Final
10.3 Criteria for Selecting Nonfiction
By this point in their schooling, children will have started to demonstrate distinct preferences and needs when it comes to multiliteracies. Some children will be highly visual, while others will require gestural and tactile experiences to facilitate their learning. Readers who are more pragmatic or hands-on in their approach will appreciate Walter Wick's A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder (1997). In this book, Wick recreates simple experiments with water that he read about in old science books, and photographed the results. The photographs themselves will motivate children to want to try the experiments, some of which are described in the back, but the text will likely require further explanations and research for students to fully understand the concepts. Students interested in further exploration and follow-up can be directed to the many leveled readers that focus on the water cycle. For children who are more attuned to linguistic literacy, however, poetic treatments of the water cycle are found in books like Thomas Locker's Water Dance (2002) and Cloud Dance (2003), and George Ella Lyon's All the Water in the World (2011).
The point here is that nonfiction comes in many varieties that engage readers in different multiliteracies, reading levels, and pedagogical goals. In fact, the sheer volume of possibilities can be overwhelming. In order to create a classroom collection or unit around a particular topic, think through what you have learned about Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences and the New London Group's (NLG) multiliteracies, and then access your resources. You might start by doing a web search to compile a list of possibilities, remembering that you want a range of books that will appeal to children who like stories, poetry, artwork, and hands-on projects. You will also want books for a range of independent reading levels, as well as books that you can share that will stretch vocabulary and concept formation through dialogic read-alouds. Take your list to your school and public libraries, and consult with the librarians to see what resources they have and what other books they can recommend that you may have missed in your search.
The successful presentation of information for children depends on the effective interaction of four basic features, regardless of reading level and type of appeal:
accuracy,
organization,
visual design, and
style.
These four criteria are considered by the National Council of Teachers of English selection committee for the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction and, with some elaboration, by the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association (see Chapter 1 for more information on these awards). The one drawback to these awards is that the committees do not consider books according to their developmental level, so many of the award winners, honor books, and recommended books are not best suited for young children. It is worthwhile for teachers to keep up with the awards, however, and determine whether or not they would make appropriate read-alouds for the age group they are teaching.
Accuracy
In terms of the criteria, though, the four areas used to determine award winners are useful to consider as you choose books for classroom use and recommended reading for your students. Accuracy is sometimes difficult to determine if you are not an expert in the field. However, there are certain things to look for. Copyright date is one. New discoveries are made all the time. The work of paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, for instance, completely changed the way we think about dinosaurs. Although he began publishing his theories about dinosaurs being warm-blooded, intelligent, fast, and adaptable creatures in the late 1960s, it wasn't until the late 1980s that his theories really began to take hold and be disseminated as fact in schools. Now it is widely understood that dinosaurs are more closely related to modern-day birds than reptiles, and that is reflected in both nonfiction and fiction for children written since the 1990s. Generally speaking, then, the newer the book, the more likely it is to have the most up-to-date information.
Another way to judge the likely accuracy of a text is to check the credentials of the author. Usually an author's note explains the way the book was researched and who helped with the research. Authors who are scientists themselves, such as Nicola Davies, or who work with scientists, such as Sy Montgomery, can generally be trusted to provide accurate information, as can those who provide extensive source notes or detail their research process. Gail Gibbons, for instance, travels extensively when researching a book to ensure accuracy and authenticity in the presentation of her material. Accuracy can also be determined by writing style: Does the author clearly distinguish between fact (what is known to be true) and theory (what is assumed to be true based on the available facts)? If authors are clear and straightforward about what is not yet known for sure about a topic, then they are probably trustworthy in their presentation of what is known.
While you will be selecting a range of books by a range of authors, there are some current superstars in the world of children's nonfiction. These authors are Nic Bishop, Joanna Cole, Penny Colman, Russell Freedman, Gail Gibbons, Sy Montgomery, Jim Murphy, Seymour Simon, and Melissa Sweet. Their books are readily available, widely reviewed and trusted, critically acclaimed, and often honored with prestigious awards. Moreover, their books meet the approval of their intended audiences. Bishop, Gibbons, Montgomery, Murphy, Simon, and Sweet all have informative websites that children can visit to find out more information about their books and their research processes (see Websites to Save and Explore). As children find books that they especially like, encourage them to seek out other books by the same author, and do author studies.
Organization
Organizational strategies vary in nonfiction books, but the strategy should be clear and consistent. For instance, in the example of The Snowflake: A Story of the Water Cycle given earlier in the chapter, the organization pattern follows a chronology based on the months of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Temperature change causes the water to take different forms. This allows the writer to explain the various aspects of the water cycle in a logical progression that readers can understand. This sort of sequential organization works well for things that grow, decay, or otherwise change over time or move through cycles. Obviously, biographies and autobiographies work best when organized chronologically as well, although they may start with an important or well-known life event as a narrative hook and then go back and pick up the subject's childhood.
Other organizational strategies include comparison/contrast, cause/effect, problem/solution, and question/answer, and thematically organized formats. There are benefits to all of these strategies for helping children organize information as they read. As children encounter these strategies, draw attention to them as different ways to organize information that they might want to use as they compose their own texts. Have them record the name of the strategy and an example or two in their daybooks (see Teaching Ideas at the end of this chapter for an explanation of the student daybook) for future reference.
