Return to Course Fall 2023 rev3

 

A Murder of Crows (saw this outside my window - it must have been a MILE long)!

 

Housekeeping:

• Happy Halloween
• Rough Draft Workshops and Conferences 

 

Agenda:

Reading Non-Fiction for Fun What Teachers Need to Know About the "New" Nonfiction - Reading Rockets  Criteria for selecting nonfiction picture books Is the book visually appealing? Is the book accurate and authoritative? Is the writing style engaging? UNIT 13 ACTIVITY #1 Fun with Rubrics: LOLOL Extra Credit:  Wonder of the Real World  Thought Question:  Scholastic 5-Day Unit Plan for Introducing Non-Fiction  UNIT 13 Activity #2:  UNIT 13: Reading Wonder and Horror: WWII Texts:  BOMB THE RACE TO BUILD – AND STEAL – THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS WEAPON EXAMPLE UNIT:  Opening Questions: War and Narrative  Frames for Reading: Mapping the War World Map Activity Critical Literacy Reading Activity: Mapping Time  Discussion Questions: War and Genocide Unraveled  Close Reading Activity: Frames for Reading  DISCUSSION #2: GROUP QUIZ Quiz Questions: More Non-Fiction Resources:

 

 Reading Non-Fiction for Fun

 

Non-fiction reading has increased in popular culture, but it is not often associated with enjoyment (according to Chapter 14). What do you think? Have you ever read non-fiction for fun? CHOOSE ONE OF THESE BOOKS AND USE IT IN OUR ACTIVITIES THIS WEEK. 

 

• ECL Chapter 14

 

• Texts: 
• CHOOSE ONE: 
• Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear
• And Tango Makes Three  
• The Girl Who Thought in Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Gradin (2019)  
• Read: Bomb 

 

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What Teachers Need to Know About the "New" Nonfiction - Reading Rockets 

 

This is an excellent web page about using non-fiction for fun in the classroom by Sharon Ruth Gill. Notice how it includes the different aspects of your presentations (which means you are prepared to start sharing information with your peers)!

 

Let's look at the CRITERIA that Gill gives for choosing a good non-fiction picture book:

 

Criteria for selecting nonfiction picture books

Is the book visually appealing?

• Are the front and back covers appealing?
• Are the endpapers appealing? Do they contribute to the topic, theme, or tone of the book?
• Do the title page, dedication page, table of contents, and other pages contain illustrations?
• Is the typeface easy to read? Does the book use typefaces or text layout to highlight information? Does the choice of typeface contribute to the topic, theme, or tone of the book?
• Are the illustrations appealing?
• Is the text broken up with illustrations, sidebars, headings, white space, and other features?
• Are the illustrations and book design colorful? Do the colors contribute to the topic, theme, or tone of the book?
• Are borders used?

Is the book accurate and authoritative?

• Are consultants listed?
• Is information about the research process provided in introductory or endnotes, source notes, or bibliographies?
• Are there suggestions for further reading?
• Are supplemental materials such as glossaries and tables of important dates included?
• Do illustrations accurately depict the text?
• Are animals depicted accurately without anthropomorphism?
• Is the book a blend of fact and fiction? If so, is it clear which parts of the book are fact and which are fiction?

Is the writing style engaging?

• Does the author draw the reader in with an engaging lead?
• Are ideas logically ordered?
• Is the background knowledge of the reader considered? Are new ideas connected to what children already know?
• Is the language appropriate for the audience?
• Does the author write without condescension?
• Is the author able to explain difficult concepts clearly and simply?
• Does the author use an appropriate tone?
• Are there interactive elements that help involve the reader?
• Are new terms clearly explained, highlighted, and defined in a glossary?

 

This is GREAT COMPREHENSIVE list, but is this easy to utilize? Can you check ALL these criteria for every book you use? 

 

 

UNIT 13 ACTIVITY #1 Fun with Rubrics: LOLOL

 

You can use the different chapters in ECL as well as the criteria above and create a simplified 5-ROW rubric: 

 

CRITERIA	PRESENT	ABSENT
1. Insert criteria here...

 

Now use this rubric to evaluate one of our non-fiction picture books of your choice.

