“Nonfiction reading, research, and reporting is hard work. For students to maximize their inquiry experience, they should choose a topic they care about, know something about, and wonder about,” writes Stephanie Harvey in her book Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Reseach in Grades 3-8. But some students find it difficult to pick a topic or they think that their hobbies and interests are not suitable for school. In this Quick Tip, we get a quick glimpse into a conversation between a student, Thomas, and his teacher, Mary, as they talk about Thomas’ interest in football and how that will make a great topic for his research paper.
Some students struggle with topic selection. On the eve of the topic deadline, Thomas had not come up with a single idea for research. His mother rang Mary first thing in the morning and described a family in turmoil. Thomas had been up all night fraught with anxiety over his eleventh-hour missing topic. His mom’s voice cracked as she wondered how he would ever organize sources, take notes, or write a report if he couldn’t even think of a topic. School was not easy for Thomas. Thomas’s mother believed that independent inquiry demanded too much of him. She suggested that Mary simply assign Thomas a topic so he could get started. Mary felt bad for Thomas and promised to talk with him that morning. The last thing Thomas needed was to be losing sleep.
Before kids entered the room, Mary pulled out Thomas’s wonder book. The twisted spiral wire extended at least six inches beyond the half-torn cover. Writing was conspicuously absent. But precise drawings of NFL team logos covered the lined pages. Mary approached Thomas during writing time and asked how things were going.
“Lousy,” Thomas answered.
“Why?”
“I can’t think of a topic for this research project.”
“What interests you, Thomas?” Mary asked.
“Nothin’,” Thomas answered.
“Tell me about these drawings,” Mary nudged.
“Oh those, those are nothin’,” Thomas said, as he slid his notebook back into his desk.
“It looks like football stuff to me,” Mary commented.
“Yeah, I guess,” Thomas acknowledged.
“Can I see them?”
Thomas reached into his desk and handed the tattered wonder book to Mary.
“Wow, these are great. How many team helmets did you draw in here?” Mary asked.
“All of ’em,” Thomas answered.
“No kidding. Did you copy them from somewhere?”
“No, I know the logo of every team in the NFL,” Thomas said.
“Really! Which is your favorite?”
“The Broncos, of course.”
“Thomas, these are really terrific drawings,” Mary told him. She continued to draw Thomas out on the subject of football. Thomas not only knew the logos, but also the standings, schedules, and player statistics of most teams in the league. Thomas was an expert on the NFL and football in general, even though he had begun this conference by saying he had no interests.
When Mary suggested that Thomas write about football in his wonder book and list a few questions he had, he was pleasantly surprised. He didn’t associate football with school. Mary pulled out several beautifully illustrated picture books and wondered whether Thomas might want to write and illustrate a picture book on some aspect of football as his research project. Thomas pulled a Sports Illustrated from his desk. John Elway graced the cover. Mary left Thomas reading about his idol. She hadn’t actually assigned a topic. But she had explored Thomas’s background knowledge and nudged him in a direction that matched his interests.
Thomas’s struggle was far from over, of course. Reading, note taking, and writing challenged him throughout his inquiry. But finding an engaging topic represents a major step forward for kids like Thomas. Independent inquiry allows for the widest range of exploration. Choosing freely from an unlimited spectrum of topics gives kids the best shot at finding a subject that appeals to them.
Young writers need to know that selecting a topic is challenging. When I meet professional writers, I often ask them what they find most difficult about writing. The answer is almost always the same: thinking of something to write about. My students are relieved when I share this with them, because they too struggle to come up with ideas to write about.
August 24th, 2010
When reading nonfiction texts, many children are hindered in their understanding when they come across an unfamiliar word. To solve this problem and to equip students with the necessary strategies to decode unknown words, Tony Stead shows students how to look for clues in the text and how to use a book’s glossary for clues. In his book, Reality Checks: Teaching Reading Comprehension with Nonfiction K-5, Tony outlines many other practical approaches to help children become confident readers of nonfiction.
In Lisa’s classroom we realized that before providing demonstrations, we needed to initiate talk about what strategies the children themselves used when faced with challenging vocabulary. We achieved this by reading part of a text on whales. When we came to a challenging word, we stopped and talked about ways we could determine its meaning. The children came up with many suggestions, so we charted their responses.
Strategies to Use When You Don’t Know the Meaning of a Word
■ Look in a dictionary.
■ Ask a friend.
■ Ask the teacher.
■ Context clues
Read back.
Read forward.
Read over. Stop and think.
Look for important words around it.
■ Look in the glossary.
■ Break the word apart.
Think about the meaning of each part.
Put it back together.
■ Use the picture.
