【课堂实录系列】美国老师教孩子什么是Nonfiction

Teacher: boys and girls, today I'm going to read to you one of my favorite stories, by one of my favorite authors Kevin Henkes. And this story is called Lilly's big day.

老师读：one day, Lilly's teacher, Mr. Slinger, announced to the class that he was going to marry Ms. Shortwell, the school nurse. Lilly's heart leaped. she had always wanted to be a flower girl...

T: so boys and girls, this story is fiction, what does fiction mean?

S: not real life.

T: Fiction means not real life. It's just pretend. I know that you knew that this story was fiction. Because… could it really be a mouse that was dressed up?   Do mice really get married? But there are also some books that authors write about real things that give us information. And those kind of stories are called nonfiction.  And I have a story right here called mice.

Now if you look at the two cover pages. The author gives us a really big clue that these going to be different stories. One is going to be real, and one is not going to be real.

Put your hand up if you can tell me what's the clue?

S: One is photograph. One… someone drew the other one.

T: Okay, so one is photograph, and someone drew the other one. A photograph on the cover page is a hint that this story is going to be about real mice. When I open up these two books, there are also something different.

T: what is different about beginning pages of these two stories?

S: one's contents. And one's not.

T: so which one has contents?

S: that one.

T: this one has contents. This one just starts the story right away. And an contents tells us the names of the different chapters that is gonna be in book. So it tells us what's going to be all about. We call them subtitles. And an contents also has page numbers.

T: if I keep turning the pages of my nonfiction book, I noticed  the subtitle right here and there's something I noticed right here.  XXX, what's that called?

S: it's diagram.

T: this is a diagram. It's a drawing that has labels. It's teaching us all about a mouse.

T: boys and girls, yesterday we talked about some differences between nonfiction stories and fictional stories. Today you're going to have three minutes to look through your nonfiction book. After three minutes, you're gonna put your hand up and let me know if you noticed any those features of nonfiction texts.  Okay, so open up your notebooks.

学生看书。

T: one two and one. Can you raise your hand if you noticed one of the special features in nonfiction texts that you're going to have? XXX

S: My book has a glossary.

T: your book has a glossary. So XXX has a glossary in her book. XXX, what did  you notice in your nonfiction book?

S: I noticed I have a contents.

T: you have a contents in your nonfiction book. Can I put it right by the front? （老师板书contents写到了glossary的前面）on top of the list, because that's read on the first page.  And the contents that we talked about has two things: the contents has…tells us the subtitles, page numbers. Can everybody open their books and to see if you have a contents at the very front. And put your finger on your nose if you have a contents. Excellent. So lots of nonfiction books have contents. Not all of them, but many of them.

T: what else does your nonfiction book have?

S: it has an index. An index is something else that special in nonfiction. We'll talk about a little bit more about that later. That's usually at the back of a book. We know it's index because the subtitle is index.

T: XXX, what's your book have?

S: photograph.

T: it has a photograph. And I'll put it up right… on the very top, because a lot of times photographs are on the cover page too.

T: can everybody look through your book and to see if you have any diagrams? Hold it up if you see a diagram. I see a lot of diagrams. Excellent. And I'm gonna add diagrams here. Diagram is a picture with labels.  Now I want you to look closely through your book and to see if you have any print that a little bit darker?

T: what's that called?

S: bold print.

T: it's called bold print when it's really darker.

T: XXX has told us that in her nonfiction text, she has glossary, but what's a glossary?

S: It's bold print and tells us what's it means.

T: so if you find a word that in bold print in your story, you are going to see it again in the glossary and it's gonna tell us what that word means.

S: so you have all been great detectives. You've discovered learned  that nonfiction text have photographs, contents that tells us the subtitles and page numbers. There's diagrams, put pictures with labels. We have bold print words. How can we explain? What's a bold print word? What if someone doesn't know?

T: it's a word that is very important.

S: so it's very important word.

T: and that glossary has all the bold print words and it tells us what they mean. And the last one was index.

T: boys and girls, we've been talking a lot about the features of nonfiction text. And we made a list of some of those features that behind me.  Today Ms XXX needs our help in library. She gave me all these books and she  wants to sort them into two piles, either fiction pile or nonfiction pile. So you're gonna know that your book is nonfiction if you check with these features. And I'm gonna give you a one moment to look through your story . Make a choice if it's a fiction or nonfiction.  And I'm gonna choose you to explain which pile you're going to put in.

T: XXX, what book do you have?

S: A fiction.

T: why do you think this story is a fiction story?

S: because there's no photograph.

T: there's no photograph. That's one way to know. So XXX can you put it in fiction pile?

T: XXX, what do you have?

S: Tyrannosaurus rex.

T: and what do you think? Is it fiction or nonfiction?

S: Nonfiction.

T: why do you think it's nonfiction?

S: because …

T: what are these?

S: bold prints.

T: bold prints. For sure, I agree, that's non-fiction.

T: XXX, what story do you have?

S: nonfiction.

T: why do you think it's nonfiction?

T: photographs, contents, subtitles. Excellent. You've been checking with our list.  Can you come and put it in this pile please?

在美国老师的这三堂课中，孩子们学会掌握了Nonfiction读物的文本特征，如下图。

孩子们了解了这些文本特征时，再去读这类书时，就知道如何去读，比如可以先看一遍目录（contents），找到自己感兴趣的小标题（subtitle），根据后面的页码（pages），就能直接翻到那一页。

老师讲解这些文本特征时，使用的语言也很简单，值得我们学会后讲给自己娃听。