Fiction vs. Non-fiction

For most of this first grade year we have been reading and writing fiction.  We have studied small moments, the fiction of author Kevin Henkes and even tried our hand at writing our own fictional stories.  Now at the halfway point in the school year, we are going to switch, and read and write non-fiction.  As part of the new study we are reorganizing our genre library to include more non-fiction choices.  We have divided our individual books into fiction and non-fiction, packed up some of the fiction and added more non-fiction choices.  We have had some wonderful discussions on how to know if a book is fiction or non-fiction! What we have discovered is there are so many "hybrid" books!

"How to" Be SNEAKY

I have had children write about lots of different topics during procedural writing over the years, but "being sneaky" is a first! The assignment started with children writing a list of at least three things that they thought they were good at and could teach others. Joe (not his real name) listed three things that he thought he did especially well and decided to write about being sneaky. When the teacher tried to discourage him, he said, "but I'm really good at being sneaky!" So she let him go and noticed that he was engaged for the entire Writers' Workshop! Enjoy!
How to Be Sneaky 12-8-10

First I check to see if my Daddy is sleeping. If he is sleeping I go out of my bedroom. I find my DSI. I quickly turn my DSI on. Then I play. If my Dad wakes up, I shut my DSI off. I go to my bedroom. I wait for my Dad to go to sleep.

 

Check out these other first grade "how to" papers.

Nonfiction Conventions

One of the things that we teach first graders about nonfiction is the conventions that are specific to the genre. The Mall-ards standard-based bulletin board this month is a great example of the Nonfiction Conventions Notebook that each student created with a definition of each convention and an example. Each example was created after a mini-lesson that investigated the convention by the teacher showing examples and then the students finding examples in non-fiction books. Enjoy the results below.

Video streaming: Readers' Workshop

Duval County is very fortunate to have a professional development site called the Schultz Center in Jacksonville. All of the county's professional development runs through this state-of-the- art facility. One of the most popular Schultz courses is Literacy 101 which gives teachers a background in Readers' and Writers' Workshop. For three year Chets Creek has had an agreement with the Schultz Center to provide live demonstration lessons through video streaming. Literacy 101 drops into Chets Creek classes and watches a specific lesson. After teachers at the Schultz Center watch, the teachers teaching the lesson debrief from Chets Creek. This is real time observation and sharing.

Today Literacy 101 dropped into Haley Alvarado and Meredy Mackiewicz' co-taught kindergarten Readers' Workshop.

The lesson began with a musical introduction to the Readers' Workshop using Jack Hartman's Ready to Read.

The mini-lesson was the perfect 4-parts (from Lucy Calkins The Art of Teaching Reading) lasting about 12 minutes:

1. Connection - The teachers began by connecting today's lesson with yesterday's lesson. Yesterday the children looked at a familiar fiction book (Goldilocks and the Three Bears) and compared it with a non-fiction book. The class began a chart of non-fiction features that the teachers quickly reviewed today.

2. Teach - The teaching focus for today's lesson was to add to the non-fiction list, so the teachers showed the students some features that were in a non-fiction text that they would not see in their familiar fiction books.

3. Active Involvement - For the active involvement the teachers had the kindergartners turn and talk ( Can you believe it? Kindergartners turning and talking after 7 weeks of school?!) about the non-fiction features that they had noticed. After a few minutes of talking with partners, the kindergartners returned to the group and "shared out" what they noticed. The teachers added to the list.
4. Link - To link the lesson to the independent reading which followed the mini-lesson, the teachers put a sticky note at each child's place so that they could put the sticky note on any page where they noticed a non-fiction text feature.

As the children transitioned to the independent work period the teachers stopped to debrief their lesson with the Schultz teachers. Some of the debrief was around the lesson but much of the conversation was centered around the positive discipline that Haley and Meredy use in their classroom and that the teachers had seen demonstrated during the viewing.  

After the camera was moved out of the room, the children continued reading until Haley and Meredy were ready to close. At Closing the children shared their sticky notes of the non-fiction text features that they had noticed in their independent reading. 

Video streaming is an excellent tool for teachers in a professional development class because they have the opportunity to see real teaching as it happens with a chance to ask questions of the teachers. It's also good for our teachers because it gives them a chance to share their learning - to make a difference. It's a win-win for us all!