 

Have you ever felt a sense of wonder reading non-fiction for fun? Did any of these books evoke wonder? Use ONE of the strategies from ECL "Chapter 14" to help readers engage with a nonfiction book of your choice.   

 

 

Extra Credit: 

Create rubrics for other genres of children's and YA literature and use them to assess the books in your final unit. 

 

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Wonder of the Real World 

 

Non-fiction should introduce children to the wonder of the real world! Pictures and engaging text should draw students into the world of the book (the same way they draw students into imaginary worlds). 

 

Thought Question: 

Gill brings up a debate about mingling fiction and non-fiction. What do you think? Is accuracy or engagement more important? 

 

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Scholastic 5-Day Unit Plan for Introducing Non-Fiction 

 

What are some of the strengths of this unit plan? What are it's weaknesses? Do you think this approach will incite wonder or encourage students to engage with non-fiction? 

 

UNIT 13 Activity #2: 

Create a lesson plan that could teach the same lesson as one of the activities in scholastic, but in a way that will invite wonder or engagement with one of the non-fiction picture books from this week OR from your browsing project!

 

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UNIT 13: Reading Wonder and Horror: WWII

 

One way to engage students with non-fiction is to embed it in an across-the-curriculum unit that brings the events/material in the text to life. For example, there are myriad exciting and engaging texts about the Second World War. 

 

Texts: 

 

 

BOMB

THE RACE TO BUILD – AND STEAL – THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS WEAPON

In December of 1938, a chemist in a German laboratory made a shocking discovery: When placed next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. That simple discovery launched a scientific race that spanned three continents. In Great Britain and the United States, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community; in Norway, a commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, one brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at a remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story of the plotting, the risk-taking, the deceit, and genius that created the world’s most formidable weapon. This is the story of the atomic bomb. - Steve Sheinkin 

 

In late December 1938, German chemist Otto Hahn discovered that uranium atoms could be split, and just a few months later the race to build an atomic bomb was on.

 

The story unfolds in three parts, covering American attempts to build the bomb, how the Soviets tried to steal American designs and how the Americans tried to keep the Germans from building a bomb. It was the eve of World War II, and the fate of the world was at stake, “[b]ut how was a theoretical physicist supposed to save the world?” It’s a true spy thriller, ranging from the football stadium at the University of Chicago to the mountains of Norway, from the deserts of New Mexico to laboratories in East Tennessee, and all along the way spies in the United States were feeding sensitive information to the KGB. Groups of photographs are sprinkled throughout the volume, offering just enough visual support for the splendid character development in the writing, and thorough documentation is provided in the backmatter. It takes a lot of work to make a complicated subject clear and exciting, and from his prodigious research and storytelling skill, Sheinkin has created a nonfiction story young people will want to read.

 

A superb tale of an era and an effort that forever changed our world. - Kirkus Review 

 

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EXAMPLE UNIT: 

 

Opening Questions:

This is sometimes called the "backwards" approach - opening with the questions that you want students to consider and answer by the end of the unit. I would post these somewhere in the room and keep them at the top of whatever online space we created as a class for the unit.

 

1. What caused the Second World War?
1. How is it related to the First World War (or the Great War)? How is it different?
2. Who were the Allied Powers?
1. What united these nations in the war? 
3. Who were the Axis Powers?
1. What united these nations in the war?
2. What countries were occupied by the Axis during the war?  
4. How was this war shaped by technology?
1. What are some key moments in the war where technology changed the course of the war?
5. What was the Holocaust?
1. Who were the victims of the Holocaust?
2. How did the Holocaust start?
3. How did it end?
6. How did WWII expose the worst and best of a generation?  
7. How did WWII shape future historical events?
1. What were they?
2. Why?  

 

War and Narrative 

 

Perhaps more than any other human conflict, WWII is narrativized in the English-speaking world - it is the subject of countless films and documentaries, and it shapes our imaginations in the great fantasy epics from The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia  to Harry Potter and Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children. 

 

I would open a unit on World War II with one of these narratives from a WWII museum, like "Secret Agents, Secret Armies" at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, OR a narrative from Albert Marrin's Secret Armies introducing kids to an era where ordinary people did extraordinary and heinous things to fight fascism. 

