I have been trying to decide what I would do to introduce my students to the 2026 Illinois Bluestem Award Book List, and I realized my next class assignment was a perfect opportunity to test out an idea.

I wanted to incorporate learning a new piece of technology (Canva) with the Bluestem Books. Instead of asking students to just write a paragraph on one of the books (boring) or even write a book review (slightly cooler), since this is a STEM school I am trying to think of ways to bring technology skill building into my classroom.

Canva gives students such a great opportunity to showcase their creativity, while demonstrating their reading comprehension.

The lesson design process

I started with the lesson plan, and decided I needed something to motivate students to participate. A friendly competition for the best poster with a prize for the winners and runners up would do the trick!

The most challenging part of the process was figuring out how to pace the lesson appropriately to make sure students would have time to design something in Canva and vote on the best design. I eventually settled on four lessons, which I think would be enough, but would mean students would need to read the books at home.

One of the things that changed throughout the design process was what the students would design. Initially I wanted to leave it open-ended and let the students choose what kind of product they wanted to make. But I realized this might take up too much instructional time, and putting some parameters in place would be more helpful.

The easier part of the process was probably writing out the lessons once I made decisions on the timing!

I am starting to get a feel for things I want to include in my lessons to engage students, like timers to gauge timing and keep students on task. I also added in frequent exploring moments for students to try out what I am instructing.

Of course I am feeling confident now, but this could all change once my students arrive this week. But today I feel pretty good about this lesson and am wondering if I can find a way to implement it!

The overall lesson plan can be found here.

The instruction

I also worked on a presentation specifically for the second lesson, where I will be teaching students how to use Canva.

I tried to focus on explaining and demonstrating, and then offering students an opportunity to test it out by helping each other (since they will be in pairs).

My introductory lesson on Canva can be found here.

Are you teaching Canva or the Bluestem books in your library this year? How are you doing it? Let me know in the comments!