What Is POV Doing in NF for

Younger Readers?

What Is a Fact?• Is Pluto a planet?

• Is marriage between a man and a woman?

• Is Iran building nuclear arms?

• Is the planet getting warmer, and is this caused by human actions?

• Is the individual mandate for health insurance constitutional?

Why Should Non Fiction Be New?

Don’t Facts Stay the Same?

In the 1960s when

Historians Rewrote American History

In the 21st Century when

Non Fiction is About Thinking and Change

Who We Are Influences How We See

That is NOT the same as

“it is all relative”

One Key: Objectivity

• Objectivity is an approach

• What is your evidence?

• Where does it come from?

• Are there other interpretations?

• Have you consulted experts?

• Do experts disagree?

Notice

Look at a book• Does it make its evidence apparent?

• Can you tell where the author got his/her information?

• Do you learn of other interpretations?

• Do you learn about the author’s research journey or reasons for writing the book?

Citation Is the Beginning, Not the End

• A source note tells you where an author found something

• An annotated note tells you what the author thinks about that source, or gives different sources with differing views

• This evidence trail is there for the engaged student to follow

• You are creating a library of questions, not answers

How Does the Familiar Look Different

When you add a different POV?

The CC Sequence:The genius of CC is how it builds

year to year: fiction • Kindergarten: discuss relationship of art

and text;

• 2nd grade: establish differences in POV in read alouds

• Compare versions of same tale (now using art/text and POV)

Onward and Upward

• 3rd grade: Differentiate reader’s POV from narrator or character

• Identify author’s POV as expressed in variety of books or series

• 4th grade: compare and contrast narrator POVs, such as first and third person

• 5th grade: describe how narrator’s POV influences how events are described

Same Sequence in NF

• Kindergarten: identify details in text

• With help, identify similarities and differences in two books on same subject

• 1st grade: compare and contrast two books on same subject

• 2nd grade: identify how author supports statements

Moving Forward• 3rd grade: differentiate reader’s POV from

author’s

• 4th grade: compare first and secondhand accounts of an event or topic

• 5th analyze multiple accounts of the same event – note similarities or differences

Notice in both fiction and NF

• Youngest children learn to observe details

• Then identify approach (who speaking, what evidence, how used)

• Then recognize POV

• Then compare and contrast POVs

I want to Take You Higher: Fiction

• 6th grade: explain how author develops POV of narrator or character

• 7th grade: compare a fictional account of person or place and NF account

• 8th grade: explore differences between POV of characters and reader – irony, suspense, humor

Higher and Higher: Fiction

• 9th grade: analyze an experience as described in a work from outside of the US

• 9-10: Analyze treatment of same subject across different artistic genres, such as art, music, text, film

• 11-12: analyze a case where recognizing POV requires distinguishing what is said from what is meant (satire, sarcasm, etc.)

I Want to Take You Higher: NF

• 6th Grade: Compare and contrast one author’s account of events with another’s

• 7th grade: Trace and evaluate an author’s argument

• 8th grade: Analyze two or more texts that present differing or opposing arguments

Higher and Higher: NF

• 9-10: Determine author’s POV in text and show how uses language (art, media) to advance that argument

• 11-12: Analyze effectiveness of structure author has used to make his/her case

• Note: of course this analysis also gives students tools to make different cases themselves

Summing up: NF Offers New Information

• Chronology -- time

• Location -- space

• Traits – characteristics

• Records: highest, most deadly, most home runs, etc.

• 4 of the famous 5: who, what, where, when

NF Offers New Ways of Thinking:

• Why?

• How does the author answer this?

• What techniques does the author use to explain, to make a case, to posit a theory, to reject other views, to convince readers?

Text Structures

• Before and after• Compare and contrast• If/then• Broad survey• Detailed look at single moment• Focus on individual -- biography• Focus on context – technology, ideas,

beliefs, ecology, health, laws

How Can You Alert Students to These Text Structures?

• Within a book – Use Sample Chapter of Master of Deceit for example:

http://bit.ly/PYvrVC

• Between books – “cluster”

Clustering Turns a School or Classroom Library Into

Here’s How

Elementary School

• Pluto

Display, Shelf Talker, Classroom Discussion

• Why does this book say X and that say Y?

• Is one right and the other wrong?

• Can there be different rights and wrongs?

• Why can NF books arrive at distinct answers?

• Why can they treat the same subject in different ways?

Dinos

This Is Not Just New Facts

• It is new interpretations

• New POVs

• Based on evidence

• Making contentions

• Testing ideas and observations

• Challenging other views

The More Students

• See the debate, the argument among books

• The different approaches taken by authors

• The kinds of evidence and argument used to make a case

The Better They Will Do

• On the kinds of questions we saw earlier

• In their own research papers and presentations

Middle Grade

On and On

Some Prehumans Feasted on Bark Instead of GrassesBy JOHN NOBLE WILFORD (NYTimes, June 27, 2012)

“Almost two million years after their last meals, two member

of a prehuman species in southern Africa left traces in their

teeth of what they had eaten then, as well as over a lifetime

of foraging. Scientists were surprised to find that these

hominins apparently lived almost exclusively on a dies of

leaves, fruits, wood and bark.”

And On and On

• Prof. Mike Parker Pearson, of Sheffield University, said during Stonehenge’s Main Period of Construction from 3,000 to 2,500 BC. There was a “growing island-wild culture developing in Britain.”

 • He added: “Stonehenge itself was a massive

undertaking, requiring the labor of thousands to move stones from as far away as West Wales, shaping them and erecting them, just the work itself, requiring everyone literally to pull together, would have been an act of unification.”

Knowledge Unfolds

• We need to prepare our students to learn as knowledge changes

• We do that by shifting from only feeding them “settled” answers to showing them how answers are arrived at; why and how authors arrive at different answers

Two Bios, One Man

Two Genres, One Subject

Voice

Disagreement Is Healthy

• So long as it is fair-minded, based on evidence, open to question, alert to possible alternative views

High School

• Many YA novels are in multiple voices

• Treat YA NF the same way – what is this NF voice saying, what is that one saying, how can we understand what they are doing, and juxtapose their approaches and answers.

Our Goal

• Help students see NF as alive

• Not dead facts

• But living process of inquiry

• Based on rules of fairness, evidence, and argument

CLUSTERING

The art of exploring a topic with related resources

Wrap-Up

Questions?