Design
Visual design features in children's nonfiction trade books assist in meaning making from a multiliteracies standpoint (Pappas, 2006; Unsworth, 2001). Images can depict actions (such as a butterfly extracting pollen with its proboscis), classify information, show relationships (such as through tree or Venn diagrams, graphs, tables, flow charts, or size comparisons), or indicate events on a timeline. These elements in trade books are a prelude to the kinds of reading that will be required of students using textbooks in later grades. For instance, in textbooks, nearly every important concept in a chapter is accompanied by a picture or a diagram that illustrates the concept. These visual elements and their captions focus attention, reinforce the learning, and provide a study aid when children go back through the information to study for a test. In trade books, the visual elements are even more important, because they need to entice the reader. Trade books are not required reading; they have no guaranteed market. The more vivid and appealing the pictures, the more likely potential readers (and buyers) will be attracted to the book.
Books such as Steve Jenkins's Actual Size offer irresistible invitations to children through the art alone. Children are drawn to compare the size of their hand with a gorilla's hand and the size of their morning egg with an ostrich egg. His other books are similarly inviting and guide children into explorations of how animals eat, sleep, bathe, and interact with each other in sibling relationships and other kinds of animal symbiosis. He has books on animal defense mechanisms, habitats, movement, and skeletal structures. He also has a book that helps children understand time and duration, as well as one that focuses on the life forms that live at various depths of the world's oceans. Follow-up activities are scaffolded by the very nature of the artwork itself: stunning collage art that invites close observation and imitation. Jenkins's books invite touch and facilitate a greater understanding of spatial relationships in the natural world. An in-depth author study is facilitated by an informative website (http://www.stevejenkinsbooks.com/) that includes information on Jenkins's many award-winning books, biographical information, a short video that shows his process of making books, and a gallery of images that children have made and sent in response to reading his books (see Teaching Ideas for more on author studies).
Placement of the pictures is as important as quality. As in storybooks, pictures in informational texts complement the words; unlike some storybook illustrations, however, the pictures should not be used for ironic intent in informational books. Instead, they should always reinforce and add clarity to the text. If the picture's placement or even inclusion makes its relationship to the text unclear, this is a design flaw because it interferes with the book's purpose to inform. Captions, labels, and highlights should also be spatially positioned so as to aid comprehension.
Clearly illustrated and numbered steps are crucial in books that feature processes or projects for young readers. Mollie Katzen's Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up (1994), Salad People and More Real Recipes: A Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up (2005) and Honest Pretzels: And 64 Other Amazing Recipes for Cooks Ages 8 and Up (2009) present healthy, delicious vegetarian recipes in both written and visual format using Katzen's own step-by-step drawings. A sample recipe can be found here. You'll notice that her approach facilitates visual and linguistic learning as well as producing a nice tactile payoff! DK Publishing also features cookbooks with step-by-step visuals of the more complicated steps. Other children's cookbooks on the market are less helpful precisely because they don't use visuals as effectively; instead of providing step-by-step drawings, they crowd the page with color and images that deter from the steps needed to accomplish the recipe. Science fair projects are found in the 507s of the Dewey Decimal System, and crafts can be found between 745 and 749. As you browse these sections for possible texts, pay attention to whether or not the steps and materials needed are pictured clearly enough for young readers to follow.
Explore and Reflect: Effective Organization of Visual Instructions
Test this for yourself. Go to a bookstore or library and look at cookbooks for children. Compare and contrast the format, considering how cooking from a recipe works: You read the instructions, turn away to complete a step, go back to the cookbook for the next set of instructions, turn away again, and so forth. What design features are most helpful in keeping the project on track? What design features interfere or may prove confusing?
Other design elements—or what Richard Kerper (2003) refers to as access features or "iconographic materials" (p. 54)—that help organize texts and aid readers in their ability to find information quickly include tables of contents, maps, glossaries, indexes, subheadings, bibliographies, and resource lists that direct students to further reading on the topic. Good nonfiction books highlight glossary terms and may even provide pronunciation guides. Textboxes separate out information that, while important and interesting, may impede the flow of the text. "Pull quotes" are sentences taken from the text itself and placed in a larger, distinctive font to draw attention to important points. All of these elements should be explicitly pointed out to students as they read and their purposes and potential uses discussed. Remember that this may be the first time they have encountered these elements, as they are not typically used in fiction. As structural features of most nonfiction, though, children need to understand their function and importance.
