After reading school librarian Meredith
Inkeles’s blog post about
students writing book reviews for nonfiction books, fourth grade teacher Kim
Haines was inspired to combine that lesson with a variety of other activities that
I’ve share on this blog, on my website, and in 5 Kinds of
Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books to create
a rich, multi-faceted nonfiction exploration for her students.
Thank you for sharing your experience here, Kim. I hope it inspires
other educators.
I’m a long-time reader of Melissa’s blog, so her ideas and
resources have been simmering in my brain, apparently waiting for just this
catalyst. I quickly gathered mentor texts and launched our study with my fourth
graders.
We started by talking about text features, with my students sharing
all their prior knowledge. I recorded their responses on an
anchor chart, making corrections or clarifications if needed. This was a great
way to assess what they already knew and create an ongoing resource for our
unit. Then students conducted text feature scavenger hunts with a
partner and quickly discovered firsthand that not all nonfiction books contain
every single feature.
Next we compared narrative
and expository writing styles. I read two different books about similar
topics to illustrate the similarities and differences. Building off our first
scavenger hunt, I created a new worksheet that included a list of text features
plus questions related to this new element: Is it narrative or expository?
How do you know? What evidence do you see? I listened to great
conversations between students, especially when partners disagreed at first.
Then we shifted gears to study rich language and writer’s voice. When
introducing rich language, I wrote an excerpt from one of the mentor texts on
an anchor chart and we looked for examples together, marking up the excerpt. In pairs, students read excerpts from different books to
examine the writing. Then I provided typed versions of these excerpts so students
could annotate the text with colored pencils, as described here.
Using a similar technique, we looked at printed excerpts to evaluate
writer’s voice. Then we used a Venn Diagram to compare the two different books.
I created a cumulative worksheet, so that pairs of students could repeat the
series of activities on their own—evaluating text features, writing style, rich
language, and voice. this gave students an opportunity to refine their
understanding.
Text structure was our last element to tackle. Using an anchor
chart describing the five major structures, we worked together to determine the
structure of various books we had read. Then students went on another scavenger
hunt to assess the text structures of additional books. We did this for three class
periods, so they had plenty of time to look at a wide variety of books.
During these activities, I changed partners frequently to build
opportunities for students to work with different people and see a wide variety
of strengths in their classmates. Additional practice looking for all of these
elements came through our daily picture book reading where we
would notice examples of everything we had learned. We were immersed in looking
at nonfiction books!
When it came time to launch the book review portion of the unit, I
selected additional books from the library. I wanted students to apply their
learning to a book they hadn’t already examined with a partner, so having more
titles bolstered both the available choices and ensured that each student would
get a fresh book.
As students read, they wrote observations using a note catcher
that incorporated all of our studied elements. In the note-catcher, I included
other questions that would help them write their reviews: questions about intended
audience and the most interesting information they learned. I also encouraged
them to play with two or three different leads for their review.
Finally, it was time to write the full reviews. Students used checklists
to make sure their paragraph contained all of the required information and met
certain writing expectations.
Because their writing was done digitally, it was easy to include a
book cover thumbnail and print out their finished products. I displayed their
reviews with the actual books.
Here are a few excerpts from student reviews:
“I think this book is targeted to girls under the age of 18, because the purpose
of the book is to inspire girls to fight for what they want.” (She Persisted
by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger)
“It is surprising, I know, but this book tells you how when
animals die, tiny bacteria immediately start chomping at the dead animal’s
body. Wow!” (Dining with Dinosaurs by Hannah Bonner)
“With a lyrical voice this book has a soothing and wondrous feel
to it.” (The Wisdom of Trees by Lita Judge)
I loved this project. I’m already thinking
about changes to make next year. For example, I want to move this unit to the
fall so that when we finish we can participate in the Sibert Smackdown. Having
been immersed in nonfiction study, students will be ready to evaluate books
with a critical eye. I’ll be curious to see if this study has an impact on
their independent reading choices for the remainder of the year.
Kim Haines has been involved with teaching and coaching for more
than 30 years. She currently teaches 4th grade Language Arts at Bixby School in
Boulder, Colorado. She loves sharing the magic of books and reading with her
students and learning alongside them. You can follow her on Twitter @KimHaines10
or reach her at kimh@bixbyschool.org.
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