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[CCBC-Net] Fwd: Story Narrative Nonfiction
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From: Monica R. Edinger <edinger>
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 05:55:08 +0000
I hope that I'm not going too far away from the discussion of the Sibert winners, but I found Betty Carter's comments very interesting and would like to respond based on my work with 4th graders and various kinds of texts. Sorry in advance for the length of this.
Betty writes, "
"
I wonder about this final sentence. I may have misunderstood it, but I would question that the attraction of narrative over other kinds of information-giving is the result of story's dominance in children's lives.
Story, it seems to me, is something humans have used for eons. Stories are how most cultures keep their histories. I was thrilled years ago to read of a Canadian First People successfully using their stories (which had never been written down) to prove their claim to land in a court case.
Paley, Coles, Dyson, and others have written compellingly about the importance of story. Indeed, I wonder if it is something built into our genes (did that genome project get story in their work?)
A great interest of mine is the teaching and learning of history. I've done quite a bit of research on this and my impression is that narrative is very important in learning history. Not the only thing by any means, but probably the most important. I mostly use narrative in my teaching of history, but not always. For example, I used to teach a unit on the Constitution late in the school year. The focus was not on the story of its writing, which is traditionally how it is taught, but the document itself and what it has wrought, particularly in terms of civil rights.
(For anyone wanting to know about this unit see my article in the October/November 2000 Knowledge Quest at http://www.ala.org/aasl/kqweb/29_1_edingertext.html.) Can't get more non-narrative than the Constitution, let me tell you!
Betty writes:
I think the problem here is the focus on reading in schools without any underlying focus on content. Yesterday I had dinner with a friend who is supervising student teachers at a school here in NYC where there is a 2 1/2 hour literacy block every morning for grades K-5. Read alouds, guided reading, independent reading is what happens. What is missing, she indicated, was any content. The older kids, her student teachers noted, are bored.
Unfortunately, with elementary children the focus on reading instruction is on doing it to such a degree that those who oversee the instruction forget the content. When content other than story is considered it tends to be lumped all together as either "content area reading" or
"nonfiction." I put the latter in quotes because it is approached by many language arts specialists in just that way. Not by any specific content or more specifically, a particular sort of nonfiction. Just, nonfiction. Or if there is some sort of thematic or integrated unit the overriding focus is on narrative. And in the case of history, historical fiction
(which is why I think this fictional genre does need author notes, documentation, and the like --- sorry, Jonathan!)
I was a bit confused by Betty's citations of Jean Fritz, Brent Ashbranner, and Milton Meltzer as my impression is that they all write mostly in narrative.
Betty further writes:
I think that classroom teachers read aloud more non-narrative texts than is realized. I suppose not to 9th graders, but I doubt too many 9th graders are read aloud to at all, remedial included. However, I suspect many of them are quite familiar with non-narrative texts in their history and science classes. (I've worked with many middle and high school teachers who use all sorts of non-narrative texts to teach history.)
I agree here, but think it happens more than may be evident. In the media. On the web. It is there and used quite a bit, I think. Perhaps not in traditional print media and books, but elsewhere for kids more and more.
And again, I think this happens quite a lot. I bring a group of 4th graders to work in a kindergarten once a week which is full of non-narrative text. They just did their 100th day celebration and there was writing all over the place (by published writers and the kids themselves) that was non-narrative.
Agreed.
NO NO NO. Please don't bring the tests into this as a reason to do more non-narrative texts!
The tests are the problem, not the texts.
Okay. I hope this is not construed yet again as too far from the books, but I wanted to respond to Betty's interesting comments from my classroom teacher's perspective.
Monica
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Tue 06 Mar 2001 11:55:08 PM CST
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 05:55:08 +0000
I hope that I'm not going too far away from the discussion of the Sibert winners, but I found Betty Carter's comments very interesting and would like to respond based on my work with 4th graders and various kinds of texts. Sorry in advance for the length of this.
Betty writes, "
"
I wonder about this final sentence. I may have misunderstood it, but I would question that the attraction of narrative over other kinds of information-giving is the result of story's dominance in children's lives.
Story, it seems to me, is something humans have used for eons. Stories are how most cultures keep their histories. I was thrilled years ago to read of a Canadian First People successfully using their stories (which had never been written down) to prove their claim to land in a court case.
Paley, Coles, Dyson, and others have written compellingly about the importance of story. Indeed, I wonder if it is something built into our genes (did that genome project get story in their work?)
A great interest of mine is the teaching and learning of history. I've done quite a bit of research on this and my impression is that narrative is very important in learning history. Not the only thing by any means, but probably the most important. I mostly use narrative in my teaching of history, but not always. For example, I used to teach a unit on the Constitution late in the school year. The focus was not on the story of its writing, which is traditionally how it is taught, but the document itself and what it has wrought, particularly in terms of civil rights.
(For anyone wanting to know about this unit see my article in the October/November 2000 Knowledge Quest at http://www.ala.org/aasl/kqweb/29_1_edingertext.html.) Can't get more non-narrative than the Constitution, let me tell you!
Betty writes:
I think the problem here is the focus on reading in schools without any underlying focus on content. Yesterday I had dinner with a friend who is supervising student teachers at a school here in NYC where there is a 2 1/2 hour literacy block every morning for grades K-5. Read alouds, guided reading, independent reading is what happens. What is missing, she indicated, was any content. The older kids, her student teachers noted, are bored.
Unfortunately, with elementary children the focus on reading instruction is on doing it to such a degree that those who oversee the instruction forget the content. When content other than story is considered it tends to be lumped all together as either "content area reading" or
"nonfiction." I put the latter in quotes because it is approached by many language arts specialists in just that way. Not by any specific content or more specifically, a particular sort of nonfiction. Just, nonfiction. Or if there is some sort of thematic or integrated unit the overriding focus is on narrative. And in the case of history, historical fiction
(which is why I think this fictional genre does need author notes, documentation, and the like --- sorry, Jonathan!)
I was a bit confused by Betty's citations of Jean Fritz, Brent Ashbranner, and Milton Meltzer as my impression is that they all write mostly in narrative.
Betty further writes:
I think that classroom teachers read aloud more non-narrative texts than is realized. I suppose not to 9th graders, but I doubt too many 9th graders are read aloud to at all, remedial included. However, I suspect many of them are quite familiar with non-narrative texts in their history and science classes. (I've worked with many middle and high school teachers who use all sorts of non-narrative texts to teach history.)
I agree here, but think it happens more than may be evident. In the media. On the web. It is there and used quite a bit, I think. Perhaps not in traditional print media and books, but elsewhere for kids more and more.
And again, I think this happens quite a lot. I bring a group of 4th graders to work in a kindergarten once a week which is full of non-narrative text. They just did their 100th day celebration and there was writing all over the place (by published writers and the kids themselves) that was non-narrative.
Agreed.
NO NO NO. Please don't bring the tests into this as a reason to do more non-narrative texts!
The tests are the problem, not the texts.
Okay. I hope this is not construed yet again as too far from the books, but I wanted to respond to Betty's interesting comments from my classroom teacher's perspective.
Monica
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
Received on Tue 06 Mar 2001 11:55:08 PM CST
