Adventures in Nonfiction: A Guided Inquiry Journey
Nonfiction text is often difficult for young children to read and comprehend in first grade. This lesson does an outstanding job leading students into the task of learning about nonfiction text. It not only introduces the elements of nonfiction, but also teaches students how to question what they want to learn using a research approach. One of the key components in this lesson is teaching students how to write questions about what a topic of interest and over three lessons teaching students how to use both nonfiction text and technology to answer their questions. The lesson is extremely powerful because the students are in charge of their own inquiry in what they want to learn and answer their own brainstormed questions about their own topic. This is powerful because when students lead their own learning through asking their own questions then finding the answers they have ownership over the process. Also through collaboration with partners students are constantly engaged in what they find as the answers to their questions and what their partners find in the research process. The whole lesson is also clear and concise. The lesson is simple, but the questioning method is a very powerful tool in engaging the students in the learning process with nonfiction text. The teacher is guiding the learning process, but the students are in charge of their learning. This lesson takes a different approaches to just teaching the text features and what to look for when reading nonfiction text to how to encompass it all and truly learn about the students own topic of interest.
Kara Scott