Big by Vashti Harrison Resource
Share this book talk video with your students to build curiosity about the book.
Play this video for insights into the book to quickly prepare for a lively conversation about the book with your students.
What You Need to Know
Pay attention to the way Harrison conveys emotions. The facial expressions of the characters are just the beginning. She also uses intraiconic text (words that are integrated into the illustrations, separate from the printed text of the story, but integral to making meaning of the text), like the pink words swirling around the protagonist, the speech of the adults and peers taunting her, the words that appear on her bare skin in her mirrored reflection, and the words she holds in her hands near the end of the book.
Color is another tool Harrison uses to communicate positive and negative emotions. The intraiconic text is pink, purple, brown, and black. The lighter colors seem to be used for positive words and the negative words are in darker colors. When the little girl is most unhappy, her leotard and tutu are tinted gray, and when she begins to find a way out of the sadness, a bright pink spreads back into her tutu.
Finally, the framing of illustrations on each page demonstrates how the little girl is feeling. When she is overwhelmed with negativity and tries to run away from it, her movement shifts into the far right bottom corner of the page, as if she is trying to get out of her own story entirely. This is followed by pages where she begins to fill up the page, as if she is boxed in. The shift in her emotions is exemplified by a stunning two-page foldout spread. At that page turn, readers truly feel the way the protagonist has started to make space for herself.
Questions to Promote Inquiry
The Question Chart is meant to serve as a menu; you are not expected to ask every question on the list. Use what you have time for, what interests you the most, or what best connects to your instructional goals. Download the Question Chart below.
The questions generally go in order, so they could be asked as you read. You may wish to limit yourself to two to four questions during a first reading of the text and plan to revisit the text to dig more deeply with further questions. With a quiet group it may help to prompt students to point to the page instead of speaking to provide an alternate means of engaging with the text.
Connections to Literacy Instruction
| Question Chart | Big by Vashti Harrison Question Chart | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Connection to Literacy | Literary Analysis: Symbolism of Dark and Light | Download |
| Connection to Literacy | Author’s Craft: Items in a Series | Download |
| Connection to Literacy | Word Study: Denotation and Connotation | Download |
| Connection to Literacy | Developing a Positive Identity: Positive Words | Download |
