The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) make a lot of new demands on
teachers—requiring teachers to provide more nonfiction and informational texts at all grade levels and to shift to a more facilitative style of teaching, and requiring students to use text-based answers to demonstrate comprehension are just a few of them. With new demands come increased pressure, and we know transitioning to CCSS isn’t easy for already busy teachers. We want to make the transition easier. Our new one-day course, Using Shared Inquiry™ with Nonfiction, prepares teachers for the new reading requirements by demonstrating how to use complex texts and improving their questioning strategies so they can make sure their students get the most out of reading nonfiction.
The new standards' strong emphasis on nonfiction is a dramatic shift for teachers. CCSS calls for a 50/50 split between informational and literary texts in kindergarten, gradually increasing to a 70/30 split in high school. Reaction to the focus on nonfiction varies, but we at the Foundation agree that reading nonfiction is important for all students. Nonfiction helps students better understand a topic, issue, or problem by providing information—facts, terminology, and definitions—that make the subject real. While fiction helps students understand the universality of human emotion and experience, nonfiction exposes them to the broader context of real world issues. Reading more informational texts and nonfiction may engage reluctant readers and boost their interest in reading. Students who are quick to label fiction boring may be drawn to books about subjects that interest them—and after reading a book about snakes, music, or American Indians they’re likely to find fiction that refers to these subjects more fascinating and relevant. We don’t perceive the new nonfiction mandate as a challenge to the importance of reading fiction—we see it as affirmation of the importance of providing students with a variety of texts to improve reading comprehension, and Shared Inquiry has long provided students with the reading strategies and skills CCSS now demands.
Educators accustomed to using Shared Inquiry with fiction may wonder how an inquiry-based method of learning works with nonfiction. The answer is simple: questioning engages students more closely with what they read, including nonfiction and informational texts. Quality nonfiction is much more than a resource of facts: quality nonfiction is an exploration and discovery of a new subject. When teachers use questioning strategies, students explore and discover on a deeper level. Complex texts that raise questions requiring students to read closely to answer them are particularly well suited for Shared Inquiry—texts such as historical documents, speeches, and first person accounts. Consider these questions about the Declaration of Independence: “Why do the colonists feel a need to proclaim to the world their reasons for declaring independence?” and “Why are the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies able to think of themselves as ‘one people’?” (from The Will of the People: Readings in American Democracy). Asking students questions like these about nonfiction and informational texts takes them from simply learning and filing away new facts to examining and reflecting on issues behind the facts.
Using Shared Inquiry with Nonfiction will benefit teachers familiar with Shared Inquiry and those new to the method. The course demonstrates how to adopt an inquiry stance with nonfiction and informational texts, how to use questions to explore the meaning of the content to which the text refers, and how to link related texts to differentiate for various students and foster cross-curricular connections.
For example, If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution (a book in our Grade 4 Nonfiction Library), introduces rich content issues—such as freedom and equality—to students learning about the significance of the Declaration of Independence in their social studies class. This is an example of a book that can help address questions students raise during a sharing questions activity about the Declaration. Even fourth grade students can formulate and answer their own questions about complex issues such as freedom and equality. And developing those strategies early on can improve their reading comprehension and critical thinking skills across the curriculum. Using Shared Inquiry with Nonfiction will demonstrate how to make questioning a part of all instruction and will show how Shared Inquiry requires students to provide text-based answers.
We know the increased focus on nonfiction and informational texts may feel daunting, but we’re confident that Using Shared Inquiry with Nonfiction will make implementing CCSS easier. Educational trends come and go, but improving students’ essential literacy
skills—reading comprehension, writing, and critical thinking—remain a primary focus year after year. Shared Inquiry has been improving those essential skills since 1962 and CCSS provides a new opportunity for teachers and students to realize its benefits across the curriculum.
Contact a Great Books sales representative to host a Using Shared Inquiry with Nonfiction course in your district or to find a course near you.
Sharon Crowley works in K–12 marketing at the Great Books Foundation.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Does Writing Improve Reading?
Successful authors often encourage young writers to read more to develop their craft.
When William Faulkner visited a University of Mississippi creative writing class a student asked him, “What is the best training for writing? Courses in writing? Or what?” Faulkner replied, “Read, read, read! Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad; and see how they do it. When a carpenter learns his trade, he does so by observing. Read! You’ll absorb it. Write. If it is good you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”1
Research supports Faulkner’s advice, and it doesn’t only apply to aspiring undergraduate writers. When children read extensively they become better writers. As creatures of imitation, it makes sense. Reading well-crafted sentences helps us learn to compose well-crafted sentences ourselves. So reading more improves writing, but is the opposite also true—can writing improve reading?
