The Lesson...Part 3

Isoke Nia is the Director of Research
and Development for the Teachers
 College Reading and Writing Project.

   I had to be on my game in order to generate excitement for nonfiction text that following Monday.  After all, the kids have been saturated in fiction text for so long that I knew I had to to hook them immediately, or lose them forever! So,   I requested every nonfiction book Gail Gibbons ever created from our school librarian and I threw in a smattering of books about content and created a lending nonfiction library within our classroom.   I decided to begin the study with an activity from  Isoke Nia.  I placed handfuls of books on each of my three clusters of desks.  I included in each group a “red herring” to check for understanding of a fiction text versus a nonfiction text.  I asked each group to create a T-chart and list their noticings of nonfiction text compared with what they knew about fiction text.  During this activity, they were so engaged in great discussions about nonfiction that I beamed with joy! My kids sounded amazingly intellectual...I thought I died and went to heaven!  This immersion in nonfiction text really opened them up to a different kind of reading and they liked it!  
     Afterwards, a representative from each group hung the poster up and each group shared out.  Together, we created one master poster of our findings and compared it to a hand-out that listed the access and visual features of nonfiction.    

Found this awesome idea on another blog:
 http://oneextradegree.blogspot.com 

        Next, we changed location and placed our collection of nonfiction books on the floor and the children created a circle around them.  They were given the task of finding and marking with a post-it the different text features we discussed earlier using our plethora of books. There was lots of chatter as they discovered various captions, sidebars, and headings.  We spent time sharing our findings and selected one student example and made copies of them from the texts.  From these copies, I created larger-than-life posters that hang in the classroom.  Using distributed practice, I constantly review text features with the kids across the curriculum.  Already, I see a difference in my student’s ability to navigate expository text as well as comprehend the text!  
     This is just the beginning in the genre of expository text though.  There are so many options to explore and incredible ideas to pull from.  The photo above is an awesome example of hands-on learning.  I plan on incorporating that in this years expository book frenzy (from The Book Whisperer).  If you were wondering what comes next...I would say text structure followed by great leads for expository writing.   


I hope this was helpful and I am always open to suggestions that will further enhance my student's learning.