Common Core & NGSS

STEM Tuesday– Math– Writing Tips and Resources

 

Paradigm Shift

Did you see it? The National Council of Teachers of English recently issued the “Position Statement on the Role of Nonfiction Literature (K–12).” I’ll be honest and say that when I was growing up, I never thought of nonfiction as literature. To me, nonfiction was an encyclopedia, a text book, or one of those really dry library books that you checked out when you had to do a report on a cheetah. Sure the cheetah was cool, but the book about it? I had to crawl my way through all of the dusty dry to find the fascinating facts.

Look how far we have come… This month we are looking at the literary craft of not just nonfiction, but math nonfiction! And that’s because the world of publishing has opened their arms to cool, crafty, creative presentations of information. And I for one am giddy over it. In fact, NCTE, this group of professional English teachers is proposing “a paradigm shift for teaching and learning with nonfiction literature in K–12 education.”

Drop the mic! Nonfiction is coming into its own!

So, how exactly do we spur on this paradigm shift? We can start by studying the craft of informational books. We can articulate new language to help us describe unique attributes of nonfiction. We can search out the devices used by nonfiction authors. We can compare/contrast, discuss/evaluate, and weigh the pros and cons. In other words, we can have informed opinions.

One Way to Start

Melissa Stewart (author of over 100 nonfiction books for children) and Dr. Marlene Correia (an educator of 30 years) have written a book entitled 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and writing Instruction with Children’s Books. Check out this article (https://www.melissa-stewart.com/img2018/pdfs/5_Kinds_of_Nonfiction_SLJ_May_2018.pdf) in the School Library Journal and Melissa’s blog post (http://celebratescience.blogspot.com/2020/02/5-kinds-of-nonfiction-update.html).  They propose that much of today’s nonfiction can be categorized as one of the following:

  • Active – books that get kids doing something, i.e, Klutz Books for Kids
  • Browseable – open to any page and find chunks of facts, i.e., Nat Geo Weird But True World
  • Traditional – provide a broad survey of a topic, i.e. Rattlesnakes
  • Narrative – provide a narrative arc, i.e.  Radiant Child The Story of Young Artists Jean-Michel Basquiat
  • Expository Literature – non-narrative books that present a narrow topic in a creative or unique way, i.e. Summertime Sleepers: Animals that Estivate!

To become more comfortable with this idea, open a math book and check out a spread. Which category might each fit into? Try these:

 

The Kitchen Pantry Scientist Math for Kids: Fun Math Games and Activities Inspired by Awesome Mathematicians, Past and Present; with 20+ Illustrated, by Rebecca Rapoport and Allanna Chung.

 

 

 

Just a Second, by Steve Jenkins

 

 

 

 

 

Dollars & Sense: A Kid’s Guide to Using–Not Losing, written by Elaine Scott, illustrated by David Clark.

 

 

 

 

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table , written by Cindy Neuschwander, illustrated by Wayne Geehan (you’re right, this one is not nonfiction!)

 

 

 

Just as all novels books do not fit neatly into one genre, nonfiction books don’t all fit neatly into these categories, but I bet you know a reader who LOVES one of these categories. What if we recommended books to readers based on this? What if we encouraged all readers to sample books from all of these categories?

This is a powerful new way to understand and nudge forward this paradigm shift for teaching and learning nonfiction!

________________________________________________

Prepared by:

 

Heather L. Montgomery, author of 17 nonfiction books for kids.

www.HeatherLMontgomery.com

STEM Tuesday — A River Runs Through It– Writing Tips & Resources

 

 

Margo here, working to keep the (A) in STE(A)M. Science purists might think the (A) is unimportant but I’m here to argue that it is Very Important. and I will present reasons why.

For instance, this month’s theme is “rivers.” This week, I have examples of books about rivers that are superior at delivering content to youngsters because of that (A). I selected these books because they are perfect examples of using (A) – creativity in BOOK DESIGN that makes the content easier to understand and enjoy. Remember the spoonful of sugar? Plus having students make their own books is the perfect way to evaluate their learning and understanding of the subject matter (more on that below).

