Creating Powerful Curriculum withNon-Fiction Texts

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Purpose of this Session

• Participants will be able to… Explain how to teach non-fiction in a CCSS

curriculum. Describe how to maintain rigor when using non-

fiction texts in classrooms.

Critical Question for this Session

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How should non-fiction function in a CCSS ELA

classroom?

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Reviewing Instructional Shifts 1 & 2

Review shifts 1 and 2 and discuss in groups: What does each shift mean for classroom

instruction and curriculum?

Examination of a Sample ELA Non-Fiction Text

• Read “Letter 1” from Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet.

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Analysis of a Non-Fiction Lesson

• Read a short section of an exemplar instructional sequence from 9.1.2 Lesson 1.

Read the lesson assessment and assessed standard.

Analyze how the series of questions scaffolds students towards the expectations of lesson assessment.

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Discussion of Non-Fiction

• Non-fiction and rigor: How does this non-fiction text (or other texts

similar to it) fit into the HS ELA curriculum? What about it meets the Common Core’s

standards for rigorous texts? What are the implications for HS ELA text

selection more broadly?

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Additional Non-Fiction in the EngageNY Modules

• “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. (10.2)

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (10.3)

• “Hope, Despair and Memory” by Elie Wiesel (11.3)

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X (12.1)

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Additional Non-Fiction in the EngageNY Modules

• Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin (9.3)• Sugar Changed the World by Marc Aronson &

Marina Budhos (9.4)• “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

United Nations (10.2)

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Discussion of Non-Fiction

• Text brainstorm: What other non-fiction texts might fit well in a

HS ELA classroom?• Non-fiction in a CCSS curriculum:

What are some of the different ways non-fiction is used in a CCSS curriculum?

How do we know if the way we’re teaching non-fiction is enacting the instructional shifts?

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Q & A

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