It was not surprising that looking in a dictionary was their number one reply, yet the set of class dictionaries appeared to be gathering dust, indicating it had been some time since our learners had used them. It is also the number one response of most children in classrooms where I’ve worked, because they have been instructed so many times to rely on this strategy. Yet rarely do they employ it when faced with an unknown word. They find going through a dictionary laborious and tedious, and the reading becomes joyless. This is especially true when they encounter a barrage of unknown words in one piece and find themselves with the dictionary as their main source of reading rather than the selected text.
Many children haven’t even been instructed in how to properly use a dictionary and spend their time aimlessly flicking through pages, hoping the unknown word will magically appear. What is even more frustrating to learners is that if they happen to chance on the word, its meaning uses even more complex vocabulary than the word itself, leaving the children totally confused.
The children were aware of a multitude of good strategies that could assist them, but they rarely used them. Clearly they could talk the talk, but not walk the walk. We sorted the strategies into two categories: primary and secondary. For primary strategies, the reader uses methods within the body of the text to solve word meanings. Secondary strategies require the reader to go outside the body of the text, whether it be a glossary, a dictionary, or simply asking another person for assistance. We encouraged children to use primary strategies before secondary strategies. This way they were not always having to go outside the body of the text to find word meanings, which inevitably interrupts the reading and compromises comprehension. An example of the list below can be found in Appendix E.
What to Do if You Don’t Know the Meaning of a Word
Primary Strategies
■ Context clues
Read back.
Read forward.
Read over. Stop and think.
Look for important words around it.
■ Break the word apart.
Think about the meaning of each part.
Put it back together.
■ Use the picture.
Secondary Strategies
■ Look in the glossary.
■ Look it up in a dictionary.
■ Ask a friend.
■ Ask the teacher.
Once the lists were completed, we modeled how they could be of assistance when students were faced with unknown vocabulary. We knew explicit modeling was needed, which is often the missing link in instruction. Too often we solicit talk from the children and they give us what we want to hear, yet they have not internalized how to use the strategy independently.
We brought the children to the meeting area, and Lisa and I took turns reading Chapter 1 of a text called The Voice for the Animals by Evelyn Brooks. We made sure all the children could see the text as we read it to them. We told the children that as the text was read, they should raise their hands if they heard a word whose meaning they didn’t know.
What Are the SPCAs?
“Throughout the United States, there are many local organizations that work to save the lives of abandoned and mistreated animals. Each organization is known as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). The people who work at SPCAs rescue and care for these hurt creatures. At the SPCAs the animals are cleaned and fed. If the animals are healthy and well behaved, they are offered to people for adoption.”
When we read the word abandoned, several hands were raised, so we stopped reading and wrote the word on chart paper. We referred them to the first primary strategy—context clues—and asked whether there were any words or ideas around the word that gave them hints about its meaning. The children told us that mistreated and organizations that work to save gave them clues, so we recorded those on the chart next to the word abandoned. We asked them to discuss with the student next to them possible meanings of the word based on the key words around it and recorded their responses.
We then asked which words were most likely the true meaning. The children came up with the words hurt and left through the process of elimination. They agreed that smacked didn’t make sense because lots of people smack their dogs when they are naughty, and an organization that tried to stop this didn’t make sense. As Katie put it, “You’re not saving an animal’s life if you stop the owner from smacking it.” The words yelled at were also quickly eliminated for the same reason. This left hurt and left, which both made sense, so we then looked to other primary strategies: breaking the word apart and looking at the picture. These appeared to offer little support, so we suggested we leave our primary strategies and look to the first secondary strategy: the glossary. This was met with some resistance, as the children informed us that only words in bold such as prevention and adoption would be in the glossary. Therefore, in the children’s eyes this was a waste of time. When I showed them the glossary with the word abandoned, they were stunned. “But how can that be?” Jeremy asked. This was a good question, so we gave the children some time to think until Alex asked to look at the previous pages of the book. I showed the children the page before, which happened to be the introduction.
I had not read it to them, and there was the word abandoned in bold print. This was a valuable learning experience for our children, for they realized that you can’t assume a word won’t be in the glossary just because it isn’t highlighted on a specific page. They had also learned that when trying to locate the meaning of unknown vocabulary, you sometimes need to use more than one strategy. Harry summed it up perfectly when he said, “I feel like a detective looking for clues and some of these are hidden from me. You have to look carefully.”
Harry’s notion of being a word detective was one that appealed to the children, so we ensured that when reading texts that had complex vocabulary we always put on our detective hats and used our strategy chart to help solve the mystery. Sometimes Lisa and I would provide texts that contained vocabulary that could be solved only with the use of a dictionary. Other times we used texts with complex vocabulary that could be easily solved by simply breaking the word into parts, such as compound words. Our goal was to get our learners to start using these strategies naturally as they read independently so that their comprehension of informational texts was not lost. To achieve this goal we needed to provide ongoing demonstrations.
