Nonfiction through Fiction: A Classroom Approach

A Classroom Approach When Teaching the Introduction of Nonfiction through Fiction

Michael J. Marotto, Ph.D

One of the most significant and comprehensive skill sets for the elementary teacher is the developing an understanding of nonfiction and fiction. Knowledge of these linguistically-based concepts is essential for pre-cognitive development at this stage of student learning because different subjects are connected through language. This linguistic connection is how students understand how the subject areas connect, and it allows teachers to assess their students. What follows is an outline of this strategy and suggestions for its implementation and assessment.

First, select a nonfiction text* that has descriptors and terms that are familiar to the students, and one that encourages a personal response from students that is stimulating. The text is then discussed and analyzed as a whole class, encouraging students to engage in discourse about the subject of the text.

The next step is what we like to call the What-Do-You-Think-Response: A student’s individual written account of what the class has discussed and analyzed. Following the written account, students share in small groups or partnerships what they have written. During this time, students are encouraged to take notes on the topic and can then edit and revise their individual work based on the discussion they have with their peers. Giving the students a few minutes to reflect on their work and conversation with peers will assist them in the editing and revising of their original thinking. Teachers should keep a record of what has been written to connect to future lessons and to use as an assessment.

Next, direct students to discover the three basic characteristics of the original nonfiction text. These can be identified as

1. It is factual

2. It has details

3. It maintains topic focus

Draw students’ attention to their piece and ask: Look at the piece you wrote, what does your piece contain? Does it have facts? Did you include details or descriptors? Did you stay on topic? This next question that is presented to students becomes the introductory bridge from nonfiction to fiction. The question asks students to discover what their piece contains that the original non-fiction selection does not contain? Their discovery at this stage of the process connects them to the importance of the readers’ awareness to what they are reading in defining its form (nonfiction or fiction). This activity can be done within their small groups, and their responses, after they have had time to reflect upon them, should be noted, displayed, and archived. Students should be directed to discover that their pieces contain individual perspectives, opinions, and points of view. All students began with the same piece, and, upon completion of the activity, ended with multiple responses. The students have experienced a preliminary understanding of fiction - a factual situation filtered through the writer’s experience.

What follows: Introduce students to a selected narrative piece. Before you present this fiction to the students, present them with a nonfiction text that relates to the topic of the narrative. Use the same process of analysis that they have just completed, as previously outlined. Use this opportunity to introduce and reinforce key terms for the analysis and discussion of fiction and their definitions. Begin with plot -- defined as a related sequence of events. It is necessary to restate key definitions and use synonyms to explain them. Ask: What are the facts or details that connect these events? How are the events related?

The objective is that students discover through this experience the pattern development of the relationship between fiction and nonfiction. This process of discovery allows for personalized learning and differentiation: break up the components of the lesson accordingly.

This strategy is intended to complement the units of study as outlined in the curriculum’s scope and sequence.

*We recommend that examples of nonfiction used in the implementation of this strategy are from texts designed to inform. We also recommend that the teacher writes her own nonfiction sample to direct words, phrases, details specifically to the lesson. In either case, the selection of a nonfiction paragraph is essential. See Recommended Reading.