
Do you have a favourite picture fiction author? Or other children's author? Or even an illustrator? (I LOVE Julie Vivas!)  I'd love to hear about them.  (I'm not so sure my husband would love it... I have a problem restraining myself when it comes to buying picture books!)

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know the students and how they learn
Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

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