March 23rd, 2010
Lynne Dorfman, coauthor of Mentor Texts and Nonfiction Mentor Texts, shares some of her Hanukkah memories, along with some great books for the holiday.
When I was growing up in a household where both Hanukkah and Christmas were celebrated, Hanukkah always took a back seat. It never could live up to the festivities of the Christmas season at my grandparents’ house: the selection of a tree, the decorations, the smell of pine wreaths, baking butter cookies in the shapes of reindeer, Santas, and bells, leaving a plate of treats and a glass of milk for Santa, and the excitement of waking up and running into the living room to see a mountain of presents. At home, we weren’t allowed to have a tree, and the little menorah sitting on the windowsill in our own living room made a poor substitution for a grand evergreen tree.
Although I was raised in the Jewish faith, I had a healthy dose of Christianity, accompanying my nana and grandparents to church and eventually driving my best friend to early mass every Sunday morning before going to the stables. I haven’t been a practicing Jew since childhood, but lately I’ve been wondering if I should start to attend synagogue again. Children’s books gave me the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Jewish traditions; and truthfully, I’m delighted! I started with Hanukkah after reading Stephen Krensky’s Hanukkah at Valley Forge. The story of Hanukkah, retold to General Washington through the character of a Polish soldier, inspired me as it had inspired Washington. I wanted to learn more.
In writing workshop I am always looking for good examples of anecdotes to enrich informational and persuasive pieces. It isn’t always easy to teach intermediate and middle school students how to effectively use the anecdote, and it’s such a wonderful way to build content! This historical anecdote related in Krensky’s book can show students how history and past traditions can be brought to life. In addition, this historical fiction pieces transitions smoothly between two time periods as the soldier relates the story of the origin of Hanukkah to General Washington. Furthermore, it is a perfect segue into primary source documents as the anecdote can be traced to a Revolutionary War era diary.
The last weekend of September was spent in Newport, Rhode Island. I stood inside the first synagogue in our country, the Touro Synagogue. On one of its walls was a handwritten letter enclosed in a glass case – a letter written to the people of Rhode Island that praised the inhabitants for their tolerant views and acceptance of all religions. I saw the hidden room beneath the altar where Rhode Island Jews had helped African-American slaves escape to Canada and freedom. I thought about Krensky’s book and how important it was for the Jewish soldier in Washington’s army to burn a candle on Hanukkah. I thought about how important it is for children to read and write about heroes, past and present.
In Eve Bunting’s story, One Candle, Grandma relates how she had burned a candle on Hanukkah while imprisoned in a Nazi death camp; and like Krensky’s book, the pages differentiate between two time periods – present day and World War II era. Bunting’s story is a tale of perseverance and strength. It reaffirms the values of tradition and family. We can all learn from Bunting – how she helps her young readers learn about a difficult period in the world’s history – with a story of the human spirit that is always at its best at the worst of times. After reading about Hanukkah, I realized that the miracle in Bunting’s story was the survival of Great-Aunt Rose and Grandma who long ago, had celebrated another miracle while facing the most difficult of circumstances during the darkest hours of the Holocaust.
Hanukkah, now and forever, will hold a new meaning for me – one that I will treasure – that by keeping traditions alive and celebrating past miracles, there can be hope for the future. Small and great miracles happen every day. Here are some other books that you might consider sharing as a read aloud or as a mentor text for writing:
Aloian, Molly. (2009). Hanukkah: Celebrations in My World. NY: Crabtree Publishing.
Bunting, Eve. (2002). One Candle. NY: Joanna Cotler Books.
Heiligman, Deborah. (2006). Celebrate Hanukkah. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.
Kimmel, Eric (ed.). (1998). A Hanukkah Treasury. NY: Henry Holt & Co.
Kimmel, Eric. (1985). Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. NY: Holiday House.
Krensky, Stephen. (2006). Hanukkah at Valley Forge. NY: Dutton Children’s Books.
Polacco, Patricia. (1996). The Trees of the Dancing Goats. NY: Simon & Schuster.
December 7th, 2009
This week’s Nonfiction Monday selection comes from Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli. Their recent book, Nonfiction Mentor Texts: Teaching Informational Writing Through Children’s Literature, K-8, identifies a wide range of mentor texts and guides teachers through a variety of projects that demonstrate how teachers can help students become more effective writers of good nonfiction.
July 20,1969. We are with our families on a warm summer evening, huddled in front of the television, watching an incredible event. Not only has man landed on the moon, but we are able to watch it live! We wonder: What does this mean for us, our country, and our world? We wonder: What does Armstrong mean when he says, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”?
The importance of this event is often lost on today’s youth who may view rocket launches as familiar as cell phone communication. Today’s generation operates in the present and concerns themselves with day- to-day events. It is hard sometimes to help them recapture the wonder and mystery of past accomplishments, however spectacular and inspirational. This is what books can do for us. Books allow us to be time travelers – in this case, space travelers – and help us share in the experiences of past generations.
