As teachers and writers we spend a great deal of time reading, writing, and analyzing fiction. What about nonfiction? We've taught kids to read text features and understand text structure. We've taught kids to find research and reguritate information. Now it's time to teach kids how to write nonfiction.
The first thing we learned is that nonfiction has a story. There is characters, plot, and setting. There is drama and tension. We've learned to reshape our own nonfiction pieces to reflect story. This turn in the tide of how we write nonfiction takes us from the encyclopedia article to creative nonfiction. And now it's time to teach this to kids.
We are excited to have new tools in our toolbox to teach kids how to create a nonfiction story. Children love to write stories. We think they will enjoy a creative nonfiction approach much more than a dumping facts approach. We have an exciting challenge ahead.
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