“When you read fiction, you enter the author’s world. When you read nonfiction, the text & topic enters your world.”
-Kylene Beers (as quoted by @MaggieBRoberts on Twitter) Since the amount of information available to us today is greater than ever before in human history, the teaching of nonfiction has become a priority. As adults, most of what we read is nonfiction. Nell K. Duke led a landmark study that found in elementary schools, students spend an average of only 3.6 minutes a day with informational text. Our task is to teach our students how to sift through and think critically about the information they encounter in the world. This can be daunting when many of us look at our classroom libraries and realize that they do not reflect the 50/50 balance of fiction and nonfiction that the Common Core and New Jersey Student Learning Standards require. One way to add to our libraries without taking up any physical space is by using digital text bins. Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP) has a collection of digital texts available on their website (http://readingandwritingproject.org). This collection includes 29 topics ranging from Aliens to Wildfires. Digital texts include articles and videos, so this variety is reflected in the list. Additionally, the Two Writing Teachers blog has a post about digital bins that includes tips for building your own bins. The Lit Learn Act blog has a post about student engagement and digital bins. They even made a display with QR codes that link to digital texts. The task of teaching our students how to navigate the world of information can be challenging, but digital text bins can help us find enough nonfiction to supplement the informational texts in our classrooms.
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Lisa McCarthyReading Specialist and workshop enthusiast. The key is to keep it fun! Archives
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