Robert Burleigh’s One Giant Leap relays the story of the landing of the Eagle on the moon and the return trip to Earth in true Burleigh style. The king of “exploding a moment in time”, Burleigh walks us through the touchdown on the surface of the moon using rich description that spills out like poetry. His use of the present tense places the reader side by side with Armstrong and Aldrin as they take their first steps onto the surface of the moon. Variation in sentence length and use of fragments create a cadence that emphasizes feelings, actions, and thoughts. The words almost beg to be read aloud.
But mostly their eyes are fixed on another place:
Blue, white, light brown and shining below them.
They want that now. More than anything.
A planet of oceans and rivers. Of grass and green hills.
A world of trees and family and friends.
A place called Earth: fragile, beautiful, home.
Burleigh’s book is also a cornucopia for punctuation study and craft. Looking through a writer’s eye, we can examine the author’s use of hyphenated adjectives, onomatopoeia, proper nouns, thoughtshots, listing, and effective repetition. One Giant Leap is also a source for studying dashes, colons, italics, and ellipses.
After sharing this book with your students, the questions are sure to fly. They will want to know more. Look to the Stars by Buzz Aldrin is filled with information presented in a friendly and interesting format that will satisfy their curiosity and wonder. Aldrin uses many features of nonfiction, but the personal connections and anecdotes bring history alive for the reader. Aldrin shares each generation’s fascination with the heavens and flight by creating a timeline with informational text. Using the features of nonfiction, a reader can dip into and out of this picture book. It is an easy book to read and ponder in small chunks.
To extend the reading into writing, you can use the quotations at the bottom of each page and the end pages to inspire student reflection as notebook entries. How do you think your students would respond to the following quotes:
“Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.” –Jules Verne
After his space walk, Ed White said, “I felt red, white and blue all over.”
“The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.” -Gus Grissom, Apollo 1
Look to the Stars is a study in features of nonfiction that students can imitate for informational writing: timelines, diagrams, labels, text boxes, and headings. This book contains an introduction and an afterward that serves as a summary conclusion, and has great examples of how to write a dedication.
If you are looking to create a text set for this subject area in reading and writing workshop you might also include Richard Hilliard’s Neil, Buzz, and Mike Go to the Moon, and If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty. Meghan McCarthy’s Astronaut Handbook Is appropriate for primary and older students and is written in the second person to establish intimacy with the reader. Armstrong’s Moon Rock by Gerry Bailey and Karen Foster combines a story with informational text in a multigenre approach to create interest.
Since that historic day forty years ago when two Americans walked on the surface of our moon, we have come to understand many of the things we wondered about then. In Look to the Stars, Aldrin explains the words of his partner Neil Armstrong. He says that the first part of that famous quote is simply a statement of fact, but the last part is a dream for the future. The use of mentor texts to teach the reading and writing of nonfiction is one way to help our students connect with the past and dream of the future.
October 26th, 2009
This week’s quick tip is from Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough’s new book, A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades. Georgia and Jen are participating in a three-blog book tour this week. Yesterday they were interviewed at A Year of Reading and tomorrow and Friday you can read interviews with them at Miss Rumphius Effect and Carol’s Corner. They will also participate in a live webcast Monday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. EST. If you are interested in joining them live, send your e-mail address to zmcmullin@stenhouse.com
Nonfiction Writing: Leads/Beginnings
Jen and I discussed how, just as in picture books, authors of nonfiction books also want to capture the reader’s attention from the first line.
Jen began the mini-lesson:
“Writers, I want to talk to you about something that writers do when they start books. They try to grab the reader’s attention by making the very first sentence interesting so the reader will want to keep reading. I want to talk to you about three ways that writers do this.
“The first way you can begin your nonfiction writing is by asking a question. Questions grab the reader’s attention, especially if it’s an intersting question. Remember the book Have You Seen Bugs? by Joanne Oppenheim? That book begins with a question, ‘Have you seen bugs?’
“Another way writers can capture the reader’s attention is by stating a really interesting fact in the first sentence. We could start our hermit crab book with ‘There are 800 different kinds of hermit crabs!’
“Now, wouldn’t that grab a reader’s attention?
“And the third way writers can begin a nonfiction piece is by writing interesting sounding words.” Jen read from a volcano book that began, “Rrrrruuuuuumble! SSSSSSrrra! Ker boom!”
One of the kids yelled out: “Onomatopoeia!”
“Yes,” Jen said. “You are right, it is onomatopoeia.
“Today, I want you to get your nonfiction pieces and reread your beginnings. Is it a beginning that will grab the reader? Will it make them want to read more? If not, get your pencil and try another beginning — a question, an interesting fact, or a sound word.”
