Strategies for Teaching with Nonfiction

The Language Arts article "A New Way to Look at Literature: A Visual Model for Analyzing Fiction and Nonfiction Texts" (G) explains why nonfiction texts are important to students’ literacy skills. Nonfiction texts are a part of everyday life. Outside the classroom, there are bus schedules, instructions on microwave dinners, and websites with advice on getting the most out of video games. At school there are content area texts for every class from science to the arts. There are sports reports and the latest celebrity news to keep track of. And in a year where Americans are voting on their next president, there are political advertisements, interviews, and voting ballots to read and understand.

Nonfiction texts are truly everywhere, but for many language arts teachers, these texts are challenging to teach. Often more accustomed to the demands of teaching fiction, teachers must tap different strategies to incorporate instruction on the diction, text structures, and other features of nonfiction texts. Each of the ReadWriteThink lesson plans below models effective strategies for incorporating nonfiction texts in the classroom—with projects ranging from inquiry study to strategy lessons, and content areas ranging from social studies to science and math:

• Searching for Gold: A Collaborative Inquiry Project (E)
• Literature as a Jumping Off Point for Nonfiction Inquiry (E)
• Comparing Fiction and Nonfiction with Little Red Riding Hood Text Sets (E)
• Animal Study: From Fiction to Facts (E)
• Bridging Literature and Mathematics by Visualizing Mathematical Concepts (E)
• Finding the Science Behind Science Fiction through Paired Readings (M)
• Investigating the Holocaust: A Collaborative Inquiry Project (M)
• Picture Books as Framing Texts: Research Paper Strategies for Struggling Writers (M)
• An Exploration of Text Sets: Supporting All Readers (M)
• Family Memoir: Getting Acquainted With Generations Before Us (S)
• Using Student-Centered Comprehension Strategies with Elie Wiesel’s Night (S)
• Exploring Language and Identity: Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Beyond (S)
• Having My Say: A Multigenre Autobiography Project (S)
  
  

Harry Potter and the Integrated Curriculum

Whether we call it integrated curriculum, interdisciplinary studies, or reading and writing across the curriculum, such projects ask students to look beyond the books they read and make personal and far-reaching connections to other aspects of their lives. The English Journal article “Taking Time: Harry Potter as a Context for Interdisciplinary Studies” describes a project that bridged language arts, math, and science as students explore a series of activities related to their reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In addition to these activities, there are many other curricular connections that can be explored:

• Ask students to sketch out a hierarchical chart of the wizarding world’s government and compare it to the national U.S. and British governments.
  
  
• Extend the discussion of one of the magical creatures in the series by writing scientific descriptions of their habits, habitats, and physical features. Model the descriptions on an encyclopedia entry of a well-known animal or use a Web-based description of a zoo animal like the Giant Panda.
  
  
• Use Thinkfinity partner EconEdLink’s Lost Memo to have students to connect the details from the Harry Potter novels to the currency exchange rate that affects businesses everywhere.
  
  
• Tap the exploration of race, class, sexuality, and gender in the English Journal article “Teaching English in the World: Playing with Critical Theory in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series” to shape parallel discussions contrasting issues in social studies and history. For instance, invite comparisons of Hermione’s S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare) with the labor and anti-slavery movements in the U.S.
  
  
• Consider what Mona Lisa, James Weldon Johnson, or Sequoyah would say if they could talk and move around their portraits like the subjects of the paintings in the Harry Potter novels to explore art and history connections.
  
  
• Explore the language of advertising by asking students to create print, audio, or video advertisements for items that wizards would buy, a store a wizard might shop at, or a service that a wizard might hire someone to perform.
  
  
• Focus on technical and business writing by asking students to create resumes for characters in the book. Consult the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Book Report Alternative: Creating Careers for Characters for resources.
  
  
• Write a letter to the editor for a character, using the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Book Report Alternative: A Character’s Letter to the Editor for materials. Students might write on the same topics that Harry takes up in the novels or choose another topic—arguing for a pardon for Buckbeak, supporting Hermione’s S.P.E.W. efforts, or responding to a news article included in one of the texts.

Have other suggestions? Please share them in the comments!