The first book is World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by Frank Stockton. Take a look at this page. The book designer has made the page speak by using color, type design, and compositional tricks. Let’s back up a bit.

In the study of art, you will find that “art” has three components: subject, form, and content. Subject is, well – what it’s about. Subject in a painting might be an apple, in a book – rivers. Content is deeper meaning – the deeper meaning of the apple might be hunger depending how the apple is portrayed. In the book, content could be environmental impact. And form refers to the physical aspects, such as medium (paint or pencil) or such observable concepts as composition and color. Book design comes under the component of form. I argue that appropriate and creative FORM enhances the subject and content. And that (A) art is an essential ingredient in STE(A)M.

In World Without Fish, the subject is of course fish. The content is what is happening to fish, the impact of fishing, and possible solutions to maintaining the oceans environmentally and economically. Now this might be exciting to read just the text, but to some students, it might not. So the publishing team has taken creativity to the form – the book and type design, the colors, the styles and size – to make a book where the content fairly jumps off the page and engages young readers with energy. It includes a comic series that appears at regular intervals throughout the book. So we have the art of “visual narrative” to further the content and engage all types of learners.

The illustrations and creative use of type all serve to draw the reader in.

 

The next book, Explore Rivers and Ponds, by Carla Mooney, illustrated by Bryan Stone, is an activity book with more examples of creative arrangement of content. The design makes the material easier to understand. It’s almost conversational. It pauses to explain vocabulary and includes activities such as ‘bark rubbing,” which looked like a great active art project for getting kids out into nature and interacting directly with the environment. It’s an activity that requires no “art” experience and can produce some great drawings.

 

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite activities with students is making books. It offers a creative and very satisfying way for students to “show off” what they have learned. Let the students try their hand at creative book design. A very friendly and ecologically conscious guide to making books with kids is Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord’s Handmade Books for A Healthy Planet. An enthusiastic environmental artist, she offers many ideas for book projects. Visit her website for many free activities or visit her YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/skgaylord.

 

A project I did with university students requires publishing software skills, but it’s a great project that combines research, writing, collaboration, proper citing of sources, and, of course, art, and can be scaled down for younger children. I partnered with Dr, Esther Pearson, a member of the Echota Cherokee Tribe and we produced a coloring book called “Native American Lore.” The students did the research and artwork and had the satisfaction of seeing their work in print. We presented it at an educational symposium and proceeds are donated to a non-profit that provides school expenses for the children of migrant workers in Veracruz, Mexico. The students had an amazing sense of accomplishment to see their research and artwork out in the world. This would be great for science topics and promote teamwork and cooperation. You can still find our book on Amazon.

 

 

 

 

Please don’t think because you are not an artist, you can’t work (A) into STEM projects. You will find your students have a good sense of art and many will be delighted to help plan. There are plenty of resources such as Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord’s book, and you may find you have more (A) in you than you realize.

 

Books can be found here:

World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky, Frank Stockton (Illustrator) ISBN-13: 9780761185000, Publisher: Workman Publishing Company. https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=9780761185000

Explore Rivers and Ponds! Carla Mooney (Author) Bryan Stone (Illustrator) 9781936749805. Nomad Press (VT) https://bookshop.org/books/explore-rivers-and-ponds/9781936749805

Handmade Books for a Healthy Planet – Sixteen Earth-Friendly Projects From Around The World, Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord, ISBN-10: 0984231900, makingbooks.com. https://www.susangaylord.com/store/p7/Handmade_Books_For_A_Healthy_Planet.html

Native American Lore An Educational Coloring Book: Class Research Project Paperback – November 5, 2018 by Dr. Esther Pearson (Author), Margo Lemieux (Author), Riverside Studios Publishing, ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1731183933 . https://www.amazon.com/Native-American-Lore-Educational-Coloring/dp/1731183933/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2N6YKOA8ZYDBD&keywords=Native+American+lore+lemieux&qid=1662756358&sprefix=native+american+lore+lemieux%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-1

