You can’t judge a book by its cover. Or can you? (LS-PL-220)

’If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.’ Toni Morrison’s words are the perfect introduction to the learning scenario in which students are encouraged not only to read books but also to start creating ones.

This learning scenario is supposed to be implemented in an English language class and it combines language and ICT skills. Moreover, students enrich their knowledge of literature, focusing on books and their authors from a different perspective – that of their book covers. They also develop their vocabulary related to the topic of reading.

The lesson contains various technology-based activities including elements of gamification (Wordwall, Socrative), searching for free-to-use images in the Europeana Collections, creating book covers and book trailers. The latter is produced by means of an interesting ICT tool – Adobe Spark. Some other online tools are also suggested in the learning scenario: AnswerGarden for assessment and Mentimeter for feedback.

Collaboration and communication play a significant role in the learning scenario. Students work in teams, discuss their ideas and choices and collaboratively create the above-mentioned outcomes. They are free to decide on the topic, genre and the process of production. This freedom definitely enhances creativity and motivation.

Afterwards, students collect their productions using Book Creator and finally, everybody presents their outcomes to the other groups. Practising oral presentation skills is another important teaching element in the English language class.

Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:

Europeana-DSI-4-LS-2020-Poland-Siwczak-1-docx Download

Europeana-DSI-4-LS-2020-Poland-Siwczak-1-pdf Download

Did you find this learning scenario interesting? You might also like:

The featured image used to illustrate this article belongs to the public domain.

28 Responses to "You can’t judge a book by its cover. Or can you? (LS-PL-220)"

dilajlapavletic says:

December 27, 2019 at 4:55 pm

Dear Katarzyna,
I like everything about your LS. First of all focusing on books and their authors from a different perspective is very interesting. On-line tools and elements of gamification are perfectly chosen for collaboration and communication. At the end, creating a book cover is a great idea, fun and creative way to finish your lesson.

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  December 27, 2019 at 5:56 pm
  
  Dear Dilajla,
  Thanks a lot for your comment! Soo happy you like my LS:)
  
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elenavladescu says:

December 29, 2019 at 12:01 pm

Dear Katarzyna,
I like very much your LS! Your approach intended to encourage students to read and even write books themselves is a successul one! Well done!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  December 29, 2019 at 7:01 pm
  
  Thanks a lot, Elena! Glad to read your comment:)
  
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geaninaturcanu says:

December 30, 2019 at 10:22 am

It’s a creative scenario. I discovered new things (socrative.com). I will apply! Thanks!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  December 30, 2019 at 2:57 pm
  
  Thanks for your comment! I like Socrative a lot and so do my students:) Enjoy! Hope you’ll share your opinion after the implementation as well:)
  
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Eva Toth says:

December 30, 2019 at 12:34 pm

Really great job!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  December 30, 2019 at 2:57 pm
  
  Thanks a lot, Eva!
  
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Anonymous says:

December 30, 2019 at 6:28 pm

I really like your idea! You are my Europeana’s teacher!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 2, 2020 at 4:23 pm
  
  Thank you for the comment:)
  
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stephaniemaggipulis says:

January 2, 2020 at 9:44 pm

A very interesting and innovative approach to books and the authors behind them. I am intrigued by your LS and it is interesting to learn on socrative.com possibilities. Well done!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 3, 2020 at 6:59 pm
  
  Thank you for your comment! I am really glad you like the approach:)
  
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annamariagauci says:

January 6, 2020 at 10:24 pm

Producing a book cover is a great creative thinking exercise and can be implemented with students of different age groups. Excellent idea for World Book Day! Thanks for sharing.

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 8, 2020 at 1:18 am
  
  Dear Anna Maria,
  Thanks a lot for your comment. You are absolutely right as for the age groups! Yes, I am going to implement it with some classes on World Book Day:)
  
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Maria Antónia Brandão says:

January 8, 2020 at 5:35 pm

I loved your learning scenario, its really fantastic. And your resources are great. Congratulations!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 9, 2020 at 8:12 pm
  
  Thank you, Maria! Glad to read your comment:)
  
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RAFFAELA SERRANI says:

January 8, 2020 at 8:43 pm

Dear Katarzyna, thanks for sharing your creative and inclusive scenario. I believe it’s very motivating for students, especially those who do not love much reading. Your work suggested me a way to create book trailers and covers with my 5th grade pupils.

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 10, 2020 at 7:55 pm
  
  Dear Raffaela,
  Thanks a lot for your comment! I am really interested in knowing how the LS worked with your 5th grade students. Hope you’ll share your impressions after implementing the lesson.
  
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Alexandra Duarte says:

January 11, 2020 at 8:11 pm

What an interesting LS!
The title – as well as your picture choice – first caught my attention, and then the variety of activities you included really made it worth reading.
Being an avid reader myself, currently involved in a reading project and constantly doing my best to promote reading and reading habits among my students, this is definitely a different, highly motivating and creative way to do it.
Congrats, Katarzyna, and best wishes,
Alexandra

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1. Anonymous says:
  
  January 20, 2020 at 4:02 pm
  
  Dear Alexandra,
  Thank you for your comment! If a passionate reader likes my LS, then my goal has been achieved:)
  
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ivanabusuttil says:

January 20, 2020 at 12:40 pm

One Great LS! I really like the fact that the lesson contains various technology-based activities. I also appreciate the fact that collaboration and communication are at the center of this lesson giving pupils space to improve upon their skills. Thank you for sharing!