As Jen and I walked around and conferred with students, we noticed that a lot of the kids began their pieces with questions. A few revised their beginnings, like Andrew who was writing about crabs. He changed his beginning from “I see crabs” to “Scratch, scratch, scratch, that’s the sound of crab claws on the sand.” And Tommy began one of his chapters, “Chomp, chomp. That’s the sound of the tiger eating its prey!”
Jen’s Reflection
Georgia and I noticed that most of the kids wanted to begin their pieces with a sound or a noise. We had to remind them that the sound had to make sense and feel true to the reader. Ryan was writing about crystals and wanted to begin his piece with a sound, but after a conference, he agreed that sound wouldn’t really make sense unless it were the sound of rocks being crushed. During conferences, we remind the writers that the start of each new chapter could have an interesting beginning as well.
October 20th, 2009
The following are book recommendations taken from the “Books for Nonfiction Writing from the Heart” book list in A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades, a new book by Georgia Heard and Jen McDonough. Georgia and Jen picked these books not because they are necessarily new, but because these particular ones are timeless and classics and because all are excellent examples of exploring wonders from the heart – a genre of writing that they describe in more detail in their book.
Be sure to check out the first stop on Georgia and Jen’s blog book tour on A Year of Reading blog and then follow them over to Carol’s Corner and Miss Rumphius Effect later this week! You can also participate in a live webcast with Georgia and Jen on Monday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. Just send your name and e-mail address to zmcmullin@stenhouse.com
Byrd Baylor’s The Other Way to Listen is one of my all-time favorites. I have reread this book a hundred times as there is such timeless wisdom in Byrd Baylor’s words. An elderly man teaches a young boy how to listen to the earth like a poet – not just to label trees and rocks, etc. with proper names – but to listen with heart and a deep understanding to the earth’s beauty. In the classroom, we read these lines from the book to introduce the Discovery Table, “…go get to know/one thing/as well/as you can” — as children hold their beloved objects from nature in their hands — they are invited to use their senses to get to know their objects. It’s amazing that this simple story has provided such positive inspiration to kids who are aware, more than ever, of the earth’s beauty, but also of its fragility.
The Wise Old Woman and Her Secret by Eve Merriam is a story about an elderly woman, and the townspeople who demand to know the secret of her wisdom. She tells them they can look for it, and they rummage through her house and search her yard, but leave without any answers. Only a young girl discovers the secret– which is that wisdom comes from taking the time to look closely, and being curious. It’s a great read aloud to introduce wonder centers, and to inspire children to keep wondering and asking questions about the world around them.
Everyone knows the well-known Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox but I’m not sure how many people realize that it’s a great way to introduce exploring writing wonders from the heart. We asked children in Jen McDonough’s first grade if they remember what Wilfred Gordon’s question is, and many of them remembered that it is, “What’s a memory?” We told the children that Wilfred Gordon didn’t go look in a book, or search the internet for the answer; instead, he called on his friends who lived in the old people’s home next door, among others, Mrs. Jordan, Mr. Tippett and Miss Mitchell – who all gave answers from their hearts. We then asked the children in Jen’s class to explore and write one of their heart wonders, and try to answer from their hearts.
The First Song Ever Sung by Laura Krauss Melmed is another great example of a heart wonder book. When a little boy asks, “What was the first song ever sung?” he questions his father, brother, sister — all the people in his family — and each one gives him a different answer — none scientific – but instead, poetic, unique and rooted in their life experiences.
October 19th, 2009
The group of teachers at Riverside Elementary School in Dublin, Ohio wrapped up their book study for the year, but not before sending along reflections from three teachers about how they implemented some of the strategies and ideas. The group will meet again in the fall to continue the discussion and to ask author Ann Marie Corgill some questions about her book, Of Primary Importance. Catch up on what the group discussed earlier.
From McKenzie, 3rd Grade Teacher
Corgill spends a lot of time during her writing workshop studying the genre before getting students started with a writing piece. One of the focus studies for third grade is for students to spend time learning about and writing literary non-fiction.
I tried to spend more time with students observing and examining the genre before we started writing within the genre of literary nonfiction. I began this study in my reading workshop by introducing and reading books that fit this genre. I spent a lot more time choosing mentor texts than I have in the past. After some time reading this genre in my reading workshop, I moved the study into my writing workshop. We looked at many books that fit the genre and began a chart in our writer’s notebook. The chart contained four columns: The title and author, the organization of the book (ie. Question/answer, ABC, etc.), how the author engages the reader, and finally an example of one of the previous two columns. This helped the students focus on how authors present factual information in an interesting way. As students started thinking about their own writing, they were able to identify what they wanted to do in their writing that really caught the readers’ attention while providing factual information.
