All About Nonfiction

Building academic language

Word

• Display a nonfiction big book or project the pages from a smaller book for students to see.
• Ask students to look at the cover and finish the sentence, "I see____." to a partner.
• Say, "This book is about whales. It looks like it might be a nonfiction text because the picture looks real and the title is Whales.
• Open the book and complete a picture walk, pausing to have students share out what they see with the class. As they name key nonfiction text features, explain the name of each along with its purpose (glossary, table of contents, photos/illustrations, labels, diagrams, etc.), utilize the vocabulary picture cards during this time.
• Tell students that one reason we use text features is to help us to identify information in a text, (e.g., what a whale eats).

Sentence

• Tell students that as you read, they should try to find text features in the book and give a thumbs up if they see one.
• Read a few pages from Whales aloud to the class. As you read, pause to review the different text features introduced in the previous section.

Discourse

• Display the Hunting for Nonfiction Text Features Pictures worksheet on the board. Explain that students will get to practice finding different text features with a partner.
• Pair students up and pass out one nonfiction text and worksheet to each pair.