Entry # 9

Fiction vs. Non-fiction

For this assignment I chose two texts from our district adopted reading program, Treasures.  The first text is a fictional story, Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann.   The second text is an excerpt from a Time for Kids magazine titled, “A Trip to the Emergency Room: Who works in the emergency room?”.   I chose to use my compare and contrast graphic organizer to help students identify how these two texts were similar and different.  

As a class we identified the following similarities between the two texts:   1) same theme – working together is better than working alone; 2) illustrations that helped us to understand the text; 3) sequence of events (story line – Officer Buckle and steps in visiting an ER – Time for Kids).  

We also identified some differences between the two texts.  Officer Buckle and Gloria is a fictional story meant to entertain.  It has story elements including characters, setting, plot – including problems and solutions, and an ending.  “ A Trip to the Emergency Room” is a non-fiction text meant to inform us.  It has non-fiction text features including captions to the pictures, headings, and subheadings.  

Both fiction and non-fiction texts have elements that can support the language needs of an ELL.  Fictional stories are similar in layout to storytelling which is a component of many cultures and most books that students have access to in early childhood and primary grades are fictional texts.  Non-fiction text features (pictures with captions, heading, subheading, graphs, etc) help direct student’s attention to important information.  These features also help organize a reader’s thoughts and learnings.  The shorter sections can help keep the attention of ELL.  

Fiction and Non-fiction texts can also be a challenge for English language learners.  As fictional texts get harder, pictures are no longer available to support learning.  The use of figurative language (idioms, similes, metaphors, puns, etc), as well as higher vocabulary such as synonyms and English slang (ain’t, gonna, etc) can be challenging for ELLs.  Fictional texts may not be as interesting to GAP populations of students such as struggling readers and boys.  Non-fiction texts can hold more of an interest, but are usually of a higher reading level.  The challenging vocabulary can inhibit a student’s decoding which inhibits gaining meaning of the text.  

Students of all ages and abilities need to be able to identify the differences between types of texts, so they can adjust what reading strategies to use to better understand what they are reading. 

Entry #8

I felt the videos showed many good teaching strategies for all students, not just ELLs. 

You could tell the teacher knows the content very well and is comfortable with the students.  She has obviously worked on creating a rapport with students and students feel comfortable in the class as well.  I saw many of the teaching strategies from this week’s readings present in these videos.  

The teacher set and reviewed learning objectives.  Objectives were written on the board and the teacher pointed to the words as she read them.  She also reviewed past learnings of reading strategies as a way to prime the students for the day’s lesson.  It was evident through the discussion and the Diary Board that these reading strategies had been explicitly taught and will continue to be reviewed and used throughout the year.  The teacher also used non-linguistic representations (pictures and drawings) to represent key vocabulary words the students needed to know.  I also liked the way she used synonyms to relate the new words to students.  She modeled her own thinking to show students that reading isn’t just about decoding words; it’s about making meaning from the words.  

The video concentrated a lot more on what the teacher was doing and less on what the students were doing.  I saw some student talk, but would have liked to see a lot more student talk (maybe it was in the lesson, just not in the video?).  The objectives were set, but there wasn’t evidence in the video of what the students would have to do to show they had met the objective.  I did like when the students were given a chance to share “the birthday song” from their own culture.  I think this honored and validated their native culture. 

I did have a few questions about the learning environment.  The room and equipment did seem a bit dated, although I don’t know how old the video is.  Not many schools use overhead projectors anymore; however it wasn’t too long ago they were the newest form of technology.  I would hope that technology and equipment is equitable within a school, so every student can benefit from their use and not just a few students.  

Overall, I saw many great learning strategies being used by both the teacher and the students.  I would have liked to have seen more student talk and more opportunities for cooperative learning.  I realize the lesson in the video was the beginning of a longer unit of study on the novel.  I hope students get more chances to talk and discuss their learnings as well as opportunities to summarize their readings.   Units of study are so involved and are spread over many weeks, that it is very difficult to see all that goes on in short videos.  I know there were many aspects of this unit that were not shown that demonstrate other aspects of great learning opportunities.