Raising Classroom Standards Means Ramping Up Non-Fiction (NY)

October 12, 2010

Everybody loves a good story: including kids. That’s why the Harry Potter series and other fiction books are so popular. But will students love reading and writing when the subject is non-fiction? That’s the challenge for teachers as New York State begins phasing in new national standards. One Lower East Side middle school is getting an early start.

Eighth-grader Anna Gonzalez knows what it takes for a book to capture her interest. "I like to read realistic fiction," she says. "That’s really my type of book."

Anna is currently reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. It’s an absolutely fictional story about a Native American teenager, written as though it’s real. Anna and her classmates at the University Neighborhood Middle School are allowed to pick their own books for part of their reading assignments. Here’s what Anna won’t be choosing: "I don’t like science books, science fiction and st uff like that. I don’t like those kinds of books."

How about history books?

"Nope. Don’t like those either," she states. "They gotta be interesting for me. Certain ones maybe."

That response is typical, says humanities teacher Mike Locker. He’s heard kids tell him on the first day of school that they don’t like history — or even reading. "You get kids who don’t feel successful at things and then they start to identify as not being that kind of person," he explains. "I think our job as teachers is to prove to them and show them that they are that kind of person."

One way Locker does that is by assigning essays that require a bit of research, forcing students to branch out into non-fiction. During his two-hour long classes, he meets with each student individually about their reading and writing assignments.

"You’re writing about bullying, right?" he says to 14 year-old Kathy Cruz. "It’s probably going to be hard to find people who, like, think bullying is good. Know what I mean? So we have to find a controversial angle," he tells the girl.

Locker’s students are writing editorials. They can’t just state their opinions; they have to use research to back up every argument. Kathy looks up articles about bullying on a laptop computer with Locker’s assistance.

"When Mr. Locker first told us I was like, ‘wow, we have to do a lot of writing now,’" she says, as she looks over a list of articles on Google. "But then once I got into the researching and everything like, when I want to do something I do it. Like, when I read about all this I just w anted to write."

But while Kathy felt newly inspired, her classmate, Gabriel Arjara, was feeling overwhelmed about his assignment. "It takes a long time!" he exclaimed.

Gabriel is trying to back up his argument that it’s a bad idea to lengthen the school day. "It takes a lot of research. And it’s the beginning of the year so it kind of a shock that we’re going to be writing essays right in the beginning of the year."

Argumentative writing is already part of the middle school curriculum. But Gabriel’s principal, Laura Peynado, says Gabriel is sensing a change. "What he noticed is that the academic focus has been shifted," she says.

Peynado’s teachers are assigning more editorials this year because the state is phasing in new national standards, which put a greater emphasis on non-fiction. Yuet Chu leads a network of 23 city schools including University Neighborhood Middle School. She notes that various researchers have found American students read texts that are too easy. This leaves them unprepared for the more complex skills they need later.

"Whether it’s applying for a job or applying for college," she says. "Or trying to get even a part-time job and being able to articulate not just verbally but communicating in print in different way."

The new standards don’t kick in for a couple of years but Chu says the schools in her network wanted to get an early start. At University Neighborhood Middle School, teachers voted to have planning meetings instead of lunch room or hall duty. The humanities team meets twice a week to go over the new standards, and to read about what expert teachers have tried.

The teachers know their challenge will be adapting these new lessons to students with a wide range of reading and writing abilities. And adding more non-fiction marks a shift after years in which they were encouraged to excite their students with creative storytelling (an approach called balanced literacy). At University Neighborhood Middle School, reading specialist Reena Shah says nobody’s throwing out the poetry. But she says there’s room for more informational texts along with narrative fiction.

"Narrative can be narrative non-fiction," she says, citing examples. "So it can be personal essay, it can be memoir. So I think it’s a lot in how we’re interpreting the standards as well."

Math and reading scores at University Neighborhood Middle School are below the citywide average — though its students have been making steady progress. Teachers say the best way to continue that trend is to gradually introduce the new standards.

Twelve year-old Alexandria Serrata is already discovering some new non-fiction in her 8th grade humanities class. She wants to run for class president, so she’s reading a book called The Elements of Speech Writing and Public Speaking. She’s stuck post-it notes wherever she sees something interesting.

"I’ve got one idea that, like, when you’re reading to teens or pre-teens you need to read quicker than normal because they tend to get tired and more distracted," she says.

That’s something her teachers will also be very much aware of as they include more non-fiction in their classrooms.