The answer is yes. Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading, a Carnegie Corporation report released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, concludes, “The evidence is clear: writing can be a vehicle for improving reading. In particular, having students write about a text they are reading enhances how well they comprehend it. . . findings show that having students write about texts they read, explicitly teaching writing skills and processes, and having students write more do improve reading skills and comprehension.”
I know—there are endless reports about education and instructional practices. It’s hard to deduce which findings are useful to teachers. However, Writing to Read stands out because it summarizes high-quality research using the powerful statistical method of meta-analysis. The method allowed researchers to determine the consistency and the strength of an instructional practice, and to identify effective instructional writing practices that improve the reading abilities of students. By identifying which writing practices positively impact reading, the report helps teachers implement the best practices in their classrooms.
Writing to Read concludes that the most important practice is to have students write about texts they read. In fact, the report states, “Writing about a text proved to be better than just reading it, reading and rereading it, reading and studying it, reading and discussing it, and receiving reading instruction.”
The findings don’t surprise us—students write about what they read in all Great Books programs. Great Books writing instruction aligns with the report’s findings even more specifically—Writing to Read found that student comprehension improves when they respond to a text in writing (writing personal reactions, analyzing the text); when they answer questions about a text in writing; when they create and answer written questions about texts; and when they write notes about a text. Students do all of these things in Great Books writing activities.
In each Great Books unit (Junior Great Books Series 3–5 and Great Books Roundtable 6–8), student writing is connected with the stories they read. Students learn how to write well-organized expository, creative, and interpretative essays; they write notes, responses to, and questions about each story; they use modeling, guided practice, webs, and templates to organize their thoughts; they edit and revise their writing with the help of peer reviews and rubrics; they even respond to other students’ ideas in writing. All writing activities are linked to the story, repeatedly bringing students back to the text and engaging them with it in a variety of ways.
Confirmation of the interconnectedness of reading and writing is nothing new. But evidence that writing improves reading—specifically that writing about texts improves students’ comprehension—is relatively new and is certainly worth remembering when planning curriculum.
While Faulkner’s advice to “Read, read, read!” still holds, now we know students should also write, write, write about what they read.
1. Conversations with William Faulkner, edited by Thomas Inge
Research supports Faulkner’s advice, and it doesn’t only apply to aspiring undergraduate writers. When children read extensively they become better writers. As creatures of imitation, it makes sense. Reading well-crafted sentences helps us learn to compose well-crafted sentences ourselves. So reading more improves writing, but is the opposite also true—can writing improve reading?
The answer is yes. Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading, a Carnegie Corporation report released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, concludes, “The evidence is clear: writing can be a vehicle for improving reading. In particular, having students write about a text they are reading enhances how well they comprehend it. . . findings show that having students write about texts they read, explicitly teaching writing skills and processes, and having students write more do improve reading skills and comprehension.”
I know—there are endless reports about education and instructional practices. It’s hard to deduce which findings are useful to teachers. However, Writing to Read stands out because it summarizes high-quality research using the powerful statistical method of meta-analysis. The method allowed researchers to determine the consistency and the strength of an instructional practice, and to identify effective instructional writing practices that improve the reading abilities of students. By identifying which writing practices positively impact reading, the report helps teachers implement the best practices in their classrooms.
Writing to Read concludes that the most important practice is to have students write about texts they read. In fact, the report states, “Writing about a text proved to be better than just reading it, reading and rereading it, reading and studying it, reading and discussing it, and receiving reading instruction.”
The findings don’t surprise us—students write about what they read in all Great Books programs. Great Books writing instruction aligns with the report’s findings even more specifically—Writing to Read found that student comprehension improves when they respond to a text in writing (writing personal reactions, analyzing the text); when they answer questions about a text in writing; when they create and answer written questions about texts; and when they write notes about a text. Students do all of these things in Great Books writing activities.
In each Great Books unit (Junior Great Books Series 3–5 and Great Books Roundtable 6–8), student writing is connected with the stories they read. Students learn how to write well-organized expository, creative, and interpretative essays; they write notes, responses to, and questions about each story; they use modeling, guided practice, webs, and templates to organize their thoughts; they edit and revise their writing with the help of peer reviews and rubrics; they even respond to other students’ ideas in writing. All writing activities are linked to the story, repeatedly bringing students back to the text and engaging them with it in a variety of ways.
Confirmation of the interconnectedness of reading and writing is nothing new. But evidence that writing improves reading—specifically that writing about texts improves students’ comprehension—is relatively new and is certainly worth remembering when planning curriculum.
While Faulkner’s advice to “Read, read, read!” still holds, now we know students should also write, write, write about what they read.
1. Conversations with William Faulkner, edited by Thomas Inge
Sharon Crowley works in K–12 marketing at the Great Books Foundation.
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