Next year, I would like to look through our learning targets and identify two or three genres for students to study and write during writing workshop. I am going to try using Corgill’s template for her unit of study curriculum map. In this curriculum map, Corgill identifies what students should have, understand, and be able to do. She has also compiled a list of mentor texts for each unit of study. The last piece of her curriculum map is how she will assess students. Corgill doesn’t just assess one piece of writing from the unit of study. She looks at many writing samples, she documents student writing conferences, and looks at the reflections of her students as they have gone through their writing journey. I found the sample reflections to be very informative when determining each students learning within the unit of study.
From Debbie, Reading Teacher
Although I am not a classroom teacher doing writing workshop, Of Primary Importance helped with greater understanding of how I can further develop and build those important connections between reading and writing. “When students are consistently exposed to different types of literature it increases student’s motivation to write the kinds of books they read” was one quote that meant a lot to me as a reading support teacher. I can continue to encourage and support them to read a variety of genres.
Another area that I found of interest was the section on nonfiction. To avoid copying from the test when writing nonfiction, struggling readers will need additional practice with putting their reading into their own words. I will reflect on more ways that I can help them with this so that they can make the “slow and steady” progress in their writing.
From Laura, 2nd Grade Teacher
After reading the book Of Primary Importance, I have a lot of new ideas for my writing workshop next year, as well as how I am going to connect reading and writing workshop with my required content areas. One great idea I plan to implement next year is the idea of dividing the year into 3 areas of focus, fiction, non-fiction and poetry. I had to rethink how I would incorporate all I need to teach into these areas, and I have a good plan in place to try out next year. After reading the book, I also see the importance of taking time to set up your workshop and not just jump right into it. I will take the first 6-8 weeks to set up and talk about expectations etc. I think I will have a better outcome for my writing workshop if my students know exactly what the next step is in their writing, where everything is, ,and what to do when they finish. It will save me a lot of explaining the same things over and over again!
June 24th, 2009
In Reality Checks: Teaching Reading Comprehension with Nonfiction, K-5, author Tony Stead outlines practical approaches to ensure that all children can become confident and competent readers of nonfiction. In today’s Quick Tip, he talks about how he selects nonfiction texts that help students make connections to their own lives, thus enhancing their comprehension.
It is independent reading time in Jackie Martinez’s fourth-grade classroom, and the children are immersed in their reading. They have been making nonfiction selections as part of their daily reading, and it is reflected in the wealth of informational books scattered across the tables. There is almost a dead quiet in the room as the children hungrily devour their selections, but this is suddenly broken by Rachel’s quiet sobs at the back of the room. As I approach her, I notice she is reading a book about dogs and has the page open to a section on the Labrador retriever.
She looks up at me through tearful eyes and says, “It’s too sad. Miranda has gone, and she could do everything that these dogs can do.” I quickly realize that these tears are not from physical pain but from mental anguish. Rachel had lost her dog Miranda only three days earlier.
As sad as this event was, it confirmed that real comprehension occurs when a reader makes this type of connection with a text. Even though it is important for readers to be able to recall facts and locate new information, it is when they connect with the information they read that even deeper meaning occurs.
Readers naturally make a host of connections as they read and this is especially true of nonfiction, yet rarely do we consider informational texts an avenue for such connections. We rely on narrative as our main source of initiating discussions on connections with self, other texts, and the world. Yet connections with nonfiction are powerful, especially when children bring some kind of background knowledge to the piece being discussed. In Rachel’s case, the valuable information in the piece on dogs is not where her focus lies. Sure she is finding out valuable information about dogs that she will no doubt be able to discuss if asked, but her thinking is locked into the memories of her deceased Labrador, and the text is providing a springboard for these memories. This connection with informational reading I understand well, for nothing is more wonderful than reading a piece about a foreign place I have visited. I am absorbing the information I’m reading, but it is when my thinking meanders to past adventures in that place that I am truly connecting with the text.
This concept of making connections with nonfiction was one I had been experimenting with in Silvia Conto’s grade 1/2 split classroom in New York. I had intentionally started in a primary classroom because I believed this was a fairly new concept with young children. Although it is true that many teachers of children in early grades encourage their learners to make connections with nonfiction when an issue arises, I think it is more of an impromptu happening. For example, if the teacher happens to be reading a piece that mentions spiders, at best a handful of children will get to share past experiences with them. Children are rarely given time to make such connections and thus are never able to build on past experiences and go deeper with their thinking.
I began taking this notion of connections deeper by revisiting Harvey Daniels’s book on literature circles, specifically the revised edition, which has a notable section on nonfiction. Daniels sees making connections as an important component of nonfiction discussions: “Just as with novels, we want kids to capture their responses as they read and bring to the discussion their questions, connections, feelings, judgments, words, phrases, and doodles” (2002, p. 202).
