Choice Lit Topic: Content Literacy
Reading and writing across the curriculum is sparking more interest than ever among teachers and school leaders. Here are the resources you need to build more writing into your math curriculum, more reading and talk into your science program, and especially, how to infuse more nonfiction texts into your teaching throughout the school day.
Results
My World Maps
What we do is who we are. I repeat this phrase often as I think about a project I’m starting with first-year teachers in grades 4-6. What we do is...
Building a Next-Read Nonfiction Stack
Katherine Sokolowski helps fifth grader Jack build a next-read stack of nonfiction, highlighting a variety of text features and historical references.
Literacy and Global Competence
We must build students' global connectedness as if our lives depended on it. Homa Sabet Tavangar I recently worked with an intermediate student who was upset because, he said,...
Backward Chaining
For the last few weeks, I’ve been working in a fifth-grade classroom throughout a research-based essay unit. My focus has been on a group of six students who were far...
Building Stronger Wordsmiths
Relative location, longitude, scale, prime meridian, cardinal directions. What do all these terms have in common? These words and several more will be the focus of an upcoming fifth-grade social...
More Nonfiction Read Alouds
Every year I plan to read aloud more nonfiction to students. And every year I do—but just a little more. I have worked hard over the last five years to...
Reflecting on the L
Michelle came up to me after reading an article about tenement living in 1890s Chicago in my eighth-grade social studies class and said, “I think I learned from the article,...
Exploring Text Features
Melanie Meehan works with a small group to talk through how nonfiction text features might enhance their informational writing.
Environment Small Group: Habitat
Katherine Sokolowski leads a small group of fifth graders who have chosen similar topics for their environment projects.
The Ocean Research Project: From Launch to Celebration in 10 Days
For the past few years I have attempted to make it so that research is not a one-and-done endeavor in our fifth-grade reading and writing class. Throughout the year I...
Research Through Picture Books
“Mrs. S, I can’t find anything in this book. Can I just use the iPad?” Blake closed his book in frustration. This is an all-too-common refrain in my classroom during...
Environmental Group Notes
Katherine Sokolowski meets briefly with a group of fifth-grade girls to go through the notes they are taking for their environmental studies project and talk through next steps.
Fact or Fiction? Introducing the Task
For years I have taught my middle school students the mnemonic Nonfiction Is Not Fake and Fiction Is Fake. The idea of the trick is to help students distinguish which...
Fact or Fiction? Discussion
Christy Rush-Levine has her middle school students complete a fun and sophisticated reading activity using Muse magazine to sort through what might be fact or fiction. In this second installment...
Free-Range Learning with Nonfiction Part 2: Infographics and Maps
Each extended family, workplace, and classroom has those innovative, creative members who bring a refreshing flair to the scene. Nonfiction’s extended text family is no different. Infographics are those interesting...
Minilesson on Facts and Sources
Katherine Sokolowski presents a minilesson to fifth graders on ferreting out facts while completing independent research projects.
Creating Curiosity with Story
“You can’t stop there. We want to know more!” “It’s like stopping in the middle of a movie!” When I am doing my minilessons before having my students read, I...
Free Range Learning with Nonfiction (Part 1)
I have always been a nonfiction lover. Even in the early 1970s before the children’s book industry embraced informational texts for children, I loved reading about my world. Fact lists...
The Daily Record
“Toni always starts our dinner conversation with what she learned in class each day and her opinions on people in American history.” Who doesn’t love to hear this from a...
The Pocahontas Ewww: Writing and Inquiry for Context
As I started my lesson, Briana called out, “Is it true that Pocahontas was a little girl when she got married? That’s just wrong.” This is a typical response from...
“What Are We Learning Today?”: Transitioning with Compelling Questions
"What are we learning today?" I used to hear this every day, every class period, from at least half of my seventh-grade social studies students. It was frustrating. I used...
