Last year, I took a class through the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project (PAWLP) about using nonfiction text in the reading and writing classroom. It was eye opening and forever changed the way I deliver reading and writing instruction! One of the instructors was Lynne Dorfman, co-author of Nonfiction Mentor Texts. She did a book pass using her vast collection of nonfiction titles, blessing each book before passing them around to our book-hungry hands! I left that class energized, believing that every problem could be solved with a nonfiction picture book! Wearing my “nonfiction glasses,” I looked over my classroom library and realized 80% of the books were fiction titles! Problem number one! Next, I analyzed our language arts anthology and found it was 63% fiction based and 37% nonfiction! Problem number two! Is it any wonder the kids don’t self-select nonfiction books? This lack of nonfiction text creates a gap in students reading ability, both in fluency and comprehension. As a result, they have far less familiarity with nonfiction text and its underlying structures than with narrative text. About 45% of my students read between 10-40 less correct words per minute on the nonfiction passage on the last theme test then the first narrative passage. This is hugely problematic!
So, how did I create a love for nonfiction and a thirst for knowledge among my students? I fell in love with nonfiction books myself!
...Tune in tomorrow for part 3...
The Lesson
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