I find that batching my
work helps me to be more efficient. For this project, I created book lists for several
months-worth of displays all at once and printed them out. Then I wrote
introductions for each display for our school’s news show. Each Monday, the sixth-grade
news crew reads the relevant introduction, so the whole school knows the theme
of the Nod to Nonfiction book display. The display stays up all week in a
designated spot. And every Friday afternoon, I switch out the display. Since my
book lists are already printed out, it goes quickly. 

Sometimes I pair the
book display with student work. For example, during a recent sixth-grade
project, students researched natural disasters in connection with their weather
unit, and I showed them how to create infographics on Canva. When the
infographics were complete, I printed them out and added them to the weekly Nod
to Nonfiction display on Infographics books. For the timing to work out, I
looked ahead and planned the project a couple of months before the display was scheduled
to go up. 

If you’re a classroom
teacher, you can create displays utilizing books in your classroom collection
or highlight books on topics related to your grade-level curriculum. You can
also ask your school librarian for a set of books about different types of
nonfiction. If you’re worried that creating displays will be too time
consuming, you can feature a single book in a designated area and swap it out
each week. Or you can create monthly displays instead of weekly ones.

The goal of my Nod to
Nonfiction book displays is to raise awareness around nonfiction and to feature
lots of different kinds of nonfiction in an intentional way. Now that I’ve been
doing it for a few months, I’m making notes about tweaks I want to make in the
future. I’m also noticing areas of my nonfiction collection that could be more
robust, and I’m making a list of books I want to order for next year. I’ve also
begun thinking about ways to incorporate the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction in my
instruction and in my library displays.

So far Nod to Nonfiction
is a success. It’s encouraging students and teachers to think about nonfiction
in new ways, and it’s showing the breadth and depth of books available for
projects and for personal enjoyment.

Marcie
Flinchum Atkins is a teacher-librarian by
day and a children’s book writer in the wee hours of the morning. She holds an
M.A. and an M.F.A. in Children’s Literature from Hollins University. Wait,
Rest, Pause: Dormancy in Nature (Millbrook Press, 2019) is her most
recent book. You can find her online at www.marcieatkins.com and
on Twitter and Instagram as @MarcieFAtkins.