Think Nonfiction! (Video)

Nonfiction rules! When you walk into a classroom awash in nonfiction, you know it: no quiet kids sitting at desks here! Instead we see them chattering a mile a minute over a photograph of the jaws of a great white shark or brimming with questions while poring over books about the underground railroad.

Join Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis, authors of Strategies That Work, in Barb Smith's reading workshop as her students begin to explore the wild and wooly world of nonfiction, where merely getting the facts isn't enough. Nonfiction readers need to merge their thinking with the information to learn, understand, and remember it.

In Think Nonfiction!, the focus is on comprehension strategies for gaining information—specifically noticing new learning, asking questions, and determining importance. We watch Steph and Anne teach alongside Barb as she launches a nonfiction study and helps kids learn how to read for information, choose a topic, and do research. Steph does a mini-lesson to model how she stops and thinks when she encounters new information as she reads. Anne and Barb demonstrate how they read as partners and respond to new information. Then Barb, Steph, and Anne move about the room conferring with kids as they read a nonfiction article and use these strategies to enhance their understanding.

The video culminates in a conversation among the three educators as they think through nonfiction instruction that supports kids as they read to learn and engage in independent research. Barb models her own research process and shares her kids' unique ways of organizing their thinking and bringing learning to life. An integral study guide makes this affordable resource a welcome addition to your professional library.