"Picture books are rife with teaching opportunities across grade levels and language abilities: analysis, reading and writing response, theme, craft, and so much more-and all in compact, 32-page bundles. They act as a scaffold to all kinds of deeper thinking for the upper grades. They are rich in language, cover a wide range of subjects and experiences, vary in their structures, and are accessible in practically every school and public library in the United States. So why not use picture books to teach middle grades children the craft of writing? Here is a collection of 50 low-prep, teacher-friendly lessons - created in Gretchen Bernabei's bestselling, classroom-proven style - that offer teachers choices of the direction the lesson needs to go, based on the needs of their students. Using a mixture of recently published picture books as well as perennial classics, the lessons in Text Structured From Picture Books offer ready-to-go lessons that can help students identify big ideas, develop well-crafted truisms, utilize text structures, respond to reading, and incorporate writer's craft -all while digging into a well-written, beautiful picture book"--