I also revisited Aidan Chambers’s publication on book talk titled Tell Me, for I had used it many times in the past when helping my children make connections with narrative and wanted to see how I could transfer these strategies to nonfiction.
I selected the text Winter by K. Pike, from the the Go Facts series. I selected a text on seasons for a number of reasons. Primarily I wanted a book with content to which all the children could make some kind of connection. If we are to acknowledge Johnston’s insight that meaning is generated by making connections with experience, then it needed to be content with which every child had had experience. This was no easy task, because even though I had countless great pieces of nonfiction on a range of topics, I knew many of my children had little experience with the subject matter in these texts and would therefore become silent when discussions were initiated. I often hear teachers complain of children having limited background knowledge and wonder if this is accurate. I think selective background knowledge is a more accurate term.
All children come with a range of background experiences in life; it’s just that some are more selective than others. Although children who have spent extensive time sitting in front of a television or computer screen may not have the worldly experiences of those who spend time reading and going on excursions with their parents, they still have a wealth of background knowledge; it’s just highly specific to television and games.
The topic of winter also seemed a wise choice because not only were we in the midst of the season, but it was also part of a unit of study on seasons being explored in Silvia’s classroom. In this way I could marry the language process of making connections with the science content of seasons. In effect I was integrating the curriculum. That is not to say that all texts selected for making connections need to be directly linked to content studies. See Chapter 11 for information on integrating content studies with language processes.
When selecting the text, I also ensured that the vocabulary was simple. I didn’t want to spend time discussing complex vocabulary, because that was not the focus of my lesson. I made sure all the children could see the book because the illustrations were important, especially for making connections. I knew these visual sources of literacy would act as a trigger for many children when it came to discussions.
In addition to these considerations, I take other factors into account when selecting nonfiction texts for the purpose of making connections:
■ Select texts that enable all children to connect with the content.
■ Make sure the text is not loaded with complex vocabulary that will compromise comprehension.
■ Include texts that deal with the content being explored in science and social units.
■ Include texts that raise questions. This will act as a springboard for conversations.
■ Incorporate texts that have illustrations and use them to fuel discussions.
■ Select texts that allow for one or more of the following connections: text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world.
Apart from selecting a suitable text, I had also set up a structure for questioning. Many times when we engage our learners with making connections with nonfiction, there is no real framework for discussion. We rely on generic questions such as: What does this piece make you think about? or What does this book remind you of? These questions are often too broad, especially for beginning readers, to be starting points for discussion.
I wanted the children to explore three major types of connections: text to self, text to text, and text to world. My questioning would be critical in encouraging them to think specifically about each type. Trying to achieve all three in one session was pointless, so I broke the mini-lessons into four parts so that the children could have concentrated encounters with each connection, then finally put them together. Although it is true that good readers naturally interweave the three types of connections with a set text, it would take specific discussions with each to realize this goal. Having selected the text and the focus, I brought the children together and began exploring making text-to-self connections. Although the learning experiences documented below were with Silvia’s grade 1/2 split class, they are applicable to children in kindergarten as well.
June 9th, 2009
“School situations should mirror what’s happening in the real world, and kids should be writing real-world stuff–they shouldn’t just be writing for their teachers…nonfiction opens up that range of possibilities.”
We recorded our latest Author Conversations podcast with Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli, authors of Nonfiction Mentor Texts, at the IRA Convention in Minneapolis. Listen as Lynne and Rose talk about how nonfiction engages kids and how mentor texts build on this engagement by showcasing the passion and voice of nonfiction authors in a wide range of genres.
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May 18th, 2009
This week’s Quick Tip comes from one of Tony Stead’s books, Reality Checks: Teaching Reading Comprehension with Nonfiction, K-5. “In Lisa Elias Moynihan’s third-grade classroom at the Manhattan New School many of our learners wrestled with recalling and reciting all the information they read,” writes Tony. Students often just copied the text they read as a way of dealing with the massive amounts of information they came in contact with. Tony and Lisa came up with a way to model the process of note taking to help these fluent readers develop the layers of thinking and understanding this skill requires.
Lisa and I had been experimenting with ways to help our learners take notes and decided that the first step was to demonstrate the strategies we use. We knew that for children to be successful with this, they first needed to learn how to deconstruct text, then use their notes to reconstruct.
As part of a unit on animals, we used a book titled Creatures of the Night to demonstrate this process. We used a retelling web to demonstrate how we selected key words and phrases to help us remember relevant information. We broke the whole-class mini-lessons into four parts as outlined below, and did each in a different sitting so that we did not overload the children with too much information at one time. I believe this is a major reason why learners struggle with processing demonstrated information: we never take the learning apart and concentrate on small, manageable pieces. The common cry of “But I’ve shown them how to take notes and they can’t do it” is a reflection of our teaching practices rather than children’s cognitive abilities. Attempting to demonstrate everything in one sitting only frustrates and overwhelms the majority of our learners.
