Mrs. Knott's Book Nook: Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday Mock Orbis Pictus part 2 10.24.18

Every Wednesday I join Alyson Beecher from kidlitfrenzy and other

kidlit bloggers to share wonderful nonfiction picture books.

The intention of today's blog post is to give professionals that work in the
education field new nonfiction reading material and ideas to use

with students to promote a love of reading nonfiction materials.

Hope you were able to stop by last Wednesday and read about my switch to trying NCTE's Mock Orbis Pictus with students this year. Here's the post. That was the why, here is the how!

I've always viewed any "mock" award process as a way to expose students to amazing literature while getting them to dig deeper into criteria that makes the books great. The fantastic part about critiquing nonfiction material is it ties into our curriculum standards so well.

I started out by introducing the Mock Orbis Pictus to each classroom that was partaking in the fun! We talked about the other "Mock" awards we do as a school - these students have already participated in Mock Geisel and Mock Caldecott for the past three years so for them, this is something that was familiar. We talked about NCTE and the Orbis Pictus award. I showed them the Orbis Pictus site and we looked at last year's winners. There were several familiar books to them (If Sharks Disappeared, Dazzle Ships, Her Right Foot and Grand Canyon) and we talked about what stood out about those books.

The NCTE site has put together a very helpful guide to start you on your way. It was here that I found the categories the committee uses to critique the books. They include: accuracy, organization, design and style. Included in the guide are some very kid friendly questions to help them frame their thinking. I made a booklet the students would use with 2 questions for each category. We took a closer look at each category and talked about how we would go about thinking and discussing each one.

Accuracy:

this category is easy for fourth graders because as third graders we had already looked at author opinion and how information can be framed by writers and how we can form our own opinion about what we read.
each grade level has done some work with citing their sources. We discuss how writers must do the same thing and we talk about how this information is usually found in the backmatter. We also talk about the Author's Note - so many readers skip this very important part but after looking at some examples, we see that so often an author might share information about the experts that were consulted when writing the book.

Organization:

this goes along perfectly with our discussion of text structure. Such an important piece of information for our readers. If they can figure out the text structure of a section or the entire book, our students know they can figure out which thinking map they would use to help them organize their thinking. Our district has been using thinking maps - generic graphic organizers that go along with text structure such as cause/effect, compare/contrast, description, problem/solution, etc - to help students frame their thinking. Talking about organization is such a perfect segway into text structure and why a writer choose it - very important standard connection!

Design:

here students are able to look deeper into the decisions an author or illustrator made to help their readers understand the content. Were text features used? How did that enhance or distract us from the book? Understanding text features and how they add to the understanding of the main text is another standard we need to teach.

Style:

here's where students get to add a little of their own opinion to their critique. Did they like the book? Did this book make them want to learn more about the topic? We've started looking at our own opinions about nonfiction reading and answering a question such as "was this book interesting" one that is perfect to talk aloud about - so many students are shocked to learn that nonfiction is interesting and that a topic they didn't think they wanted to learn about is actually fascinating.

Students will be able to refer back to their notes once it gets closer to voting time. NCTE begins November 15th so I imagine we'll have our vote in the days before I leave. I've already promised to send pictures from the Children's Luncheon where we'll find out the list of Recommended, Honor and Orbis Pictus Award winner titles.

Last week I shared five titles from our Mock Orbis Pictus list. Here are the rest of the titles:

Between the Lines: How Ernie Barnes Went From the Football Field to the Art Gallery

written by Sandra Neil Wallace

illustrated by Bryan Collier

Girl Running: Bobbi Gibb and the Boston Marathon

written by Annette Bay Pimentel

illustrated by Micha Archer

Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World

written by Susan Hood

illustrated by 13 different illustrators!

Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams

written by Lesa Cline-Ransome

illustrated by James Ransome

Otis and Will Discover the Deep: the Record-Setting Dive of the Bathysphere

written by Barb Rosenstock

illustrated by Katherine Roy

Nothing Stopped Sophie: the Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain

written by Cheryl Bardoe

illustrated by Barbara McClintock

Turning Pages: My Life Story

by Sonia Sotomayor

illustrated by Lulu Delacre

Fur Feather Fin All of Us Are Kin

written by Diane Lang

illustrated by Stephanie Laberis

Cute as an Axolotl: Discovering the World's Most Adorable Animals

written by Jess Keating

illustrated by David DeGrand

All That Trash: The Story of the 1987 Garbage Barge and Our Problem With Stuff

by Meghan McCarthy

What a great list of nonfiction reading! I could've put so much more on it, but you always have to limit some lists! Now I'm anxiously waiting the Awards Luncheon to find the "real" results!