Everybody loves a good story: including kids. That’s why the Harry Potter series and other fiction books are so popular. But will students love reading and writing when the subject is non-fiction? That’s the challenge for teachers as New York State begins phasing in new national standards. One Lower East Side middle school is getting an early start.
Eighth-grader Anna Gonzalez knows what it takes for a book to capture her interest. "I like to read realistic fiction," she says. "That’s really my type of book."
Anna is currently reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It’s an absolutely fictional story about a Native American teenager, written as though it’s real. Anna and her classmates at the University Neighborhood Middle School are allowed to pick their own books for part of their reading assignments. Here’s what Anna won’t be choosing: "I don’t like science books, science fiction and stuff like that. I don’t like those kinds of books."
How about history books?
"Nope. Don’t like those either," she states. "They gotta be interesting for me. Certain ones maybe."
That response is typical, says humanities teacher Mike Locker. He’s heard kids tell him on the first day of school that they don’t like history -- or even reading. "You get kids who don’t feel successful at things and then they start to identify as not being that kind of person," he explains. "I think our job as teachers is to prove to them and show them that they are that kind of person."
One way Locker does that is by assigning essays that require a bit of research, forcing students to branch out into non-fiction. During his two-hour long classes, he meets with each student individually about their reading and writing assignments.
"You’re writing about bullying, right?" he says to 14 year-old Kathy Cruz. "It’s probably going to be hard to find people who, like, think bullying is good. Know what I mean? So we have to find a controversial angle," he tells the girl.
Locker’s students are writing editorials. They can’t just state their opinions; they have to use research to back up every argument. Kathy looks up articles about bullying on a laptop computer with Locker's assistance.
"When Mr. Locker first told us I was like, ‘wow, we have to do a lot of writing now,’" she says, as she looks over a list of articles on Google. "But then once I got into the researching and everything like, when I want to do something I do it. Like, when I read about all this I just wanted to write."
But while Kathy felt newly inspired, her classmate, Gabriel Arjara, was feeling overwhelmed about his assignment. "It takes a long time!" he exclaimed.
Gabriel is trying to back up his argument that it’s a bad idea to lengthen the school day. "It takes a lot of research. And it’s the beginning of the year so it kind of a shock that we’re going to be writing essays right in the beginning of the year."
Argumentative writing is already part of the middle school curriculum. But Gabriel’s principal, Laura Peynado, says Gabriel is sensing a change. "What he noticed is that the academic focus has been shifted," she says.
Peynado’s teachers are assigning more editorials this year because the state is phasing in new national standards, which put a greater emphasis on non-fiction. Yuet Chu leads a network of 23 city schools including University Neighborhood Middle School. She notes that various researchers have found American students read texts that are too easy. This leaves them unprepared for the more complex skills they need later.
"Whether it’s applying for a job or applying for college," she says. "Or trying to get even a part-time job and being able to articulate not just verbally but communicating in print in different way."
The new standards don’t kick in for a couple of years but Chu says the schools in her network wanted to get an early start. At University Neighborhood Middle School, teachers voted to have planning meetings instead of lunch room or hall duty. The humanities team meets twice a week to go over the new standards, and to read about what expert teachers have tried.
The teachers know their challenge will be adapting these new lessons to students with a wide range of reading and writing abilities. And adding more non-fiction marks a shift after years in which they were encouraged to excite their students with creative storytelling (an approach called balanced literacy). At University Neighborhood Middle School, reading specialist Reena Shah says nobody’s throwing out the poetry. But she says there’s room for more informational texts along with narrative fiction.
"Narrative can be narrative non-fiction," she says, citing examples. "So it can be personal essay, it can be memoir. So I think it’s a lot in how we’re interpreting the standards as well."
Math and reading scores at University Neighborhood Middle School are below the citywide average -- though its students have been making steady progress. Teachers say the best way to continue that trend is to gradually introduce the new standards.
Twelve year-old Alexandria Serrata is already discovering some new non-fiction in her 8th grade humanities class. She wants to run for class president, so she’s reading a book called The Elements of Speech Writing and Public Speaking. She’s stuck post-it notes wherever she sees something interesting.
"I’ve got one idea that, like, when you’re reading to teens or pre-teens you need to read quicker than normal because they tend to get tired and more distracted," she says.