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1. Anonymous says:
  
  January 20, 2020 at 4:09 pm
  
  Dear Ivana,
  Thanks a lot for your comment! I also value lessons directly based on communication and collaboration between students:) And a little bit of technology always helps:)
  
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juditbenedek says:

January 21, 2020 at 5:07 pm

Dear Katarzyna! This is a fantastic idea. Thanks for sharing.

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 22, 2020 at 3:28 pm
  
  Thanks a lot for your comment, Judit! Glad to read it!
  
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ayrtoncurmi says:

January 21, 2020 at 6:35 pm

Great Learning Scenario! I really like how you managed to incorporate literature with 21st Century skills while using various digital resources. Students were at the centre of their learning during this lesson which definitely motivated them to learn more. Well done and thank you for sharing!

P.S. Great title choice!

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  January 22, 2020 at 3:31 pm
  
  Thank you for your comment! Happy you like my LS:)
  
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marijanatrinajstic says:

January 23, 2021 at 8:10 pm

For my attempt of implementing the Europeana Learning scenario I chose the scenario „You can’t judge a book by its cover. Or can you?“ by Katarzyna Siwczak.
(https://teachwitheuropeana.eun.org/learning-scenarios/you-cant-judge-a-book-by-its-cover-or-can-you-ls-pl-220/)
It was a great pleasure and a surprise to see that my planned classes in achieving the outcomes of National Croatian language Curriculum are matching with the acts of the scenario which the colleague author has proposed. I decided to implement students’ activities according to that scenario and adjust them to the activities of the 16-year-old students. I started my teaching classes in person, and then transferred to online teaching because of the pandemic, so the adjustment was necessary. The activities were orientated towards motivating the students to read and write (encouragement to read).
Before the implementation classes, students were mastering the learning outcomes:
Student is familiarised with literary genres and forms.
Student is familiarised with the epic as the literary genre, and with the structure of the literary forms starting with the simple forms, and progressing towards the complex forms (from myths, fairytales, fables etc. to short story, novel, travelogue, biography etc.)
I implemented this scenario during 4 classes.
Activities

Firstly, the students were using Wordwall to connect terms related to their acquired knowledge on structural elements of prose and poetry, they needed to determine which element belongs to prose, and which one to poetry. I asked them if they rather read poetry or prose (they answered by typing in chat on Zoom), the conclusion was that they prefer prose.
With the intention to familiarise them with prose genres, I assigned them a task based on dramatic learning methods, which is called „Continue the story“.
I pronounced the sentence „Oh if you only knew how it was“ in a few different intonation forms using also the facial mimic, as well as hand gestures.
As a sad expression
As a funny expression
As a dramatic (tense) expression
I used (cover review/ book covers) from colleague Katarzyna’s scenario, and asked the students to decide which book cover matches which facial expression or mood that they have recognised in my act. Students were then assigned to continue writing the story in any tone they found suitable, while being guided by their own imagination. Time given for this task was 40 minutes.
I briefly familiarised the students with the possibility of using the materials from Europeana platform, and mentioned that we can together follow the European principles of teaching, as well as the knowledge from ICT and the large gallery with materials. I also talked about the copyright and the protection which the materials have.
Students were reading their short stories for 30 minutes, and for the purpose of peer evaluation, they were also rating each other on given questionnaire papers by the following criteria: a) I like the story, b) I don’t like the story, c) The story needs improvement.
While looking though the results of the questionnaire, we concluded that two stories were liked the most; the story called „Ena’s choice“ (love theme), and the travelogue story „Trans-Siberian adventure“.
Then we continued with the teamwork. The students were divided into groups of 6 (the class has 24 students), and they were assigned to make the book covers. The book covers were made on A3 papers, and because of online teaching, the students chose the leader of the team who was the drawer, and the rest of the team was giving the ideas for the book cover and guiding the drawer (they could also choose the painting technique). By functioning as a team, they completed the task successfully. They have sent the drawings in pdf format on Yammer platform, which is a place where our virtual classroom is situated.
Considering the fact that I have planned to spend 4 classes for the implementation, this time I chose for them to draw on a piece of paper. I collected the book covers in this e-book programme (https://www.canva.com/design/DAETmv0pWGw/4IvARaE1gEXXj1AvCM_sDA/edit?utm_source=onboarding), where I also added the stories in Word format. Next time, I could use the programme which colleague Katarzyna has used (https://bookcreator.com/ ) because her programme is more practical and imaginative, and I also want to master all kinds of similar possibilities in online teaching; while working with the scenario I came up with the idea of arranging video clips into e-books, which is a great motivation for me to continue learning to work with different programmes, because I have been inducing many motivations for reading and writing by using drama teaching techniques on which I base my literature and language classes, since I believe in pedagogues’ motto: experience, then learn.
Students were proud of the fact that they can solve Wordwall tasks as a revising method using the stories of their peers (in which they choose the story to practice on themselves, and then they need to mark structural prose elements and answer the questions about whether the narrator is in the first or third person, what prevails in the text; the descriptions or the events, are there more descriptions of the characters or the spaces, are there more imaginative elements or facts, etc.)

By implementing this scenario, we also achieved the outcomes of the National Croatian language Curriculum.
Student forms and speaks descriptive and narrative texts, while coordinating its speech to communication situation, purpose and listeners.
Student expresses its opinion and explains its critical stance on the literary text, based on reading experiences and knowledge about the world.
Student expresses itself creatively on its own interest, encouraged by different experiences.

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1. katarzyna says:
  
  March 13, 2021 at 1:59 pm
  
  Dear Marijana,
  Thank you for choosing my LS for your implementation. It’s really interesting with all the extras you’ve decided on:) Congratulations to your students on creating great book covers!
  Regards,
  Katarzyna
  
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