Craft & Convention--Nonfiction

Craft & Convention
Genre Lists
These lists are works in process--join us in building a stronger list of resources to support our work with identified units of study! Send suggested titles with brief descriptions to ljackson@tcsdk12.org.

Nonfiction or Non-narrative

Personal Letter--These books are intended to introduce students to letter writing. We have included books which contain or are written as letters, books about letter writing and books which will build schema to support student understanding.

Books featuring letters:
Yours Truly, Goldilocks (Alma Flor Ada)
The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters (Janet & Allan Alhberg)
Letters From Felix: A Little Rabbit on a World Tour (Annette Langen)
Dear Mr. Blueberry (simon James)
Dear Rebecca, Winter is Here (Jean Craig Georgehead)
Dear Santa: The Letters of James B. Dobbins (Bill Harley)
Dear Annie (Judith Caseley)
Dear Baby: Letters From Your Big Brother (Sara Sullivan)
Flat Stanley (Jeff Brown)
How to Write Letters and Email (Ceila Warren)
Dear Little Lamb (Kempter Christa)
Dear Willie Rudd (Libba Moore Gray)
Love, Ruby Lavendar (Debbie Wiles)
First Year Letters (Julie Danneberg)
My Dear Noel: The Story of a Letter From Beatrx Potter (Jane Johnson)
dear juno (Sayoung Pak)
Books about writing letters:
A Letter for Amy (Ezra Jack Keats)
Arthur’s Pen Pal (Marc Brown)
A Pen Pal for Max (Gloria Rand)
Mailing May (Michael O. Tunnel)
Books to build schema:
A Day With a Mail Carrier (Kottke)
The Post Office Book: Mail and How it Moves (Gail Gibbons)
How It Happens At The Post Office (Dawn Frederick)
Postal Workers (Sharon Knudson)
Teacher Resources:
Units of Study in the Writer’s Workshop (Article by Isoke Nia)
Immersion Time Table
Units of Study (Katie Wood Ray)
Wondrous Words (Katie Wood Ray)
Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (Katie Wood Ray & Lester Laminack)
Is That A Fact? Teaching Nonfiction Writing K-3 (Tony Stead)

Procedural Texts--These books include or feature procedural texts. Procedural texts are often inserted into informational texts, so keep your eyes open!

How to Be a Friend: A Guide to Making Friends and Keeping Them (Laurie Brown)
Look at My Book: How Kids Can Write & Illustrate Terrific Books (Gail Creedy)
My Book of Easy Crafts (Shinobu Akaishi)
How To Be A Baby...By Me, The Big Sister) (Sally Lloyd Jones)
Pizza Pigs and Poetry: How to Write a Poem (Jack Prelutsky)
How To Be A Spy In Seven Days Or Less (Justine Smith)
Gadgetology: Kitchen Fun With Your Kids (Pam Abrahams)
Show Joy How to Make a Sandwich (Charlie Buckley)
Show Joy How to Wash Your Hands (Charlie Buckley)
Like A Pro: 101 Simple Ways To Do Really Important Stuff (Becker)
How to Lose All Your Friends (Nancy Carlson)
How to Make An Apple Pie and See the World (Margorie Priceman)
Watch Me Make a Birthday Card (Jack Otten)
Building an Igloo (Ulli Steltzer)
The Ultimate Kids Money Book (Neale S. Godfrey)
The Most Excellent Book of How to Be a Juggler (Mitch Mitchelson)
Wax to Crayons (Welcome Book/Inez Snyder)
Making a Caterpillar (Rigby PM/John Pettit)
How Chocolate is Made (Rigby Lightouse/Claire Llewellyn)
Snow Shapes: A Read and Do Book (Judith Moffat)
Laura Numeroff’s 10 10 step Guide to Living With Your Monster (Laura Numeroff)
Let’s Make a Cake (Mary Hill)
I Can Make a Flower (ET/Cuisenaire/Christin Finochio)
How to Make a Mudpie (Rozanne Lanzak Williams)
Make a Funny Face (ETA Cuisenaire/Christine Finocho)
Making a dinosaur (Rigby PM Level 1)
Making a rabbit (Rigby PM Level 1)
Making a bird (Rigby PM Level 1)
Mouse Cookies: 10 Easy-to-Make Cookie Recipes with a story in pictures (Laura Numeroff)
The Usborne Book of Origami (Eilieen O’Brien and Kate Needham)
The Furry News: How To Make A Newspaper (Loren Leedy)
Which Way Home (Righard Vaughan)
Books about making things:
Which Way Home (Righard Vaughan)
How is a Crayon Made (Oz Charles)
Tomatoes to Ketchup (Inez Snyder)
Apples to Applesauce (Inez Snyder)
Froggy Bakes a Cake (Jonathan London)
What Can We Make Together? (Suzanne Moore)
Hey, Pancakes! (Tamson Weston)
Children’s magazines that often feature procedural texts:
Nick Magazine
National Geographic Kids
American Girl
Your Big Backyard
Teacher Resources:
Units of Study in the Writer’s Workshop (Article by Isoke Nia)
Immersion Time Table
Units of Study (Katie Wood Ray)
Wondrous Words (Katie Wood Ray)
Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (Katie Wood Ray & Lester Laminack)
Is That A Fact? Teaching Nonfiction Writing K-3 (Tony Stead)

