Recently, teacher-librarian Kristian Bucknor read 5 Kinds of Nonfiction and tried an activity
that introduces the two nonfiction writing styles—expository and narrative—with
her students. I was curious to know how it went, so Kristian generously offered
to write this blog post summarizing her experience. Thank you, Kristian! It’s
wonderful to see how your students responded to this activity.
In
the first chapter of 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with
Children’s Books, Melissa Stewart and Marlene Correia suggest inviting
students to compare Red-Eyed Tree Frog
by Joy Crowley and Frog or Toad: How Do You
Know? by Melissa Stewart. These books are both about frogs, but they have
different writing styles. The first is narrative nonfiction, and the second is
expository nonfiction.
I decided to try activity this with my third grade classes. I started with an ICT
class. After reviewing what nonfiction is and introducing the terms “narrative nonfiction”
and “expository nonfiction,” I wrote the following three statements on the
board and asked students to think about then as I read the books.
A. Identify what information you are seeing or hearing
in the book.
B. How is the information presented in the book?
C. Which book did you like better?
After
I read the books, I created a Venn diagram and asked the class how the two books
were alike and how they were different. At first, students focused on the
content of the second book. They told me how the frog and the toad were
different.
After reminding them to consider how the books were written—not just the animals
being described—one student mention that Red-Eyed
Tree Frog focused on one animal while Frog
or Toad described two kinds of animals. Students then began noticing
differences in how the books were written—one was a story, the other shared lots
of facts. In a follow up lesson with this group, I was so impressed when one
student used the terms “narrative nonfiction” and “expository nonfiction” to
describe the texts.
A
few days later, I did the same activity with a different third grade class.
This time I decided not to provide definitions of the two writing styles. I
read the two books and encouraged students to compare them.
Once again, a student noticed that Red-Eyed
Tree Frog focused on one specific animal while Frog or Toad described two kinds of animals. Another student
observed that the one book was a story and the other focused on presenting
information. A third student said that both books had real pictures.
Next,
I provided the students with definitions of the two writing styles—narrative
and expository—and asked if they could identify each one. It was great to see
the “learning lightbulb” come on and have my students begin to use and
understand this new nonfiction vocabulary.
To bring the activity to a close, I asked students to vote (by raising their
hands) on which book they preferred. It turns out that most students (40
percent) enjoyed the two writing styles equally.
Kristian
Bucknor is a
K-6th grade teacher librarian at Brinckerhoff Elementary School in Wappingers
Central School District in South-eastern New York. She has been teaching for more
than twelve years. Kristian enjoys reading all types of books, but after reading 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, she has a new
appreciation for nonfiction.
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