Session 1: Teacher Modeling—How to Deconstruct and Reconstruct Information
During this first session we knew it was important to establish the purpose of the whole-class mini-lessons so that the children understood how note taking could help them as readers of informational texts. Our next step was to show them how we achieved this goal through thinking aloud so that children could hear and learn from our thought processes.
Tony: I’ve noticed that often when you read nonfiction, you find it hard to remember all the information the author has told you. Would that be true?
Rosania: I find it hard to because there is so much and after I put the book down, I kind of forget.
Tess: That always happens to me, and then when Lisa calls us to a conference, and says to us, “So what did you find out about” from whatever it is we read and I just look at her and think I don’t know. I forgot most of it.
Tony: That’s what Lisa and I have noticed, so we thought we’d show you one way to help remember some of the information. Would that help?
There is a chorus of yes’s from the children.
Tony: Great! I’m going to use this book Creatures of the Night because we’ve been looking at night creatures as part of our unit of study. We’ll be able to use some of this information for our class report. But before I show you how I take notes so that I can remember the information presented by the author, I need to ask you why I don’t just copy the author’s words.
CJ: Because they’re not your words. It’s a bit like cheating.
Tony: Talk to me more about this.
CJ: You need to be able to talk about it yourself.
Marielle: Yeah, CJ’s right. Just because you copied them down doesn’t mean you understand them.
Tony: That makes so much sense. I’m going to start by just reading this section to you about how creatures of the night taste their way at night.
I then read them the following from page 10 of the book:
Tasting Their Way
A few nocturnal creatures use their sense of taste to help them survive. As catfish swim along the bottom of rivers, using feelers called barbels, they can taste tiny particles of a food source upstream. A snake’s tongue “tastes” the air. By flicking the tongue out to collect small particles, the cottonmouth viper can pick up the scent of a mate or an enemy.
Tony: Now I need to read this information again. This will help me think more deeply about what I have read.
I read it again.
Tony: Now I need to stop and think about what ideas and facts are important for me to remember. I’m going to use a retelling web to help me. Let me see, I think I want to write down the word survive because this is an important word. It is the main idea of this page. I am also going to write the words catfish, feelers, barbels, and water. I’m putting an arrow from survive to these four words because I want to remember that a catfish that lives in water survives by using its barbels to taste. I’m writing the word feelers next to barbells in case I forget what they are because this is a new word for me. Now over here I’m writing the words snake, tongue/flicking, small particles, and enemy. This will remind me that snakes taste the air by flicking their tongues and tasting particles in the air. The word enemy will remind me that this helps them know if an enemy is nearby. Now I’m going to put the book away and have a try at retelling the information using just my organizer. This will help me say things in my own words. Okay, here I go. Let me tell you about night creatures and how they use taste to help them survive. The catfish that lives in water has feelers. These are called barbels, and the catfish uses these to taste food in the water. Snakes taste by flicking their tongues. They can sense when there is food or an enemy just by using their tongues.
I went back to the text and reread what the author had said and asked the children what they noticed about my retelling. They were impressed by my abilities to retell using the organizer, but Michael wanted to know why I didn’t use the word mate on either my organizer or in my retelling. This brought a few giggles but also lots of confusion, because obviously many of the children had no idea what this meant. I had intentionally made no reference to this word on my organizer for obvious reasons, but children miss nothing. They awaited my reply with anticipation, eager to see how I would wiggle my way out of this one. I simply told them that I didn’t think it was that important and moved quickly to the next teaching point, giving them little chance to reply. Thankfully this strategy worked, and I found myself breathing sighs of relief as I moved into the next part of the demonstration.
Having successfully avoided the subject of reproduction, I invited Lisa, the classroom teacher, to have a try at this strategy using a different page of the text. Having the children watch multiple demonstrations is always advantageous because it gives them time to process and think more deeply about what has been initially demonstrated. The librarian or a second adult, such as a parent, in the classroom is a wonderful resource to tap when attempting to show multiple demonstrations by adults. I concluded the session by reflecting on what we had learned about note taking and charted the children’s responses. (See the steps below.) I am a great believer in not only taking time for reflection at the conclusion of a demonstration but also recording thoughts and understandings so that learners have a point of reference for future
engagements.
Ideas for Taking Notes When Reading Nonfiction
■ Make sure you read the text at least twice so that you really understand what the author has said.
■ Write down key words or phrases that you think are important on a retelling web.
■ Put the text away.
■ Using only the retelling web, try to retell the information.
■ If you have problems retelling, look at the text again and see what extra words you need to include to help you remember.
April 14th, 2009
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