Kaleidoscope for Kids https://www.amazon.com/Kaleidoscope-Kids-Magic-Storymakers-Present/dp/B0B3S1Y4XN/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2PBZG4RAZRH13&keywords=Kaleidoscope+for+Kids+book&qid=1662989345&sprefix=kaleidoscope+for+kids+book%2Caps%2C111&sr=8-1

 

 

*********
Margo Lemieux is professor emerita at Lasell University, former regional advisor for SCBWI New England, and a lifelong learner. Her publishing credits include picture books, poetry, articles, and illustration. Her latest publishing project is an anthology with her writers’ group, the Magic Storymakers, titled Kaleidoscope for Kids.

 

 

An interview with New York Times Editor Veronica Chambers on Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matters

Today, on the Mixed Up Files, we welcome Veronica Chambers, who is the lead author of Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matters.

Chambers is the editor for Narrative Projects at the New York Times. As an author, she is best known for the New York Times-bestseller Finish the Fight!, which was named a best book of the year by the Washington Post and the New York Public Library. Her other works include the critically acclaimed memoir Mama’s Girl, Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb, and the anthologies The Meaning of Michelle—a collection of writers celebrating former first lady Michelle Obama—and Queen Bey: A Celebration of the Power and Creativity of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Born in Panama and raised in Brooklyn, she writes often about her Afro-Latino heritage. You can find her online at veronicachambers.com or on Twitter and Instagram @vvchambers

Congratulations to you and your team at the New York Times on the release of Call and Response: The Story of Black Lives Matters.

I can’t wait to virtually sit down with you and ask you some questions about this essential history of the Black Lives Matter movement for young people. I’m especially excited since I share certain New York City experiences with you, having been a journalist there (features writer for New York Newsday) and living for awhile in Brooklyn. I love that you’re bridging a career as an editor/journalist with being an author.

In the book, readers are introduced to the concept that “the power of the people is greater than the people in power.” Can you elaborate a little bit about that?

 Sure. Experts believe that up to 26 million Americans participated in some sort of Black Lives Matters protest, which would make it one of the largest protests in the nation’s history.

Peaceful protest is the most effective form of protest in the world. A study conducted by researchers Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan compared the outcomes of hundreds of violent insurgencies with those of major nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006; they found that over 50 percent of the nonviolent movements succeeded, compared with about 25 percent of the violent insurgencies.

The text addresses some universal questions, such as how does a movement become a movement? You spend time looking at contemporary events and leaders as well as historical antecedents and galvanizing moments. Was it hard for you and your team to figure out how you wanted to balance all of these elements?

 There’s a famous phrase that “journalism is the first draft of history.” The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 were still ongoing when we started working on the book. There was a real challenge in trying to figure out what to immortalize in a book when the story was changing and growing every day.

That’s why the decision to lean in on the incredible photography of the New York Times was so meaningful to us. This is what the great photojournalists who contribute to the daily report saw and while we wrote text that put the movement in a broad historical context, each of the photos tells a deep and powerful story of its own, without any need for us to editorialize or comment on the images.

You make a point that the protest is larger than the people gathering in the street (although is certainly part of it). Protest can mean “making art with a message” or “calling elected officials.” How would you define protest for children?

Protest is anything we do to say we want things to be different. I think a lot about the kid I was when I’m working on these books. When I was growing up, and reading about the modern civil rights movement, I thought those are stories about heroes whose bravery and wisdom I could never match. I’ll never make a difference in those ways.

I understood as I got older that we all have a role to play in shaping the world we live in. Coretta Scott King once said, “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.” I think that’s some of the truest words ever uttered.

The book makes a point to say that children are never too young to lead. In the text, you offer many examples of young leaders from teen environmentalist Greta Thunberg to eight-year-old Mari Copeny, who protested the water conditions in Flint Michigan. How might younger children participate in standing up for what they believe in?

One of the highlights of my year was this piece I did about Paola Velez and Bakers Against Racism. Bake sales associated with that group have raised more than two million dollars in a single year towards social justice causes.

