Pupils read more nonfiction

New standards have teachers focusing less on literature

Missy Allgood, a sixth-grade language-arts teacher at Helen Tyson Middle School in Springdale, laughs with Maria Pineda on Thursday as they discuss the novel Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy. Allgood is one of several teachers who have combined reading and writing in the classroom to get students to understand and write about what they read.

Missy Allgood, a sixth-grade language-arts teacher at Helen Tyson Middle School in Springdale, laughs with Maria Pineda on Thursday as they discuss the novel Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy. Allgood is one of several teachers who have combined reading and writing in the classroom to get students to understand and write about what they read.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Bonnie Murray, a sixthgrade language-arts teacher, looked forward to studying The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens with her students.

Dickens’ story about Nell Trent and her grandfather presented students with challenging language and symbolism, said Murray, who teaches at Harrison Middle School. She tied Dickens’ story with two other novels that also focus on the death of a child, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson and A Taste of Blackberries by Doris Buchanan Smith.

This year, she was disappointed that an increasedemphasis on “informational text” meant she would not have enough time for her unit on Dickens. Instead, she added a unit on Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie that already included roughly the right mix of fiction and nonfiction.

In addition to reading the story written in 1904 and watching a 2003 movie based on the tale, Murray assigned her students to read nonfiction articles about the Barrie, the reasons he wrote the story and the lasting effects of the novel, which was adapted into a play and movies.

“This was fun,” Murray said. “It was something new.”

Lessons in English language arts traditionally havefocused on the narrative stories of literature, especially for young elementary pupils. Stories still have a prominent place in the classroom, but teachers increasingly are devoting more time to books and magazine articles about facts or a person’s point of view.

Teachers are changing their lesson plans because of new standards that require “informational text” to comprise half of what students read and write in kindergarten through fifth grade The other half is to focus on literature. Literacy classes in sixth through 12th grade gradually will increase that percentage of “informational text” to 70 percent, said Dana Breitweiser, literacyspecialist for the Arkansas Department of Education.

“I certainly don’t think it undermines reading for pleasure,” Breitweiser said. “We want students to go beyond that.”

The new standards, known as the Common Core State Standards, focus attention on ensuring students will succeed in college courses and in the workforce, Breitweiser said.

“If you’re in the workplace, depending on what your job is, you’re going to know the language of whatever job you’re working at,” Breitweiser said. “You have to be able to tackle those kinds of texts.”

‘DIFFERENT STRATEGY’

Literature consists of poetry, drama, short stories and novels, according to Common Core State Standards documents. Informational text includes biographies, books and electronic information about history or science, technical documents with directions, and information from charts or maps. The category also includes literary nonfiction, such as opinion pieces, memoirs and speeches.

Murray estimated that her students are spending 40 percent to 50 percent of their time reading and writing about nonfiction during class, as well as reading a nonfiction article every week or two from sources such as National Geographic or theSmithsonian magazine, she said. She keeps the articles to about six pages, because students tend to lose interest in pieces that are overly long and technical.

“Reading nonfiction is a totally different strategy than reading fiction,” Murray said. “Students have a harder time with nonfiction.”

In class, she instructs students to annotate the nonfiction articles they read, she said. They underline words and phrases they do not understand and write notes when the pieces remind them of related bits of information.

“It helps them understand what the article is about,” she said.

At Helen Tyson Middle School in Springdale, sixthgrade language-arts teacher Missy Allgood said she has incorporated informational text in studying themes, such asslavery. About the time socialstudies classes were studying the Civil War and Reconstruction early in the school year, Allgood’s students began reading about Harriet Tubman, a black woman born into slavery who freed herself and led hundreds of slaves to freedom.

Allgood coupled the story of Tubman with another book, Iqbal by Italian author Francesco D’Adamo. Iqbal is historical fiction based on the true story of a Pakistani boy who was sold into slavery at age 4, escaped when he was 10 and spent two years trying to free other children working in slave shops.

The boy, Iqbal Masih, was 12 when he received the 1994 Reebok Human Rights Youth in Action award.

Through the story, students learned that slavery remains a current issue, Allgood said. They also saw a realhero apart from the superheroes they find in cartoons and video games.

“It was a real kid their age who made a big difference in the world,” Allgood said. “It opened our kids’ eyes to a part of life they don’t know anything about.”

PARALLEL LESSONS

Allgood’s language-arts classes are reading Escape from Saigon: How a Vietnam War Orphan Became an American Boy by Andrea Warren. The story focuses on a 5-yearold Vietnamese boy who was brought to the United States during the Vietnam War.

Through the story, the sixth-graders are learning about the Vietnam War and the child’s story, she said.

At Fort Smith elementary schools, literacy specialists have observed reading lessons that focus on prominent people in history andauthors.

One elementary class read Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and then wrote similar speeches reflecting on what they would like to see change, said Ami Griggs, a literacy-instructional facilitator for elementary campuses in the Fort Smith School District.

Another class read Mr. Faulkner by Patricia Polako, said Britney Ballin, also a literacy-instructional facilitator for elementary campuses in Fort Smith. In the story, Mr. Faulkner helps a child who struggles learning how to read. When they read about Polako, they learned that she struggled with reading and that her story was based on her experiences.

“They can take personal things that have happened to them and relate that to their own writing,” Ballin said.

The emphasis on informational text in the new state standards fits with the barrage of information children and adults encounter, whether they are reading posts on Facebook, watching videos on YouTube, reading magazines or cereal boxes, said Lucia Turner, literacy-instructional facilitator for Fort Smith School District.

“You may choose to read Harry Potter,” Turner said. “That’s a small percentage of what you are reading throughout the day.”

As children grow up, they must learn to interpret all the information around them and decide whether what they are reading is true or slanted, Ballin said.

“We are living in an information-based society,” Ballin said. “They have to be able to process this information and understand it before they make decisions. This is absolutely essential.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 12/09/2012