Posts filed under ‘nonfiction’
147. Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog by Pamela S. Turner
Retell: Everyday Hachiko accompanies his owner, Dr. Ueno to Shibuya Station and patiently awaits his return. When Dr. Ueno doesn’t return one day Hachiko continues to wait at the station…for ten years.
Topics: dogs, Japan, loss, loyalty, Tokyo
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Memoir
Tribes: mutual respect, appreciations/no put downs
Habits of Mind: persistence
Writing Skills: using imagery, describing setting details
My Thoughts: A colleague of mine gave me this book as a gift knowing my connection with Japan. I taught in Japan for three years. Last summer when I visited Japan again I took a trip to Shibuya Station and learned about the story of Hachiko.
I’m not sure if I’d be able to read this book out loud to my class without crying, or making someone else cry. It’s such a beautiful book though. I can see using this as a mentor text for showing how writers describe the setting. Many of my students have difficulty describing anything but the weather. This text shows how a writer takes time to describe the ‘action’ of the setting–the movement of the crowd, the clothes the people are wearing, etc.
143. Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
Retell: Through a worm’s diary the reader learns about the ups and downs of being an earthworm.
Topics: earthworms, diaries, composting, differences, predators, soil
Units of Study: Content Area, Nonfiction
Habits of Mind: Finding Humor
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, synthesis
My Thoughts: My class has just started a study on earthworms. Before read aloud each day we check on our worms working hard in our new worm compost bin. Students are bringing food scraps from their lunches (one student even brought coffee grounds from home). A colleague of mine referred me to this adorable book that allows readers to look at the world through the humorous perspective of a young earthworm. I think this book will make an excellent mentor text for students who are deciding to write narrative nonfiction pieces. It’s a great text for teaching readers to be on the look out for jokes and for teaching writers how to incorporate humor into their writing.
142. Heroes of the Revolution by David A. Adler
Retell: Heroes of the Revolution presents the stories of 12 people who risked their lives for American independence.
Topics: heroes, spies, bravery, independence, war, revolution, Ethan Allen, Crispus Attucks, Lydia Darragh, Nathan Hale, Molly Pitcher, Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere, Haym Salomon, Deborah Sampson, George Washington
Units: Content Area, Nonfiction
Habits of Mind: persisting, thinking flexibly
Reading Skills: interpretation, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: What makes this a great read aloud is that the stories of each hero are quite short. They make both great read aloud and shared reading texts. Adler attempts to include stories from people other than just the white male heroes. Throughout the book you not only learn about what made each person important but each story tells the origin of famous quotes associated with the Revolution. You will hear the origin of such famous quotes as: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” “Times that try men’s souls,” “I have not yet begun to fight!”
140. When the Shadbush Blooms by Carla Messinger with Susan Katz
Retell: A Lenape Indian girl describes how her family has worked, played and celebrated throughout the seasons and throughout the generations.
Topics: Lenni Lenape, generations, past, present, cycles, family, seasons, farming, nature
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content Area, Memoir
Tribes: mutual respect
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, interpretation, synthesis
My Thoughts: This is a great text to support a Social Studies unit on the Lenni Lenape. In this book, the illustrations really tell the story and support interpretation work. The narration is illustrated on the right hand pages: A modern Lenape family farms, weatherizes their house to prepare for winter, fishes for shad, and plays games in the snow. On the left hand pages, a Lenape family from the past do the same activities.
138. Jose! Born to Dance by Susanna Reich
Retell: This is the story of Jose Limon, who left his family to move to New York. Frustrated by his poor artistic talent he fell in love with dance and worked to become a famous dancer and choreographer.
