From: Vanessa Madison <madisv55>
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 12:02:03 -0600

We actually just did something similar in my Children's literature class with this book. We broke up into something like 6 groups and we each had to discuss the different things that were going on. We had to figure out who was the narrator and why they were telling the story. Our group discussed the different pictures and the aspects that always seemed to repeat. The robber's mask was similar to the dog's spots. When the parents were ripping up the paper it was snowing in a different story. I really enjoyed this activity, as it seemed the rest of our class did too. It made for amazing conversation, which we didn't stray away from (as sometimes happens in our class...sorry Dr. Smith!!) We also talked about how this book is nonlinear in thought pattern, just like how an internet site works. I just wanted to comment on how this book was really interesting to pick apart and think about in different aspects.

Vanessa Madison Special Education Major University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

----- Original Message ----- From: Christine McDonnell <christine.mcdonnell at gmail.com> Date: Friday, November 17, 2006 10:15 am Subject: [CCBC-Net] Black and White To: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu

> Recently I explored Macaulay's amazing Black and White with
> groups of
> sixth graders. I intended it as a vehicle to talk about multiple
> plots in a work of fiction (why have multiple plots; what do different
> plots add to other stories and how do they inform our view of
> characters; what techniques do authors use in braiding multiple plots
> together...) but our exploration became much more. We gave
> each pair
> of students a copy of the book and asked them if they could
> figure out
> some of the ways in which the four stories are connected. The
> instructions were to read each story from start to finish first before
> exploring the interplay. This proved to be impossible.
> Like popcorn
> exploding in all corners of the room came the sound of
> discoveries--
> kids would exclaim when they noticed things: the burglar's here too;
> the dog looks like the cow; when the conductor is on the
> platform he
> isn't on the train; the station in the story is the one
> from the
> boy's train set; the train is stopped in one story when
> the cows are
> on the track in another.... The discoveries and the
> sharing went on
> for an hour without exhausting the possibilities.
> During our next
> time together, we examined the four stories
> as four separate strips (made cutting up two books). It was
> immediately clear to us how much we lost by separating them. We talked
> about the differences in the way time worked in the four stories-
> -
> which took place over the longest time and so on... Are they at all
> sequential? Could you fit them together into one
> narrrative? A
> student named one story the spine and another the
> connector. We
> talked about the different art styles and how they fit with the
> content of the stories. So much to see and share.
> And now
> we have this foundation, shared language and
> experience to build on when we talk about works of literature with
> multiple plots. Word travelled in my school and the seventh and eighth
> grades are lining up for a turn with Black and White. The
> real action
> in Black and White doesn't happen within the stories. It's
> in the
> collision of each page in your mind, visuals and actions both, what
> you notice, the connections, echos, and parallels. What
> wit and
> imagination Macauley shows here.. We came away still
> feeling as if
> there was more to discover. How did he do it?
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Received on Fri 17 Nov 2006 12:02:03 PM CST