 

 

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Frames for Reading: Mapping the War

 

Before students can understand historical non-fiction, they need context. After introducing the mystery and excitement of the narrative, I would create a room-wide context for the students (so that they would have physical markers for the war while they read the book.  

 

Most students are aware that there was a Second World War (thanks to movies and video games), and they likely have images and even a name or two that they can associate with it. However, I think most students struggle to anchor the war to a specific historical era. In order to make this historical context of the war tangible, I would bring in a giant world map and two long sheets of butcher's paper.

 

World Map Activity

 

This would answer questions 2 & 3. 

 

I would have students use colored pins to identify Allied and Axis powers and which countries were occupied by the Axis with occupation dates (I would write up the dates for younger students and just have them figure out where to post them). 

 

Then I would have students use Google Maps to locate major battles in WWII and look at satellite images of the sites. Afterwards, they would locate the battle on the map with a labeled pin.

 

Critical Literacy Reading Activity:

• Once students create a map of the war, I would have them use color-coded post-its to identify countries as Axis, Allied, and Occupied when they encountered them in their reading (in the book).
• Discussion Question: How does the location of the action here shape the situation? How does it help or limit the people involved? Why?  

 

Mapping Time 

 

This would answer the first and last questions. 

 

A sheet of butcher's paper would be used to create a timeline of the twentieth century with the decades marked off. I would give students two sets of things to post on this time line:

1. Photographs of people in period clothing (engaged in iconic activities, such as flappers doing the Charleston or Civil Rights Activists marching with Martin Luther King).
2. Historic Events (Women's Suffrage, Prohibition, Civil Rights...). 

 

Images and events from WWII would be included in this timeline to help students visually and temporally locate the war.   

 

Discussion Questions:

These discussion questions would open and conclude the unite. They would revolve around the way historical events leading up to the war shaped it (such as the Great War and Hitler's election). 

• For Bomb, we would specifically ask how the scientific advancements before the war led to the atomic bomb and how that later shaped post-war policies (and the Cold War).  

 

War and Genocide Unraveled 

 

This would cover questions 4, 5, and 6! 

 

The final timeline would cover the 1930s and 1940s. Students would use online resources to collect events and pictures to post on this timeline.

• The top of the timeline would include political events and battles
• The bottom of the timeline would include the events of the Holocaust (locating this within the war) 
• WWII in the Library of Congress 

 

Once students had mapped the major battles and events of World War Two, I would have students visit the Veterans' History Project and find individual soldiers and place those pictures beside the battles in which the soldiers fought (to put a face to events).  

• Veterans History Project 

 

Once students had mapped the major events of the Holocaust, I would have them retrieve resources from the Holocaust Museum website and post those images on the timeline.

• Remembering Survivors and Victims - Holocaust Museum Website

 

Close Reading Activity:

 

It's easy to lose the close reading and focus on critical literacy with non-fiction (because that seems to be its function). However, when non-fiction works as literature (not just a list of facts), it has literary elements that allow you to do things such as close reading activities with students.

 

Writing Prompt:

Short answer: 

Steve Sheinkin make the people in his narrative come alive! Who is your favorite historical figure in the book? How does Sheinkin bring this person alive? Does he use images or artifacts? How does his story make you feel like you know the person? Do images help?

 

Activity:

Now it's your turn to be Sheinkin. Write a non-fiction short story that brings a historical person from the war to life. Use material from the digital archives to support your story.   

 

 

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Frames for Reading 

Resources for teaching WWII:

• The War PBS - excellent "snapshot" activities and lesson plans included. 

 

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DISCUSSION #2: GROUP QUIZ

 

 

Quiz Questions:

Break into groups and post three possible quiz questions for Non-Fiction and Multicultural Children's Lit (this will be a DOUBLE quiz, due Friday). Post your questions on the bottom of the page. 

 

USE THE QUIZ PAGE FOR INFORMATION ON HOW TO WRITE QUIZ QUESTIONS.   

 

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More Non-Fiction Resources:

Nonfiction for Kids

The Nonfiction Reading Revolution

 

Icy edge of autumn!