Content+Area

=Content Area: =

Picture books are constructive way into a complex content area. This offers a way to engage students, start debate, and stimulate discussion using accessible texts which can still be quite thought provoking and challenging. This also means that they can be a trojan horse into co-teaching, such as a unit on Slavery using the arthouse picture book //Middle Passage: white ships/black cargo// by Tom Feelings.

HSIE can harness the picture book to introduce topics, especially in history, such as //In Flanders Field// by Norman Jorgensen and Brian Harrison-Lever, or //Memorial// by John Marsden, looking at war. Or try //Feathers and Fools// by Mem Fox as a way into the Cold War. Check them out. A PDHPE unit on family or nutrition could be enhanced by //Let's Eat// by Ana Zamorano//.// A holocaust narrative worth exploring is //The cats in Krasinski Square// by Karen Hesse.

Mathis explores the use of picture books to set the scene for exploring concepts and themes in other literature (Mathis, 2002). This is an article well worth exploring given that it highlights some of the aspects of content area teaching which can be a challenge with some classroom environments.

**Scene setting:**
 * //The Tin-pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman//
 * //The Butter Battle Book//
 * //Home and Away//

**Exploring themes**:
 * prejudice - //Tusk Tusk//
 * environment - //The Story of Rosie Dock//
 * homelessness - //Way Home// and //Fly Away Home//

**Complementary Texts**
 * //My Hiroshima// and //Paradise Road//
 * //Briar Rose// and //Let the Celebrations Begin//
 * //Boy in the Striped Pyjamas// (film or book) and //Rose Blanche//
 * //When the Wind Blows// and //Children of the Dust// or //Brother in the Land//