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.