Celebrate Nonfiction

Exploring the Joy of Nonfiction Reading and Writing

NCTE Handout: Giving Fact-loving Kids a Voice: Using Expository Nonfiction as Mentor Texts

Description: You may not love
expository nonfiction, but many of your students do. It motivates fact-loving
kids to read and write, and it can help ALL students develop informational
writing skills. In this session, five
highly-regarded educators share creative ideas for using finely-crafted
expository nonfiction children’s books in writer’s workshop.

Here
is a list of the books we discussed:

Behold
the Beautiful Dung Beetle by Cheryl
Bardoe (Charlesbridge, 2015)

Born
in the Wild: Baby Animals and their Parents by Lita Judge (Roaring Brook, 2014)

Can
an Aardvark Bark? By Melissa Stewart and
Steve Jenkins (Beach Lane, 2017)

Feathers:
Not Just for Flying by Melissa
Stewart and Sarah S. Brannen (Charlesbridge, 2014)

Forgotten
Bones: Uncovering a Slave Cemetery by Lois Miner Huey (Millbrook Press, 2015)

Frog
Song by Brenda Z. Guiberson and Gennady Spirin (Holt, 2013)

A
Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman and Isabel
Greenberg (Greenwillow Books, 2017)

If
Polar Bears Disappeared by Lily Williams (2018)

Lesser
Spotted Animals by Martin Brown
(David Fickling Books, 2016)

Look
at Me! How to Attract Attention in the Animal World by
Steve Jenkins and Robin Page (HMH Books, 2018)

Meadowlands:
A Wetlands Survival Story by Thomas F. Yezerski (FSG, 2011)

The
Most Amazing Creature in the Sea by Brenda Z.
Guiberson and Gennady Spirin (Holt, 2015)

Otters
Love to Play by Jonathan London and Meilo So (Candlewick,
2016)

Planting
the Wild Garden by Kathryn O.
Galbraith and Wendy Anderson Halperin (Peachtree, 2012)

Red
Alert! Endangered Animals Around the World by Catherine Barr and Anne Wilson (Charlesbridge, 2018)

Rodent
Rascals by Roxie Munro (Holiday House, 2018)

Squirrels
Leap, Squirrels Sleep by April
Pulley Sayre and Steve Jenkins (Holt, 2016)

Trout
Are Made of Trees
by April Pulley Sayre and Late Endle (Charlesbridge, 2008)

Water
Land by Christy Hale (Roaring Brook, 2018)

Wonderful Winter: All Kind of Winter Facts and Fun by Bruce Goldstone (Holt, 2016)

 

Alyson Beecher is an educator
and school administrator. She works with Glendale Unified School District in
the Early Education and Extended Learning Programs. She has worked as a Special
Education Inclusion Teacher, Special Education Administrator, Elementary
Principal, and District Curriculum Specialist. She loves reading and getting
books into the hands of children and hosts the Nonfiction Picture Book
Challenge on her blog, Kid Lit Frenzy. She serves on the American Library
Association’s Schneider Family Book Award Committee. Twitter: @alysonbeecher

Mary Ann Cappiello is a professor at Lesley University.  Along with Erika, she is the
co-author of Teaching with Text Sets, Teaching to Complexity, and
a forthcoming book with Stenhouse Publishers. She blogs at “The Classroom Bookshelf,” a School Library Journal
blog and has been on NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Committee since 2015. Twitter: @MA_Cappiello

Erika
Thulin Dawes
is a professor of language and literacy at Lesley University, where she strives
to equip teachers with a passion for children’s literature and a wealth of
creative strategies for using books in the classroom. Having worked as a
classroom teacher, a reading specialist, and a literacy supervisor, she knows
that great teachers and great librarians inspire lifelong readers. Erika is
co-author of Teaching with Text Sets and Teaching to Complexity: A Framework for Evaluating Literary and Content-Area
Texts. Twitter: @erikadawes

Stacey Shubitz is an independent literacy
consultant and a former
elementary school teacher. She’s the author Craft
Moves: Lesson Sets for Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts and the co-author of Day by Day: Refining Writing
Workshop Through 180 Days of Reflective Practice. Her next book, Welcome to Writing Workshop, will
be published by Stenhouse Publishers this winter. She has blogged at Two Writing Teachers, a blog solely devoted to the teaching of writing, since
2007. Twitter: @sshubitz.

Terrell
Young is professor of children’s literature at Brigham Young
University. He has published numerous articles and has coauthored or coedited
several books including Deepening Students’ Mathematical Understanding with
Children’s Literature . Terry currently serves as the president of the
United States Board on Books for Young People. He has served on numerous book
award selection committees, including the Newbery Medal.

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