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Non-Fiction: Trade vs. Formula Series
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From: Megan Schliesman <schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:55:37 -0500
Having recently worked with some teachers coming to the CCBC working specifically on Common Core as it relates to specific areas of the curriculum, I noticed that certain topics were ONLY served by series non-fiction--in other words, there weren't always trade books available on, say, "Rocks" or "Minerals." So I pulled series non-fiction examples of what we have on topics on their list so they could evaluate them and think about them in the context of other resources available to them, including online resources or textbooks. Because the cost of library-bound series in particular can be prohibitive, especially if you are looking at books for classroom use (rather than for the library), they needed to consider if the information provided in the books might be available elsewhere.
I also noted they were looking for informational books to fulfill different purposes. Their main purpose was in finding what they were referring to as "mentor" texts--books that a teacher would use read aloud, with the idea that over the course of a unit, the same book might be read to the class multiple times. Each reading would reveal new things to the students based on what they were learning about the subject, about reading, and about writing. (That's my summary, not necessarily theirs.) For that purpose, they were delighted by the wealth of trade literature from which they could choose, especially when it came to finding books that would make great elementary read-alouds. These non-fiction books which I think of as more "literary" or "artful" (Patrick McDonnell's "Me...Jane" is an example of one they greatly appreciated) lend themselves to repeated reading and exploration because of those qualities.
But one area that they were looking at was finding books that could teach about the "parts" of a non-fiction text: table of contents, index, glossary, etc.. And when it came to books for elementary age--especially the lower grades--I said my guess is they would find the series/formulaic books might better serve their purpose than the more literary non-fiction--which can be all over the place in terms of whether or not those traditional "components" of a non-fiction text are included. A straightforward informational trade book is likely to include, but so many are not straightforward in the way they present and explore topics. I think of the books of Steve Jenkins, for example. I recommend them all the time, but they wouldn't be the first books I turn to to teach the "parts" of non-fiction.
Finally, something we haven't discussed--diverging from the trade vs. series point--is non-fiction that non-fiction, in the strictest sense of the word because of the creative license an authors takes, and the value such books can have in teaching students to look critically at all kinds of texts. For example, Ellen Levine's "Henry's Freedom Box" is based on the account of how Henry Brown mailed himself out of slavery to freedom. But there is no sense that the dialogue in the book are actual conversations that took place. A book like this that tells a compelling story in an engaging, emotionally powerful way can become part of how we teach children to evaluate what they read for to understand authorial intent and how they achieved their goals, and to understand as part of that where fact end and fictions begins.
And, quite frankly, I think that is an essential component of comprehension that we teach children and teens in this web-connected world where as much misinformation as information is spread so very quickly.
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Wed 28 Mar 2012 09:55:37 AM CDT
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:55:37 -0500
Having recently worked with some teachers coming to the CCBC working specifically on Common Core as it relates to specific areas of the curriculum, I noticed that certain topics were ONLY served by series non-fiction--in other words, there weren't always trade books available on, say, "Rocks" or "Minerals." So I pulled series non-fiction examples of what we have on topics on their list so they could evaluate them and think about them in the context of other resources available to them, including online resources or textbooks. Because the cost of library-bound series in particular can be prohibitive, especially if you are looking at books for classroom use (rather than for the library), they needed to consider if the information provided in the books might be available elsewhere.
I also noted they were looking for informational books to fulfill different purposes. Their main purpose was in finding what they were referring to as "mentor" texts--books that a teacher would use read aloud, with the idea that over the course of a unit, the same book might be read to the class multiple times. Each reading would reveal new things to the students based on what they were learning about the subject, about reading, and about writing. (That's my summary, not necessarily theirs.) For that purpose, they were delighted by the wealth of trade literature from which they could choose, especially when it came to finding books that would make great elementary read-alouds. These non-fiction books which I think of as more "literary" or "artful" (Patrick McDonnell's "Me...Jane" is an example of one they greatly appreciated) lend themselves to repeated reading and exploration because of those qualities.
But one area that they were looking at was finding books that could teach about the "parts" of a non-fiction text: table of contents, index, glossary, etc.. And when it came to books for elementary age--especially the lower grades--I said my guess is they would find the series/formulaic books might better serve their purpose than the more literary non-fiction--which can be all over the place in terms of whether or not those traditional "components" of a non-fiction text are included. A straightforward informational trade book is likely to include, but so many are not straightforward in the way they present and explore topics. I think of the books of Steve Jenkins, for example. I recommend them all the time, but they wouldn't be the first books I turn to to teach the "parts" of non-fiction.
Finally, something we haven't discussed--diverging from the trade vs. series point--is non-fiction that non-fiction, in the strictest sense of the word because of the creative license an authors takes, and the value such books can have in teaching students to look critically at all kinds of texts. For example, Ellen Levine's "Henry's Freedom Box" is based on the account of how Henry Brown mailed himself out of slavery to freedom. But there is no sense that the dialogue in the book are actual conversations that took place. A book like this that tells a compelling story in an engaging, emotionally powerful way can become part of how we teach children to evaluate what they read for to understand authorial intent and how they achieved their goals, and to understand as part of that where fact end and fictions begins.
And, quite frankly, I think that is an essential component of comprehension that we teach children and teens in this web-connected world where as much misinformation as information is spread so very quickly.
Megan
-- Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison 600 N. Park Street, Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706
608/262-9503 schliesman_at_education.wisc.edu
www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/
Received on Wed 28 Mar 2012 09:55:37 AM CDT
