Two things stood out to me in reading Aronson's essays about nonfiction. The first is the immense variety of nonfiction forms. This point was reinforced when I read Hannah's blog. Too often, we tend to think of nonfiction as a monolithic category of "true stuff." But in reality, nonfiction encompasses personal essays, memoir, journalism, literary nonfiction, creative nonfiction, and historical nonfiction. It appears in comic form (Maus and Persepolis, for example) and it can be lengthy or brief.
Connected with this point was my realization that nonfiction is basically the same as "primary source material." In other words, if I use a newspaper story in connection with a piece of fiction to help students get a better understanding of the time period in which a story is set...I am incorporating nonfiction texts into the class. If I teach the poetry of the Shoah (ie, I Never Saw Another Butterfly) I am not only teaching poetry. I am also teaching nonfiction, becaue those poems, as primary source material, can be read as nonfiction texts, in the sense that we can read them with the intention of learning something about their authors.
This was a major revelation for me. Nonfiction exists in places I never thought it did! Thinking about nonfiction, not just as history book texts, but also in terms of primary source material opens up a whole new world of teaching possibilities for me. In particular, I can think of ways to pair personal essays, poetry, and news articles with fiction to give greater depth to both the fiction AND the nonfiction.
I was also interested in Aronson's assertion that boys read nonfiction to learn how to do things. This got me thinking about "hands on" ways to use nonfiction in class. What about reading instructions and building something using them? And then having students write their own instructions for their classmates to follow? I think this kind of synthesis between reading, writing, and practical application could be powerful, not just for boys, but for any student who enjoys knowing how school applies to real life.
Blakely, I love your point about using nonfiction texts as primary source material! I agree that it is a great way to diversify the types of reading that our students are doing. If we think about the types of reading our students will be during as adults, I think we are doing them a disservice if we don't teach them how to read newspaper articles, magazine articles, opinion pieces, and the countless other kinds of nonfiction.
ReplyDeleteYour point about doing "hands on" things in class got me thinking a lot too. To me, that seems like a great way to navigate the question of which literacies we teach our students. If we were to expect that each and every one of our students would go to college and perform in a white-collar job that involves only abstract reasoning, then teaching them practical application of language would be futile. But if we consider the well-being of our students in practical terms, helping them achieve these important life skills seems right. Interesting post!!