Reflecting on the
process of creating nonfiction and/or responding to nonfiction as a reader was a
powerful experience for my students. The actual words “dig deep” surfaced in
written reflections. They made important connections between their own learning
and that of their students; they realized that students can authentically and
creatively respond to nonfiction in a myriad of ways. They also realized that
author’s purpose, teacher’s purpose, and reader’s purpose all matter as
we explore nonfiction books in the classroom.

After composing her
poem, Megan reflected:

I chose to do a poem because to me, when I am reading, I
highlight a lot and when looking back over my notes, I just reread my
highlights. The poem, to me, was a form of this, but it allowed me to create
something new using the words that I thought were important or that stuck with
me. It also made me learn more about April Pulley Sayre because I was able to deeply
analyze the actual meaning of the words she wrote.

I picked to write about April Pulley Sayre because I chose and
read Thank You, Earth by her for my Nonfiction Read Aloud
Calendar Assignment and fell in love with her style in how she adds photographs
into her simple, yet powerful text.

While going back and reading April Pulley Sayre’s essay, I
started to notice the common theme of wonder. The first sentence of her essay
starts with “My goal in life is to share wonder.” That felt really important to
me and the overall message of her essay, so I decided to use that same sentence
as the start of each stanza. Then in each stanza, I dove deeper into wonder and
what it can look like (inquiry, photography, not just for children).

Overall, this activity showed
that by providing students options of ways to show their thinking about
nonfiction, you are bound to have all students learn more.

Students can look at each other’s
responses and learn through a different lens than the one they chose. It allows
students choice, creativity, and responsibility and although the end goal might
be different per student, all are diving deeply and analyzing nonfiction in a
way that makes sense to them.

After creating this soundscape playlist, Hannah reflected:

Wow! This was such a fun
way to think about reading — I felt myself rereading sections of the text to
imagine what it would be like to be in the text. Reading with the sound in mind
was an entirely different experience than reading for the first time.

I
absolutely loved this assignment — it really made the text feel personal and
connected to me. Some sounds are familiar, others are not familiar. Having read
this without “hearing” the sounds, and then rereading after choosing
some of the “background noise” is mind boggling!

It
means one thing to read about how an individual went hitchhiking across the
country, but to play the sounds of a bicycle whooshing and grass blowing in the
wind and THEN reread it facilitates a feeling of “getting lost” in
literature that I have yet to experience (and truthfully, I have read a lot of
literature.). 

I’m looking forward to bringing these examples of responses to
the text to my students because I appreciated seeing the variety of responses
there were. I really value choice in my classroom. While all of the responses
lean on different strengths (word analysis, visualizing, synthesizing, etc),
there is no lack of critical thinking in any one activity. 

This
spring, my students really saw the authors and illustrators behind the
book. This personal connection with book creators deepened their experiences of
reading nonfiction and their understanding of how they can harness the
potential of nonfiction texts in the classroom.

For
those of you who have not had the chance to read Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep,
add it to your summer reading stack. Perhaps, like my students, you’ll experience
nonfiction in an entirely new context.

******

If
any teacher, school librarian, or teacher educator reading this is intrigued by
the idea of creating nonfiction soundscapes with and for their students next
year, I’d love to hear from you. The idea was influenced by conversations
with my cousin, who is a historic musicologist interested in recreating
soundscapes from the past. I would like to explore this concept further, and
the ways in which sound can help students think more deeply about the
nonfiction they are reading and compose nonfiction more authentically. You can
reach me at mcappiel@lesley.edu. Let’s talk!

Mary
Ann Cappiello teaches courses in children’s literature and literacy methods at
Lesley University, blogs about teaching with children’s literature with
colleagues at School Library Journal’s The Classroom Bookshelf, and is a founding member of The
Biography Clearinghouse and a former
chair of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award for
Outstanding Nonfiction K-8. Mary Ann
is the co-author of Text Sets in Action: Pathways Through Content Area Literacy from Stenhouse Publishers (2021).