Recently, uber-dedicated middle school librarian Angie
Manfredi posted a series of tweets sharing student work from a terrific
nonfiction project she did with a class of 7th graders at her
school. I thought other educators would like to replicate it, so I invited Angie
to explain how she collaborated with an ELA teacher to design and carry out
this fantastic learning experience. I’m so grateful that she agreed.
Thank you, Angie, for all you’re
doing to cultivate a love of nonfiction in your students.
One of the great privileges in my current position working at a 7th and
8th grade middle school is the openness of the staff to have me, as the school
librarian, co-teach and design lessons with them. Recently one of the ELA
teachers was looking for a way to reinvigorate her nonfiction of choice unit,
and I knew just where to suggest jumping in.
At the beginning of the unit, I gave a presentation on the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, including examples from our own collection. This
gave students an overview of the nonfiction landscape as well as vocabulary to discuss
the types of books they’re interested in—not just a science book, but perhaps a
narrative nonfiction biography of a scientist.
After students recorded topics and book types they might be interested
in choosing for their project, we played a few rounds of a game I had purchased (and edited to fit our collection and unit) to get students thinking
more actively about nonfiction.
At the end of that session, students selected their books and began
reading. (Always the most joyous occasion for me as a librarian, of course!)
The teacher and I had a meeting to discuss what she wanted students to
take away from this learning experience. I suggested a project inspired by my
love of Canva as a design tool in the education setting and
a lesson educator and author Elissa Malespina shared online: using Canva to create a magazine cover
about the 1920s. It
was perfect for celebrating everything students had learned and been captivated
by in nonfiction. Plus it let me introduce students to magazines, yet another
type of nonfiction they might not initially think of as a format to read for
pleasure.
After doing a little digging, I found a great lesson plan for designing magazine
covers at NCTE’s Read, Write, Think site. The teacher agreed that it would make a fantastic
final project and created a rubric.
After students finished reading their books, they came to the library
with their Chromebooks and sat at tables piled with magazines. We discussed the
design elements of a magazine cover, and as a hands-on exercise, they
identified these elements on the magazines at their tables.
Next, I shared a sample cover I designed using one of my favorite books: Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty by Tonya Bolden.
Students noticed that I had included the author and the title of the
book, but not as the title of the
magazine. We also looked at how I’d incorporated page numbers and quotes from
the book as well as an important date.
After giving the class a general intro to Canva, including such basics
as fonts, images, and templates (they loved having so many images provided in
Canva), we dove into bigger concepts like creativity and impact.
Next, students completed a double-sided worksheet I created to help
them review the significant parts of their books as well as brainstorm ideas
for their cover. It included key terms, such as lead article and coverline, to
guide their thinking as well as space for them to pull out key moments from
their book. I encouraged them to sketch design ideas on the worksheet.
They spent the rest of that class period working on their design and
then two subsequent periods creating their cover. The final step was printing
their covers so they could be to be hung up in the hallway.
This was truly an amazing project to see realized! As I walked the hall
and saw their creativity on display, I also
saw their passion for their books in a way that centered their own voice and
vision of the work.
Their headlines, magazine titles, and chosen graphics all illustrated
what stood out to them and what pulled them in. The covers also spoke to the
power of choice (giving the students broad range to select a book) and the
foundation we had laid with the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction (making sure students
fully understood how truly expansive and exciting nonfiction is).
Some students included QR codes on their magazine covers, linking to
more information about their books. They worked on using language and citations
in ways that would interest viewers and spoke to the parts of the books that
stood out to them. And on top of all that, they became more familiar with the elements
of graphic design and the mechanics of Canva, software they can use throughout
the rest of their academic career.
I was thrilled with the way this project turned out and, better still,
so was my teaching partner and all of the students. I am grateful to Mrs.
Parton for collaborating with me to do something new with this unit. I know we
interested a lot of students who might have turned up their noses at nonfiction,
and I know we got them thinking about what they read in a much more active way.
I was awestruck by the variety of books students had selected—cookbooks,
World Records, folk and fairy tales, biographies, histories, books about
animals and more. And I realized that—through these covers—students had created
some nonfiction themselves. It was a connection that resonated with me as a
librarian and a teacher, and it made me excited to develop more projects that bring
nonfiction to life for our students.
Angie Manfredi has worked in public, special, and school libraries for
the past 16 years, and is currently a middle school librarian in New Mexico. She
has served on the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Committee, the
Morris Award Committee, and the Stonewall Award Committee, and believes all
youth have the right to see their lives reflected honestly in the books they
read. In her spare time, Angie enjoys sending snail mail and watching movies. www.fatgirlreading.com.
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2 Responses
I love this! I'm going to share it with some teacher friends.
As a magazine-lover, I think this is a brilliant idea!