Fictional Texts in the Classroom: 21st Century Literature

21st Century genres employing sequential visual storytelling through symbol, image, and/or multi media formats to convey meaning.
Successful comprehension depends on decoding message modalities beyond text alone.
21st Century literature is new literary work created in the last decade
They are written by contemporary authors
The book deals with current themes/issues and reflects a technological culture.
Often breaks traditional writing rules
Examples are: Instant Messaging, blog formats, digi-fiction, doodle fiction, and graphic novels

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Reference Information:

Grade Level (The Ugly Truth book 5)

Themes

Qualities of Writing

These books are written in a very fun language (mostly tier 1 words) that children are used to using with their peers.
The graphics add a lot of humor to the story. They make the text easier to read and add more detail to the story than just the text.
It is a funny text for children and it is not a chore to read. Prior knowledge is not necessarily needed because students can use their imagination throughout
Very relate-able to our lives. There are a lot of school related events that Greg went through that students may personally relate to.
The lack of academic language makes this book a turn off for some teachers, but for struggling readers this might be the kind of text they need to spark that love of reading

Difficulties

This book is a book that is read for pure enjoyment, with no inherent value to the reader. This is wonderful to have in the classroom library, but it needs to me many other, more major, parts to the students reading diet

The Inventions of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Reference Information:

Grade Level

Themes

Qualities of Writing

The illustrations are really good in this book. The pictures are necessary in order to comprehend the text. They also make the story more interesting and personal to the reader.
I really enjoyed the integratoin of the picture book and novel. It was interesting to think about how the book wouldn't exit without the pictures.

Difficult Components

It might be difficult for students to make the connections between text and pictures.
Students have to know how to make inferences about what is happening in the pictures and make connections to the text.

In the Classroom...

Good for readers who are struggling with reading, because this book isn't so daunting.
This would be a good book for the classroom library but I, personally, wouldn't require students to read it.
This text is good for students who need an easier read that is still very compelling.
If used with a read aloud, it should be done with a small group of students instead of the whole class so that all the students can see the pictures since the pictures play such a vital role in understanding the story.

Fictional Texts in the Classroom