Paola is not just an incredible culinary talent but also one of the most eloquent, thoughtful people I’ve ever interviewed. One of the things she said was this: “When we speak about issues that we care about, we do it with a pie in hand. And so sometimes it’s a little more graceful and a little more palatable because there’s something sweet at the end of this, like, very charged, very truth-forward statement that we have to make.”

The piece is here.

The founders of Black Lives Matters are three women: Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. They were all in their late twenties or early thirties when they started BLM. However, I was intrigued to learn that Garza began her activism at the age of 12, focusing on reproductive rights. And it was in high school that Tometi became aware of the need to stand up for the rights of immigrants, particularly the undocumented. And Cullors learned first-hand about systemic racism as a kid when her family would go hungry. Veronica, did you have any powerful experiences as a child that also led you to career as an author, journalist and editor?

I think being a chronic outsider really helped me become a reader and then a writer. My family is from Panama, I’m Afro-Latina. I came to the country when I was 5, just becoming a reader and  one of the things I was looking at books to do was teach me how to be an American.  So many of the books published today remind me of the curiosity I felt at that moment – how do things work or don’t work here?

Black Lives Matter is the story of collaboration. It was Garza who wrote on Facebook in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin; it was Cullors who created the hashtag “blacklivesmatter,” and it was Tometti who created the initial Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts for the movement. In your career as an editor and writer, why is the collaborative experience so important?

Collaboration is one of my super powers. But when I was a kid, it was something I really railed against. I hated having to do projects or presentations as a team. I think it was because I was shy and I felt like I never got the credit for all my hard work.

But I’m also a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and in some ways, I think that oeuvre really mimics the creative journey.  Turns out you need more than one superhero to save the world. Similarly, you need lots of great minds to make extraordinary journalism.

You write that the book is “built upon the work of incredible photographers and photo editors.” How did you work with Photo Editor Anika Burgess to select the images? There must have been so many to choose from.

Anika Burgess, the photo editor on the project, as well as Jennifer Harlan, my co-author, had all worked on a history based project at the Times called Past Tense. We had a years long history of sifting through hundreds of photos and really sitting back together and discussing what moves us.  What’s incredible was that 90% of the time, the photos we loved the most, we all had the same reaction to. Viewing a powerful photo is like hearing a truly great pop song, it just grabs you. What was hard was winnowing it down. There are more than 100 photos in the book. I would love to have run 200 photos. Making those cuts was brutal.

In an interview with National Geographic in 2020, Garza said, “In the midst of the all the grief and rage and pain, there’s hopefulness.” Can you speak to that and elaborate on hopefulness?

I’m incredibly hopeful. As a first generation American, what I’ve always gotten from black history is that, despite all of the challenges, African-Americans are in the business of Hope. Every decade, every chapter of the history of black people in this country is infused with countless moments of hope, resilience and creativity. I think that at this particular moment in the nation, black history and its masterclass in hope and possibility, can be useful to Americans of all backgrounds.

 

Hillary Homzie is the author of the Ellie May chapter book series (Charlesbridge, 2018), Apple Pie Promises (Sky Pony/Swirl, 2018), Pumpkin Spice Secrets (Sky Pony/Swirl, 2017), Queen of Likes (Simon & Schuster MIX 2016), The Hot List (Simon & Schuster MIX 2011) and Things Are Gonna Get Ugly (Simon & Schuster, 2009) as well as the Alien Clones From Outer Space (Simon & Schuster Aladdin 2002) chapter book series. She’s also a contributor to the Kate the Chemist middle grade series (Philomel Books/Penguin Random House). Her forthcoming nonfiction picture book, If You Were a Princess: True Stories of Brave Leaders From Around the World is a look at historical and current princesses from many diverse lands who have made their mark (Simon & Schuster in August 2022). During the year, Hillary teaches at Sonoma State University and, in the summers, she teaches in the graduate program in children’s literature, writing and illustration at Hollins University. She also is an instructor for the Children’s Book Academy.

She can be found at hillaryhomzie.com and on her Facebook page as well as on Twitter.