Topics: dance, war, family, Mexico, immigration, art, music, English, Spanish, death, New York, California
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, appreciations/no put-downs, mutual respect
Habits of Mind: persisting
Reading Skills: synthesis, monitoring for sense, envisionment
Writing Skills: using sound effects, zooming in on a small moment
My Thoughts: This text has multiple teaching purposes. It’s a great text for introducing or reinforcing the habit of mind–persistence. There are many moments in the story when Jose persists. He struggles to learn English but persists despite his cruel classmates. He is determined to become a dancer and shows persistence each day during rehearsal despite sore, aching muscles. During the read aloud we can hope that students understand that successful people, no matter what their focus, work hard and persist, even when they face adversity.
135. Presidential Pets by Laura Driscoll
Retell: A history of presidents and their beloved pets.
Topics: pets, presidents, fun, friendship, dogs, Obama, Bo, family
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content Area
Reading Skills: synthesis, making connections, interpretation
Writing Skills: developing voice in nonfiction
My Thoughts: I picked this book up a few days ago at our school’s book fair. I have a lot of animal lovers in my class who only read nonfiction about animals. This book combines an interest in animals with an interest in presidential history and current events. It’s a nice book for demonstrating how readers can often get distracted by seductive details but must work constantly to think about what the author is trying to say about the topic.
132. The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
Retell: The story of the first Thanksgiving which addresses some former misconceptions.
Topics: Thanksgiving, Cape Cod, Plymouth Rock, Pawtuxets, slavery, Squanto, Puritans, Mayflower, survival, death, cooperation, farming
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: When I was a kid, I learned about how the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. They toiled through the winter and many people died. I learned how Squanto helped the Pilgrims plant corn, beans and squash and as a gesture of peace, the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sat together to celebrate the harvest. What I didn’t learn until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen is how Squanto came to learn English–he had been a slave in London. Several years before the Pilgrims arrival, Squanto had been tricked onto a boat headed for Spain. He was purchased by a merchant ship owner from London. Squanto eventually sailed back to the village that he had been stolen from only to find that his entire village had died from smallpox!
This book attempts to tell the story of the first Thanksgiving without glossing over the contributions of the Wampanoag and of Squanto. I plan on reading this during the few days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. I also think I want to reread it during our Social Issues unit.
131. Apple Country by Denise Willi
Retell: A look into the history of apple-growing in the United States.
Topics: apples, orchards, colonists, Johnny Appleseed, farmers, packing plants, processing plants
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area, Journalism
Reading Skills: determining importance, synthesis, monitoring for sense
My Thoughts: This is a great book for teaching students how to effectively read and synthesize text features. There are many text features within the book: a flowchart, an interview, a table, a map, illustrations with captions, etc. It’s a particularly nice read aloud for New York 4th graders because it ties in natural resources of New York State and Colonial history.
130. Planet Earth/Inside Out by Gail Gibbons
Retell: Gail Gibbons imagines what we would see if we looked inside the earth.
Topics: earth, gravity, ocean, Pangaea, equator, continents, earth model, fossils, plates, earthquakes, volcanoes, islands
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: We are wrapping up our Science unit on Earth Movements this Friday and I was looking for a text to end with. This book ties in a lot of subjects within this unit: the earth model, Pangaea, plate tectonics, faults, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. The illustrations, which contain clear and useful diagrams, help readers comprehend the text. However, in some parts, readers most add to the illustrations with details from their own mental picture and think about what is not in the illustrations.
123. Urban Roosts: Where Birds Nest in the City by Barbara Bush
Retell: Barbara Bush zooms in on gothic building structures, bridge towers and overpasses to describe the adaptations of birds who thrive in urban areas.
Topics: birds, pigeons, urban areas, cities, habitats, migration, camouflage, adaptation, roosts, crows, shelter
Units of Study: Content-Area, Nonfiction
Reading Skills: envisionment, questioning, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: I’m currently looking for books that will support the current Nonfiction unit. I considered reading this book immediately, but I think I’m going to save it for our Content-Area unit. During that unit we’ll be studying Food Chains and Habitats in Science making this book a perfect fit. Urban Roosts is a book that will encourage urban readers to reconsider the common pigeon, finch or crow–a great book for modeling envisionment in nonfiction.
Teachable Texts 