Information: The Secret Key

And Why You Are Bored Already

How Many of You Can Name a Picture Book You Love?

I Don’t Mean Like

I Mean Love

How Many of You Can Name a Novel You Love?

How Many of You Can Name a Nonfiction Book You Love?

• Excluding memoir, biography, cookbooks, and self-help? (and we won’t even mention that misbegotten creature, the textbook – carefully crafted to remove all passion and replace with it utility)

Question One:

• How can you encourage young people to love reading books you have no desire to read?

Or,

• What Are the Pleasures of Reading Nonfiction?

Because

• Before we speak about standards and objectives and strategies and rubrics we have to be honest.

• If focusing on nonfiction feels like a loss to you, a chore, a shift away from books you love to books you are required to pretend to like, the game is lost before it begins.

Estimated Shift

• From 80-20 Fiction – Nonfiction

• To 50-50

Out of One Word, Three Pleasures

“Information”

First Meaning

• Records

Names

Stats

Dress Sizes

Presidents in Order

Subway Stops

Lepidoptery

Information as Pleasure Because

• You own specific information

• You feel a sense of power in having it

• You are enlarged

• You are capable

• You can compete

• You have solid knowledge

• You can act in the world

Second Meaning:In Formation

Ranking

Organization

Timeline

Game Rules

Social Rules

Cause and Effect

Information as Pleasure Because

• You can make sense of the world

• You understand how things fit together

• There is an aesthetic beauty in getting something exactly right

• You have a sense of orderliness and satisfaction

• You can be a player – in all senses of the word

Third Meaning:In Formation

Ideas

Inquiries

Insights

Theories

Thinking Is Fun

• damental

Wonder, Discovery,

All this is great, but

• Aren’t you wondering about the missing word?

• The key to reading pleasure?

• The treasure of the library?

• Your all-time favorite?

• What ever happened to….

Story

What Is the Magic of Story?

• And how does that relate to Nonfiction?

This Is One Key Dividing Point

The Journey Begins

We Form a Band of Friends

We Have Adventures

We Arrive at a Satisfying End

The Two Great Pleasures of Story:

• We Are Taken Out of Ourselves

So We Can Learn More About Ourselves

This Dual Journey

• Out to go in

• Forget yourself to find yourself

• Is the essence of what many people believe reading has to offer

Nonfiction Is Full of Stories

And Yet

By Contrast

• What Is the Opposite of Fun Reading?

• What Is the Opposite of Pleasure Reading?

• What Is the Opposite of Story?

Tax Forms

Though to an

Model Building Instructions

Though to a Model Builder

Equations

Though to those who like math

Why Are These Not Fun?

• No affect; dry

Can Dry Be Good?

• What if You Like Facts Because They Are Pure and Make No Emotional Demands

Manuals

Specs

How-to (Fish)

Neither - Nor

There Is Pleasure Beyond Story

Story vs. Fact

• Imagine – the journey is interior: mind’s eye; envision; identify; exploration is private, discussed in public

• Act – do things in the real world; involve body; assert self; change the public world, no need to share internal process

Imagine and Share

Decide and Act

If I ask you:

• “Is There Anything More to Nonfiction than Names and Dates?”

• You will of course say,

Everything

And More

• In Nonfiction books you – the author and the reader – are the seeker:

What Does This Book Mean to Me?

• You do not IDENTIFY with a CHARACTER

• You ARE the ACTOR, THE SEEKER

• You develop your SKILL in the REAL WORLD

• You have the POWER of ACTION and KNOWLEDGE

The Key Difference

• In Fiction you are taken on a journey

• In nonfiction you gain tools to undertake your own journey

• You as librarians are the wizard, the magus, giving young people the handbooks for their quests; you give them the tools to act in the world.

The Gifts of Knowledge

• We are giving young people a way to grow

• To gain power

• To act in the world

• To take their place as informed thinkers

• And more because knowledge has no ending, we don’t know the answers, in fact

Behind Every Answer Lurks a New Question

I Will Open Those Doors

• In my breakout session,

• Right now we have a rather major question in front of us

All of This Is Fun But

• What Does It Have to Do with the Common Core Standards?

The Key to It All

• Remember the 3 meanings of Information?

• In the old view, Information was dead – like those butterflies.

• The new standards want you to help young people see information as alive – taking shape on the page in front of them, inviting them to think with the books.

Younger Ages: Finding

• The first meaning of “Information”

• Notice factual details

• Identify relationship between instance and theme

• Recognize book architecture: Title, author, TOC, backmatter, index

What Is the Defining Characteristic of Nonfiction for K-12 Readers?

It is Illustrated:

• Picture Books

Drawings and Paintings

Middle Grade

YA

Use the Same Skills You Have Mastered With Picture Books

• How do text and art work together?

• Do they?

• Captions

• Design

• Selection of images

• Angle of vision in drawings or paintings

• Visual literacy

Younger Ages: Judging

• Compare and contrast two books on the same (or closely similar) subject.