That’s something her teachers will also be very much aware of as they include more non-fiction in their classrooms.
Comments [7]
Do those who are against adding more non fiction read non fiction?
With so much being added to the requirements of teaching, we are losing focus on the learning. True learning is not about covering information (a zero sum game where adding in new requirements means leaving out others), but uncovering ideas, strategies, and passions the unite knowledge and information.
We need to focus on what students are and can do with all of this knowledge we throw at them. Rather than being consumers of informations, students need to be producers of information. Research shows that making/teaching/creating things may not have a marked improvement on students scores on the next immediate text, but has a much larger impact on future retention and application of the same knowledge.
Check out how one teacher has students learn to better read non-fiction by CREATING non-fiction. An not at the expense of fiction, imagination, and creativity. http://bit.ly/afhsZL
This report doesn't mention that studies show that boys, in particular, often prefer nonfiction (and are therefore often turned off even by suggested reading in fiction-o-centric English classes.) And that this new push for more complex reading and writing is not of concern merely to English teachers, but relates to all content areas, across the curriculum. [I'm responding here to Beth's report above and her interview Weds. morning with The Takeaway folks.]
As someone with 16 yrs. experience teaching writing in the CUNY system and 5 years as a high school librarian, I can tell you that there's no way that middle and high school English teachers are going to turn kids into good writers by themselves. If we really want to do this, we're going to have to have fully staffed (community volunteers?) Writing Centers in all our schools, well-stocked school libraries that provide high quality young adult nonfiction--at a range of reading levels--on history, social issues, and science, and qualified librarians who teach kids both how to assess the quality of what they find on Google and how to do more complex searches on the print databases that NY State provides to all the schools for free.
Having kids in middle school write persuasive essays on controversial topics WITHOUT these supports--in-depth, enjoyable and comprehensible (for a 12 year old) reading about the topic, knowledge of how to find and evaluate additional sources efficiently, and adult help at EVERY STAGE of a many-draft writing process--merely moves mediocre (or plagiarized) 5-paragraph essays down the line a few years. And I read plenty of them at CCNY and Lehman.
Beth, when you do these reports on literacy in the schools, why is it that you never seem to talk to a librarian? English teachers see the final handed in draft. We see how the kids actually do the research (often last minute, just enough to satisfy minimal requirements.) We also try to nurture kids as readers who choose their own books, whether graphic novels, vampires or weird science. And in a push to get kids to read more demanding nonfiction than textbooks (or a quick screen or two of Google), librarians are on the frontlines.
I am so sorry to read this. The shift to test based evaluations which are necessarily inadequate because the ease of evaluation trumps the value to students continues to grow in our country.
To change students attitudes and value system requires the fictional approach as well as the factual approach. Fiction changes attitudes and values -- we continue to destroy our children.
I see nonfiction as the literary form of our time--with some great nonfiction writers, like David McCullough and James Ellis writing history, and Timothy Ferris and Carl Zimmer explaining science. Walter Isaacson dips into both fields, as does Bill Bryson, who is always a delight. These contemporaries and others are explaining our times. But most school nonfiction reading comes in snippets and seems to assume that nonfiction can't be literature or compelling reading. That's a big mistake in this information age.
Schools need to read the Common Core Standards closely. The increase in nonfiction reading and writing is over all subject areas, not just English. The Common Core wants history and science teachers to bring the nonfiction texts and writing assignments into their classes, not for English teachers to drop most fiction. Please see page 5 of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. This new understanding of literacy is right there in the title.
In the 21st century, all teachers are reading/writing teachers.
It is a shame that schools are responding to the Common Core State Standards by calling for more nonfiction. What matters is the quality of the work and the closeness of the reading. Literature is every bit as challenging as nonfiction, often more so, and every bit as important.
If schools persist with their emphasis on strategy instruction and group work, there will be little room for close reading of difficult texts, fiction or nonfiction. Schools would be much better off seeking out an excellent literature curriculum and restoring whole-class instruction to its proper place. You simply need whole class periods in order to discuss these works in depth and provide necessary background.
English class should focus mainly on literature. This should include some literary nonfiction--philosophical works, essays, and speeches. Other kinds of nonfiction texts can be read in history and science classes. English class should not have to take on everything--it should focus on works with memorable language and structures, works of beauty and significance, works that reward multiple readings.
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