By Jackie Potts
If you’re like most English Language Arts teachers, you’ve probably reviewed the new informational text requirements and wondered: What books do I choose? And how do I know if I’m even doing this right?
Sure, they sound intimidating, but satisfying these new guidelines doesn’t have to be complicated, or mean you have to throw out your reading lists.
As you know, the Common Core State Standards manual describes informational text as a broad range of nonfiction resources, including biographies, history books, social studies, science, and the arts; technical texts (such as how-to books); and literary nonfiction.
That can include things like personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, memoirs, journalism, and even economic accounts.
Here, we break down the genre into 3 workable ideas with titles that are complex enough to meet the informational text criteria, yet also lively enough to captivate you and your students.
Biographies of Modern Visionaries
We all know about Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg, but what other contemporary figures inspire students hungry for role models? How about Google cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page? Starbucks’ Howard Schultz? Popular authors Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, or J.K. Rowling? Filmmakers Steven Spielberg or George Lucas? Ralph Baer, the so-called Father of Video Games? And, of course, Steve Jobs? Karen Blumenthal’s biography of Jobs (The Man Who Thought Different) and more books on all of these thought leaders exist. For younger grades, Publisher Bluewater Productions has even produced comic books illustrating Zuckerberg’s, Schultz’s, the Google boys’, and Jobs’ achievements. (Texts with pictures and graphics are encouraged by CCSS and helpful for struggling readers.)
Great Speeches
“Don’t allow yourselves to be affected by the cynicism of oldies like us. Dream, dream, dream of a world that is going to be without terror,” Desmond Tutu said in a 2009 commencement speech. “Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction. Be worthy of your advantages,” teacher David McCullough Jr. urged Wellesley students.
Commencement speeches, inaugural addresses and anthology selections, from books such as Great Speeches by African Americans by James Daley, are all rich and accessible choices for informational texts.
Voices Kids Can Relate To
There are so many diverse and exciting young authors in non-fiction today it’s a crime not to use them. How about The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a 13-Year-Old with Autism by Naoki Higashida or Ido in Autismland by Ido Kedar? Both are enthralling first-person accounts by teens living with the condition. Or I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai. But you needn’t reinvent the wheel. Many texts you’re already using also still fit the informational guides, such as How it Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston (essay) and Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The Young Adult Library Services Association, or YALSA, has also pre-screened many new nonfiction titles for its annual Book Awards.
Great teacher text resources can also be found through the web and social media. Website BetterLesson has over 3,000 searchable lesson plans created by “master teachers.” Simply type #CCSS (for Common Core State Standards) into Twitter and dozens of links pop up. Many digital teaching apps include text passages, review questions, student tracking, attendance, and more.
But most importantly, you don’t have to toss out your tried-and-true ELA book lists and curriculums.
“It is not a question of one or the other,” Colorado middle school teacher and blogger Jessica Cuthbertson advocates in her post “And vs. Or in the Common Core.” “The Common Core should maximize, not minimize, what and how we teach.”
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