• Two biographies

• Two dino books

• Two moments in history books

• Two nature books

Younger Ages: Mapping an Argument

• As we get up towards 3rd grade, we enter the second meaning of In Formation

• Tracing how an author uses what we have seen before – details, narrative, book structure, illustration – to lead readers to an idea, insight, or conclusion

• Modeling: students see how to structure their own writing

Another Way to Think of NF Structure

• What is the difference between a

• List and an Argument

Just About NowYou are probably thinking:

• “I do all this already, what is the big deal?”

Congratulations!

• You do in fact know all of this already – which makes you really valuable to teachers, students, parents, the entire school community

• But

You Have to Advertise

• Make sure everyone knows what you know (that is, how to read nonfiction with young people)

• Do not wait for anyone to seek you out

• Show your stuff:

Displays

• Feature book elements (interesting cover, inventive TOC, useful backmatter)

• Draw attention to interesting unusual words – for example scientific terms, etymology

• Spectacular NF illustration

• Pair books – create clusters

• Contrast lists and arguments

A Big, Big 5 Display

• Newspapers, magazines, books, sites all use the 5 Question structure:

• “Who, What, When, Where, Why”• Have a huge Big 5 display calling on all

your resources• Have a Big 5 Event – where kids have to

each bring in an example – that they found or wrote – showing all 5 questions answered.

Instead of Story Time

• Host a “Get the Story” time

• Where there are hidden clues in the library – or held by librarians – and student reporters must find them, using the 5 Golden Keys

• See the shift from reception to action?

Crossing the Great Water – 5th Grade and Up

• Point of View

• “Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.” (5th grade standard)

When Information was Dead

• POV was meant to be invisible.

• “Just the facts,M’am.”

• Your task was to find reliable texts that did not undermine or infect truth with opinion.

When Information is Alive

• POV is everywhere• “What’s your angle?”• Your task is to find texts that are reliable

because they• Identify sources• Consider counter arguments• Can be questioned • Can be paired with other POVs

You Don’t Have to Be an Expert

• Just a good reader.

• The students needs to recognize POV not as a “gotcha” flaw, but rather as a necessary feature of all argument

• Comparing POVs is an invitation to the reader to weigh, evaluate, consider, and begin to form new ideas.

POV in NF is like

• Character in fiction – it is how one person (or set of people) sees things, buttressed by the evidence s/he presents, filtered through the challenges of other thinkers

Collaboration

• Your LA teachers are used to teaching the elements of fiction

• Your SS and science teachers are used to teaching content, critical thinking, and scientific method

• You need to bring all of them together

So Naturally by

6th Grade

• 1) “Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text.”

• 2) “Compare and contrast one author’s presentation of events with that of another.”

Do You See Information coming alive?

• Having voice, personality, style, cadence, rhythm, lilt

Author Study

• Books are not written by computers

• What is one author’s style versus another’s?

• What is similar in his/her books across subjects?

• What makes this a book by that author?

• What can readers expect from that author?

How Does an Author Use

• Language

• Structure

• Art

• To make nonfiction an immersive experience?

• A museum in a book.

By Recognizing Styles of Nonfiction

• You are beginning to show young people how to have Voice.

• There is as much choice in how you write nonfiction as fiction.

The One Slide You Must Remember

• In the past your role was to match the content needs of students and teachers: if it is 4th grade it must be New York history.

• Now your role is to match the reading and thinking needs of students and teachers: lets look at how two different New York history books tell the same story two different ways

Speaking of Comparison,By 7th Grade

• “Compare and contrast a text to an audio, video, or multimedia version of the text, analyzing each medium’s portrayal of the subject (e.g., how the delivery of a speech affects the impact of the words).”

Is There Anyone In This Building

• Who cannot picture a spectacular multimedia display showing

• Dr. King giving the “Dream” speech on a screen• A set of newspaper clippings from 1963• A photo essay on the March – and his later Poor

People’s March• A news article on Occupy Wall Street• What is similar, what is different, what is our

POV now?

Which Leads Us to 9-10th grade

• “Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g., Washington’s Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”), including how they address related themes and concepts.”

Ideas in Flight

• Now, because the student can

• Recognize relevant details

• Trace a sequence of arguments

• Identify a point of view

• Compare and contrast across different sources and types of media

• S/he can

In Formation 3

• Develop expertise

• Create new insights, ideas, and conclusions

• Evaluate the flood of new information

Which Is Precisely an 11th-12th Grade Standard

• “Synthesize information from a range of sources (e.g., texts, experiments, simulations) into a coherent understanding of a process, phenomenon, or concept, resolving conflicting information when possible.”

Big Finish: Think to yourself, can you identify:

• The Pleasures of Nonfiction• The three meanings of Information• How those fit the CC standards• How to advertise what you know already• How to use your existing skills to create

displays, bring together media, invent activities that make your library the CC hub of the school

• How to cross the great divide to POV• The one slide I told you to memorize

When You Can You Are Ready For the Really Big Start

• Direct links between experts, authors, and your students (Skype)

• Student created knowledge (National History Day; Memory Trail http://www.memorytrail.us/)

• Your school as part of an international network of students, authors, teachers, and experts in the field