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Re: Nonfiction
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From: Deborah Hopkinson <deborahhopkinson_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:03:20 -0800 (PST)
A few years ago I had the opportunity to present with Australian author Ton y Stead, who has written a lot about working with students on nonfiction co mprehension and writing. (I highly recommend Reality Checks: Teaching Readi ng Comprenhension with Nonfiction). He offers some great strategies th at turn the traditional "KWL" on its head and provide readers with a path to inquiry. I agree that picture books that illuminate even ts or mo ments from a person's life are wonderful ways to get young readers interest ed. But when I speak with kids I try to introduce a pretty strict defi nition of nonfiction: to me, when we put words in someone's mouth they didn 't say or tell about emotions where we have no source, then we are straying into fiction. So I consider almost all my "picture book biographies" to be historical fiction, because in almost all there are at least a few pa rts where there is imagined dialogue, even if we have adhered closely to fa cts throughout. (I think it would be fun to do a picture book with footnote s.) And in my longer nonfiction then I am equally careful to footnote ev erything. I guess I am straying a bit here, but the not ion of " creative nonfiction" has, I think, become a slippery slope in the adult g enre. There are now concentrations in creative nonfiction in universit y writing prgrams and memoirs are usually classified as nonfiction. I ca n' t think of books like Angela's Ashes as true nonfiction, though it an d recent memoirs are, I guess, considered, "ceative nonfiction." A0 It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1997; John Adams w on in 2002. Of course, the Pulitzer folks aren't asking me, but I don't thi nk the two categories belong together. Deborah Hopkinso n
________________________________ From: Kathy Isaacs
prin To: Cc: "ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu"
Sent: Monday, March 5, 2012 12:09 PM Subject: Re:
Nonfiction By necessity, an informational picture book is just a small slice of information about a subject. The best picture book biographies pick j ust a few moments from a person's life, moments that represent high points or moments that will spark interest in the child reader or listener and sen d them off to learn more. This is not so much to make them "superheros" as it is a necessary part of introducing a complex subject (animate or inanima te) in 32 or 48 pages.
Kathy Isaacs
On 3/5/2012 12: 50 PM, Cla udia Pearson wrote and I excerpted:
Most PB biographiesA0tend t o avoid the more difficult parts of the subjects' lives in order to ren de r them "superheros" and models of behavior and goal orientation. IMO, offer ing juxtaposing viewpoints necessitates an understanding of the way in whic h certain facts are chosen while others go unmentioned. How would you sugge st that a teacher approach these issues in the classroom?
Received on Mon 05 Mar 2012 01:03:20 PM CST
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:03:20 -0800 (PST)
A few years ago I had the opportunity to present with Australian author Ton y Stead, who has written a lot about working with students on nonfiction co mprehension and writing. (I highly recommend Reality Checks: Teaching Readi ng Comprenhension with Nonfiction). He offers some great strategies th at turn the traditional "KWL" on its head and provide readers with a path to inquiry. I agree that picture books that illuminate even ts or mo ments from a person's life are wonderful ways to get young readers interest ed. But when I speak with kids I try to introduce a pretty strict defi nition of nonfiction: to me, when we put words in someone's mouth they didn 't say or tell about emotions where we have no source, then we are straying into fiction. So I consider almost all my "picture book biographies" to be historical fiction, because in almost all there are at least a few pa rts where there is imagined dialogue, even if we have adhered closely to fa cts throughout. (I think it would be fun to do a picture book with footnote s.) And in my longer nonfiction then I am equally careful to footnote ev erything. I guess I am straying a bit here, but the not ion of " creative nonfiction" has, I think, become a slippery slope in the adult g enre. There are now concentrations in creative nonfiction in universit y writing prgrams and memoirs are usually classified as nonfiction. I ca n' t think of books like Angela's Ashes as true nonfiction, though it an d recent memoirs are, I guess, considered, "ceative nonfiction." A0 It won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1997; John Adams w on in 2002. Of course, the Pulitzer folks aren't asking me, but I don't thi nk the two categories belong together. Deborah Hopkinso n
________________________________ From: Kathy Isaacs
prin To: Cc: "ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu"
Sent: Monday, March 5, 2012 12:09 PM Subject: Re:
Nonfiction By necessity, an informational picture book is just a small slice of information about a subject. The best picture book biographies pick j ust a few moments from a person's life, moments that represent high points or moments that will spark interest in the child reader or listener and sen d them off to learn more. This is not so much to make them "superheros" as it is a necessary part of introducing a complex subject (animate or inanima te) in 32 or 48 pages.
Kathy Isaacs
On 3/5/2012 12: 50 PM, Cla udia Pearson wrote and I excerpted:
Most PB biographiesA0tend t o avoid the more difficult parts of the subjects' lives in order to ren de r them "superheros" and models of behavior and goal orientation. IMO, offer ing juxtaposing viewpoints necessitates an understanding of the way in whic h certain facts are chosen while others go unmentioned. How would you sugge st that a teacher approach these issues in the classroom?
Received on Mon 05 Mar 2012 01:03:20 PM CST
