Chapter 10: Determining importance in text: The nonfiction connection

This chapter caught my attention because the first thing I thought about was: hm how do we, as teachers, emphasize the importance of nonfiction text to our students when they can not seem to find this type of text interesting. Give a student a library filled with nonfictional books and texts, and only one fictional book and they will most likely pick that fiction-text. why? Because it is more appealing to them, more interesting, more relate-able maybe? Well, chapter 10 explains the exact features that some nonfictional texts include in order to make these readings easier for them. Some of these features include: fonts, effects, such as titles, headings, boldface, colorful print, italics, bullets, captions, labels, signal words and phrases (in fact, in conclusion, most important, therefore, on the other hand, and more. These texts also often have illustrations and photographs which catch the eyes of the students. As the chapter mentions, trade books are filled with colorful pictures. Moreover, diagrams, cut-aways, overlays, tables, graphs and charts all help students interpret the information through different formats and for many, these are easier to understand rather than just looking at plain text. I know for my fourth grade students, the new books that they love to read are those "Diary of a Whimpy Kid" books and the reason why is because it does have so many illustrations in them and activities, puzzles, games, and journal sections that they get to fill out as they read along.
Now that we know how to get students to interpret nonfiction text better, how do we help students apply it and record their information. Well, chapter 10 mentions the idea of an FQR -- Facts, Questions, and Response "think sheet". According to chapter 10, the fact column will focus on what the child learned or important facts that were already prior knowledge. The questions column will highlight things that caused confusion during reading or information that the students had trouble understanding. And finally, the response section will be used as a reflection section where the students will record connections to other texts, or personal experiences. This break up is extremely effective; we actually use this in my classroom. It helps students organize their thoughts and ideas into sensible categories: what they know and important facts, any questions raised, and connections to real life. This strategy also helps students stay on task without being repetitive or boring. The students get a chance to explore the same content in three different ways. Making a text more appealing and easier to interpret will allow students to apply nonfictional text easier into larger ideas and conclusions.