Buckets of Ideas

While it was raining buckets and blowing like crazy last night, I finished reading Chapter 2: Establishing the Topic and Point. This chapter was jammed packed with great ideas, not just for teaching kids about composing nonfiction pieces but also for teacher-writers working at their own craft. I liked the way the authors explained how making a point in nonfiction writing has to be stronger than in narrative. They stated on page 23, "Children need to know that all good writing centers around a controlling point or a so what? that makes content meaningful, powerful, and memorable." I suppose I knew that, but I don't think I've been explicit with students about how narrative and nonfiction compare and contrast with each other. I think this will be critical knowledge for students as they manage Smarter Balanced Assessments.

Going Back to the Beginning

I feel like Chapter 1, The Value of Nonfiction: Imagining the Possibilities is a light and easy read. I appreciate that Dorfman and Cappelli repeatedly make the point that teachers who teach writers need to write themselves. I believe that this is true. I think it influences a teacher's comfort for picking mentor texts and using them in multiple ways. I also like how the authors weave tight connections between fiction and nonfiction reading and writing.  On page 4, the authors state, "We have found that fiction books can serve as mentors when writing informational and persuasive texts." This makes a lot of sense to me. They go on further to say, "Sometimes we need a fiction book to serve as a catalyst to write about a topic or to imitate the form, voice, or syntax of an author." Writing, whether fiction or nonfiction, is about audience, purpose, and form.

Late to the Party

So I waded through my spam folder and finally found the invitation to join our shared blog about Nonfiction Mentor Texts by Dorfman and Cappelli. I will admit that I haven't read as much as I had planned. In fact, I haven't touched the book in a few weeks. I initially spent some time perusing the table of contents wondering why I hadn't reached for this book sooner. Toward the end of the school year, I did some crisis reading from Chapter 6: Nonfiction Writing in the Real World. The section on Using Interviews to Create Family Histories caught my eye. One of the snippets included in the book was from a 2nd grader named Matthew. He wrote about how he thought his fingers were the best part of himself. I loved this snippet because it matched my thinking about my model lesson on having kids write about their hands.

The best part of me is my fingers. They are made of German skin. My fingers have a little hair on them. They get lots of cuts. My fingers love to hold my pencil and write all day. They love writing the answers to math questions with my pencil. My fingers remember gripping the ball I threw for the first time. After that I felt so good. My fingers wish to be playing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite in front of a huge audience. When I was done they would clap so loud it would hurt my ears. The best part of me is my fingers.  Matthew, Grade 2  (p. 150 from Nonfiction Mentor Texts by Dorfman and Cappelli.)