Writing Style
Finally, writing style matters in assessing the quality and age appropriateness of informational texts. Amy McClure (2003) argues that "well-written nonfiction goes beyond facts to present eloquent, informed and well-crafted discussion" (p. 79), and Russell Freedman (1992) is even more insistent on the importance of style:
Certainly the basic purpose of nonfiction is to inform, to instruct, hopefully to enlighten. But that's not enough. An effective nonfiction book must animate its subjects, infuse it with life. It must create a vivid and believable world that the reader will enter willingly and leave only with reluctance. A good nonfiction book should be a pleasure to read. (p. 3)
According to Barbara Lounsberry (1996), writers can set scenes through the use of vivid imagery, deploy humor and allusion, and use figurative language; but they must take care to "never invent or change facts or events" (p. 30). Writers should take care to involve the reader through rich sensual detail, and they should adopt a tone appropriate to their subject but still conversational enough for children to feel emotionally engaged. Vocabulary should never be dumbed down, but rather the technical terms necessary for genuine participation in the discourse of the subject should be explained in clear, child-friendly language. Children love to learn new words, and they especially enjoy showing off their knowledge of a subject by using the proper terminology.
Nic Bishop's single-subject books on frogs, lizards, spiders, butterflies and moths, and chameleons are a good example of nonfiction with a conversational style that engages young readers in such a way that they feel they are in the presence of a more knowledgeable friend who is excited about sharing his passion for his subject. His photographs reveal the artistry (and infinite patience!) of a master, and he describes his process in ways that make it accessible to the beginning reader. These are noisy books, meaning that children will gasp and exclaim over the incredibly close-up images with every page turn, and it may take several passes through before they settle in to read the text, but the pictures themselves provide the motivation for children to want to find out more through reading the words. Bishop also provides the photographs for some of the Scientists in the Field series, which make engaging read-alouds for this age group.
As the criteria for the Sibert Award notes, "Not every book relies equally on every element," and excellence in one or more elements can outweigh shortfalls in other areas, which may not be relevant to the subject matter. As you work with your students, you will discover which elements matter most to them, and to you, and you will add your own selection criteria to these four elements depending on your pedagogical goals. The following box contains a starting summary of selection criteria for quality nonfiction adapted from the Orbis Pictus Award and Sibert Award criteria:
Guidelines for Choosing Quality Nonfiction
Accuracy
Information is up to date.
Clear distinctions are made between facts, theories, and opinions.
Authors have appropriate credentials.
Organization
Organizational framework is clear and consistent.
Organizational framework makes logical sense given the subject matter.
Children are able to see how elements are related.
Visual Design and Access Features
Visual elements are appealing.
Illustrations reinforce text and assist in meaning-making.
Illustrations are appropriately positioned and adequately captioned or explained.
Access features are clearly identifiable and useful as comprehension aids.
Writing is engaging, vivid, and inviting.
Rich, appropriate vocabulary is included and explained in child-friendly ways.
Facts are maintained even when figurative language and scene setting is used.
Children's Current and Potential Passions
We all have them. I much prefer to curl up with a good young adult novel than a book about photosynthesis or the history of WWII. My husband, on the other hand, prefers social science and political books, devotional texts, and art books for his leisure reading. My father-in-law is a war buff and prefers both fiction and nonfiction accounts of battles and weaponry. As adults, our interests have narrowed based on temperament and experiences. We have already learned the basics of biology, hydrology, geology, geography, and ecology. We have been introduced to historical figures and events, mathematical concepts, and principles of physics. Some of what we were exposed to in elementary school became temporary obsessions, and some subjects evolved into lifelong interests and affected our career choices.
Children, on the other hand, are at the beginning of their explorations. They don't yet know where they might find their next passion. As educators and parents, we have enormous influence on what they will find interesting because we control much of their access to information. In addition, our enthusiasms for particular subjects can have a significant effect on their attitudes toward them. A teacher who is passionate about insects will be eager to share that passion, and it will be contagious. On the other hand, a teacher who finds math concepts boring will communicate that feeling as well. While we can't manufacture passion for a subject, we need to be aware that we communicate attitudes that can positively or negatively affect our students' attitudes. Be willing to share your passions, but also be committed to sharing students' interests and helping them find books and information about things you aren't necessarily interested in. If you find that you really can't generate enthusiasm for a particular subject, consider an exchange with another teacher in your building or bring in a parent or community member who has an interest in that area. If you live near a university, call the various departments and ask if they have faculty members or student organizations who will give presentations. Poets are often willing to give free workshops; chemistry and physics clubs enjoy wowing kids with dramatic experiments.
Implicit Messages About Race and Gender
Remember that children are very sensitive to visual images when it comes to identity. Make sure that the books you choose represent gender and racial differences. For instance, even though DK Children's Cookbook (2004), by Katharine Ibbs, only shows hands preparing food, there is a nice balance between white and brown hands, and it is very difficult to tell whether the hands belong to males or females. Race and gender balance is less of a problem in newer books because publishers have become more sensitive to these issues, but be especially wary of books that seem to suggest that only White men (and therefore White boys) are interested in pursuing careers in science, math, or NASCAR racing, for instance. These visual choices don't call attention to themselves in nonfiction books, since the focus is more often on the subject than on the actors, but as we've noted in this book, children are very sensitive to pictorial detail. Moreover, gender and race dynamics are pervasive in other media, leading children to make assumptions about what career options are available to them, so one of our tasks as educators has to be to provide a counternarrative to certain stereotypes about gender, race, and interest. There are Black NASCAR drivers and have been since 1955, and women entered the races in 1949. If the books children choose do not include a mix of race and gender, challenge them to use their Internet skills to expand their knowledge.