On the Nonfiction Front...

While trolling over at the EC Ning, I discovered this little gem of a website, Newsela. This site is a treasure trove of articles about current events, but the really nice thing about it is that you can click on an article, and it will tell you what lexile the article is written in, and not only that, but you can click a button and lower the lexile. Differentiation heaven!!

In case you are interested, here is some grade level text information relevant to lexile and the common core from the Lexile website, which is also a cornucopia of information and is invaluable in helping kids find books to read at their lexile level.

Typical Reader Measures, by Grade

Grade	Reader Measures, Mid-Year 25th percentile to 75th percentile (IQR)
1	Up to 300L
2	140L to 500L
3	330L to 700L
4	445L to 810L
5	565L to 910L
6	665L to 1000L
7	735L to 1065L
8	805L to 1100L
9	855L to 1165L
10	905L to 1195L
11 and 12	940L to 1210L

Data for the first column of text measures came from a research study designed to examine collections of textbooks designated for specific grades (MetaMetrics, 2009). The "stretch" text measures (defined in 2012 through studies related to the development of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts) in the second column represent the demand of text that students should be reading to be college and career ready by the end of Grade 12. 

Typical Text Measures, by Grade

Grade	Text Demand Study 2009 25th percentile to 75th percentile (IQR)	2012 CCSS Text Measures*
1	230L to 420L	190L to 530L
2	450L to 570L	420L to 650L
3	600L to 730L	520L to 820L
4	640L to780L	740L to 940L
5	730L to 850L	830L to 1010L
6	860L to 920L	925L to 1070L
7	880L to 960L	970L to 1120L
8	900L to 1010L	1010L to 1185L
9	960L to 1110L	1050L to 1260L
10	920L to 1120L	1080L to 1335L
11 and 12	1070L to 1220L	1185L to 1385L

Teaching Nonfiction Writing - A Practical Guide

This was the latest read for the CUWP Book group. It proved to live up to its name--practical! Although it felt like it was geared towards kids from about fourth grade through junior high, I still found a lot of things in it that I put to immediate use in the classroom. I used a genre exploration (bringing in about 40 nonfiction books, biographies, magazines, etc.) before I assigned my students to do their Chaucer presentations. Because the kids had a better idea of what I was looking for (illustrations, things that could go in a sidebar, definitions, quotes, headings, etc.) I had the best Chaucer presentations I've ever had.

This book has a great little section on leads that many of us were talking about at the book group last night. I can't wait to try it out.

I've already noticed that I am more aware of pointing out the various techniques in the nonfiction pieces that we've read recently. For example, I always have the students read "The Man in the Water" in conjunction with Beowulf and our talk about heroes. This time when we read it, I made sure that the students noticed the craft Rosenblatt uses, i.e. when he uses imagery in the first paragraph: The jets from Washington National Airport that normally swoop around the presidential monuments like famished gulls are, for the moment, emblemized by the one that fell.

Speaking of book group, we had an incredible turnout last night. We are going to need a bigger room next time.