Point of View and Wordless Picture Books

While studying Point of View, my small enrichment reading group worked on creating stories for wordless picture books. I had previously checked out all of the wordless books we had in the library. It was fun to watch their misconceptions change through the activity. 
A) Most of them hadn't read the books, being higher readers, at least not in years.
B) They initially felt that the activity was babyish because of the "books" and though I was crazy. 
C) They teased me when I said they were to "read" them, considering the books did not have any words. 

After each reading one, we discussed the early elementary skill of "reading pictures" and how much thinking one actually has to do when reading a wordless book. We agreed there is a lot of drawing conclusions happening, prediction, processing what they author means by certain drawings and events etc. They grew a new appreciation for picture books, which was fun to experience. 

The skill we applied was Point of View. While our standard states they must "identify" author's point of view, I had them practice the skill by applying it in writing. 

Each of them chose a book, read it, then wrote the story in either first, third omniscient, third limited.

Once they completed the book, they then read another book and wrote in a new point of view. In total, each student ended up reading three wordless books and writing a first person, third limited, and third omniscient story. 

They were really proud of these at the end. Our librarian shared that she would love to read some so we took them down to here and displayed them in the library next to the books. 

Overall, it was good skill practice for the kids, but it also gave them a new appreciation for a genre they rarely read as higher readers.