Last Saturday, I finally finished Nonfiction Matters, Reading, Writing, and Research in Grades 3-8 by Stephanie Harvey (1998, Stenhouse Publishers). I had a difficult time getting through it because it should have been titled Literary Nonfiction for Grades 3-6. This was the book I told Marcy that I would read for this PDU, but I did not find it as informative as some of the other books I have been reading.
The author wants to make nonfiction writing more entertaining so that it is not so boring to grade. Toward the end of her book she used the word “literary nonfiction” and I finally understood what she wanted. Literary nonfiction is not what I teach my science students to write, I do not want them to include their persona (voice) in their writing. Her bias toward literary writing was present throughout the book. She had many ideas that would work well for social studies, but not many for science.
It did not seem like Ms Harvey had much experience with middle school students, except for being the parent of one. She wrote that middle school students are usually too shy to ask questions – this is definitely not my experience. Most of her suggestions were for a self- contained classroom that taught all subjects, another indication that she has not taught middle school. With “No Child Left Behind” there are very few secondary teachers who are highly qualified to teach all subjects. We also do not have the flexibility to spend two hours a day on reading and writing, which is something that she proposes.
Harvey did have some strategies and ideas that I found helpful. She cited a project by an elementary teacher who collected editorials for students to read before they begin writing their own editorials, which is an idea I am expanding into a science magazine for my 8th graders. She has a good general outline / timeline for research projects (1st teacher gets the proper resources, 2nd teacher builds background information, 3rd students commit to a topic, 4th students conduct research and take notes, 5th students spend time writing, 6th students finalize their papers and work on visual aids, 7th students present their projects). She had interesting insights to writing with clarity and other topics.
Overall, I would not recommend this book to middle school teachers, especially science or math teachers, I think it would have more value to elementary teachers and secondary social studies teachers.
Kathy,
ReplyDeleteYou probably will want to skip checking out the her video that came right after they wrote this book. It is called Think Nonfiction and was filmed in my classroom. It is geared for elementary teachers which I think is where most of her experience is with when it comes to working with students.