henkes

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henkes
By Erin

I also use Kevin Henkes for author studies. We talk about where the author gets his ideas, how he creates the illustrations, themes, and patterns or unusual way of using words in the books. Kevin Henkes tends to repeat the
same structure more than once in his books (describing how chester and wilson are alike during each holiday and season, then how chester, wilson, and lilly are alike during each holiday and season at the end of the book in Chester's way) or using the phrase "Wow" that was all he could say, "wow" in Lilly's Purple Plastic purse. He also makes the text bigger, or puts it in different patterns

for special effects. Eventually what we want to work up to is kids using some of these ideas in their own writing, but right now the focus is on just getting the kids to be aware that authors do what they do for a reason.

We do some activities along with the books, but not every single one. I usually create some sort of chart with the kids where they summarize some of the things that author does, and we do graphs on our favorite book etc.

A great book that looks at not just author studies, but how to use read alouds to teach your kids writing is Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray. Some of the activities are geared for older kids, but you can always adapt.