Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are joining
together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas about supporting
young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli is also keeping
a weekly journal of her own Reading Workshop initiative. Find out more about
our project at our Reading Workshop homepage.
You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
Week #32
Leti's Search for Gold:
The Importance and Power of Non-Fiction
NOTE: Juli Kendall has been updating readers on the progress of her student
"Leti" for several months. This journal entry takes a closer look
at Leti's progress -- and the Reading Workshop's focus on non-fiction.
Look! Up in the sky, it's a well, actually you can't see her but she's
there. Finding her wings as a reader, Leti is taking off, flying high, and
she's doing it with historical fiction and nonfiction text.
Of all the readers in our Reading Workshop, Leti is the one most focused
on what fascinates her -- the California Gold Rush.
Why does she read nonfiction? "If schools are going to build a curriculum
that supports a lifetime of nonfiction reading, the place to begin is by
encouraging children to become avid learners and to bring their interests
into the classroom," says Lucy Calkins in The Art of Teaching Reading
(p. 440). That's what Leti is doing by reading about the Gold Rush,
bringing her interests into the classroom.
Nobody knows which genre has the edge, fiction or nonfiction, let alone
whether one might be more interesting to kids than the other. But we do
know that most of what we read in daily life is nonfiction.
Stephanie Harvey lists a number of ways to promote nonfiction reading in
Nonfiction Matters (p.70). With Leti's interest as a starting point,
we've used several of these ideas in our Reading Workshop. These four are
especially effective with our kids:
1. Reading nonfiction aloud.
2. Giving nonfiction book talks.
3. Studying the work of a particular author.
4. Forming nonfiction book clubs.
Even so, the California Gold Rush is an unusual topic for someone this age.
Where did it come from? Last year during History, Leti's class had a student
teacher who did an incredible job of teaching a unit about the Gold Rush.
That's when she became fascinated by this topic. "Passion is contagious,"
says Stephanie Harvey. "Teachers who share their passions develop learners
who want to explore theirs." (Nonfiction Matters, p. 11)
A gold rush of reading
So, now we're building a text set about the California Gold Rush in our
classroom. We got this idea from Nonfiction Matters. "Text sets
-- collections of published materials grouped around a subject, interest,
or theme -- are important secondary sources in inquiry-based classrooms.
Students as well as teachers can contribute to these collections, which
may include examples from a number of genres." (p. 94)
Hoping to develop some other interested readers, this particular text set
for the California Gold Rush is built around a topic of individual study.
"Kids develop their own text set or curatorial collection around their
inquiry topics and share them with interested classmates." (p. 96)
So far, the text set includes:
Rachel's Journal: The Story of a Pioneer Girl by Marissa Moss
Seeds of Hope: The Gold Rush Diary of Susanna Fairchild, California Territory,
1849 (Dear America)
California Gold Rush: A Guide to California in the 1850s by Julie
Ferris
Gold Fever! Tales from the California Gold Rush by Rosalyn Schauzer
California Gold Rush: Search for Treasure by Catherine Chambers
Striking It Rich: The Story of the California Gold Rush by Stephen
Krensky
To show how much help a bookstore can be, I found several of these titles
while on vacation. Bookshop
Santa Cruz , my favorite independent bookstore, is full of all kinds
of good things to read, but the best thing about it is the children's/young
adult section. It's not just huge but perfectly organized to find titles
easily. They even have a whole set of shelves full of books dedicated just
to Early California and the Gold Rush. It was a "gold mine" for
our growing text set.
Nonfiction reading is so important in middle school
Does this mean nonfiction reading can promote learning? In Reading Workshop,
we want our students to develop a good handle on nonfiction since it is
so important for successful content area reading in middle school. When
I looked through the purposes for reading nonfiction in Nonfiction Matters
(p. 70), they reminded me of why Leti reads:
To acquire information -- that's what she's doing as she reads more
and more.
To satisfy curiosity-she wants to find out how they found gold and
what it was like.
To understand our world more fully -- she visualizes herself living
near Sutter's Mill.
To understand new concepts and expand vocabulary -- constantly making
lists of new words, she uses context and questioning to help her understand.
To make connections to our lives and our learning, hobbies and interests
-- this is one of her hobbies, learning about the Gold Rush.
To write good nonfiction -- Writing Workshop allows her to learn
about this.
To have fun -- she really enjoys her books.
Speaking of Leti, did we mention the new interest in her reading life? A
book called The Trail of Tears landed in our Reading Workshop. By
Joseph Bruchac, it is the tragic story of the great Cherokee Nation, and
their chief John Ross. It begins in 1838 when they were forced to leave
their homeland and travel 1,200 miles to Oklahoma.
Even if the story proves interesting, there's no guarantee it will succeed.
She read the book quickly and incorporated it into the personal questioning
and vocabulary building activities that she uses to understand what she
reads. "I think I know why they called it the Trail of Tears,"
she said after finishing the book and talking with a friend. "They
were so sad that they cried that long, long way."
Meanwhile, questions linger. Will Leti's fascination with nonfiction last?
Well, who can say for sure, but keep on reading and soaring, Leti. We're
all for it!
See Juli's April curriculum map
Read Juli's next journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
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