A picture book is a book that combines text and illustration into a single whole – a combination of two levels of communication, verbal and visual. Its key components are text, illustrations, and the content-form relationship between text and illustrations. Many authors list the picture book under »crossover« literature, as it addresses children and adults alike. These findings are very important for the school environment – namely, a teacher, in literature teaching, interferes with the students' understanding and thus encourages them to actively communicate with literature. Through a systematic and organized reading process, teachers want to train the readers to read literary texts independently, but at the same time they want to make them want to read and understand reading as a source of pleasure and comfort (even outside the school environment). Dialogue in literature classes takes place on two levels – between the reader and the text and between the readers about the text. Pupils enter the »conversation« with the text along with their expectations, interests and knowledge, thus building their own textual world. Through dialogue with other readers, they can go beyond the level of spontaneous personal experience and learn about other options, opinions and arguments. In that way, they deepen their experience. The communicative teaching of literature is characterized by a high level of selection of literary works, since teachers want to choose texts that motivate the reader and take into account his or her representational and emotional world. It offers various opportunities for cross-curricular integration, with the key awareness being that art texts are not suitable for consolidating content from other subjects and representing realities in the field of science. Literature introduces the readers to a fantasy world, which is why cross-curricular connections with art, music and film education are more appropriate. Adults offer picture books already to preschool children, whereas elementary school children are most likely to encounter them in the first three years of learning. Educators often forget that a picture book could find its way into classes with older students as well. For the purpose of this research I tested how older students (4th and 6th grade) respond to texts that they do not often deal with during their lessons – picture books. In accordance with the principle of the teacher's autonomous choice in selecting literary works I picked the picture books Madame Butterfly (sixth grade) and The Magic Flute (fourth grade), written by Helena Kraljič on the basis of famous opera works. I successfully implemented them into the teaching of literature and found out that they offer numerous opportunities for quality conversation about their content, cross-curricular connection with the music arts and planning of various post-reading activities. The students developed a positive attitude towards the books in question, and their interest in opera increased. They have been successful at accomplishing post-reading activities (producing comics or pre-stories), as the selected picture books encouraged their creativity and enabled them to express their ideas. I have found out that with the right approach picture books can become a welcome enrichment in literary instruction of older students and at the same time a successful motivational tool.
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