Reports/Informational Texts--Examples of well organized, expository pieces which are research based and include nonfiction text features. Younger writers begin with ‘All About Books’, which are simply just that--a book that is all about something the writer knows a lot about or has a personal interest in. Older writers may format reports as feature articles* or as more formal research or term papers.

*Feature articles combine facts with one or more of the following: story, strong voice--the sense the writer is talking to reader, or opinion. In addition,feature articles may also include photographs, maps, charts, tables and other non-fiction features.

Potential mentor texts for younger writers:
Saguaro Moon: A Desert Journal (Kristin Joy Pratt-Serafini)
The Most Excellent Book of How to Be a Juggler (Mitch Mitchelson)
True Bugs: When is a Bug Really a Bug (Sara Swan Miller)
Cheetahs (First Reports, Animals) (Darlene Stille)
Eagles (First Reports, Animals) (Mary K. Dornhoffer)
Jaguars (First Reports, Animals) (Darlene Stille)
Penguins (First Reports, Animals) (Lucian Raatma)
Titanic Tragedy (Vincent McDonnell)
Animal Planet: The Most Extreme Bugs (Kevin Mohs)
Box Turtles (Nature Watch) (Lynn M. Stone)
Formula One Race Cars (Janet Piehl)
Potential mentor texts for older writers:
The Book of Changes: A Collection of Interviews by Kristine McKenna)
Talking Artists, Vol. 1-3 (Pat Cummings)
Military Technolgy (Cool Science) (Ron Fridel)
The Secret Science Behind Movie Stunts & Special Effects (Steve Wolf)
It’s True! An Octopus Has Deadly Spit! (Nicki Greenburg)
The Hindenburg Disaster (Code Red)
Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Tree Forests of New Guinea (Sy Montgomery)
Big Foot: The Monster Chronicles (Stephen Krenzky)
What Really Happened in Roswell: Just the Facts (Plus the Rumors) About UFO’s and Aliens (Kathleen Krull)
Texts to model nonfiction text features:
World Book’s Animals of the World Series (World Book)
The Story of the White House (Kate Waters) (Cut away diagrams)
Sources for locating examples of feature articles, research papers or term papers:

Teacher Resources:
Units of Study (Katie Wood Ray)
Wondrous Words (Katie Wood Ray)
Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (Katie Wood Ray & Lester Laminack)
Is That A Fact? Teaching Nonfiction Writing K-3 (Tony Stead)*
Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing and Research in Grades 3-8 (Stephanie Harvey)

*Don’t be fooled by this one, teachers of older students can definitely benefit from reading this one!

Persuasive Writing--Letters, editorials and commentaries are different types of persuasive writing. Persuasive pieces make convincing arguments intended to influence readers to adopt a point of view or to take action.

Books which feature or contain examples of persuasion (picture books denoted in blue):
I Want a Pet (Lauren Child)
Dear Mrs. LaRue Series (Mark Teague)
Earrings (Judith Viorst)
I Wanna Iguana (Karen Kaufman Orloff)
Dear Willie Rudd (Libba Moore Gray)
Should We Have Pets? A Persuasive Text (Sylvia Lollis)
The Gardener (Sarah Stewart)
My Duck (Tanya Lynch)
Stella Louella’s Runnaway Book by Lisa Ernst (Mark Teague)
Love, Ruby Lavendar (Debbie Wiles)
I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King, various illustrators)
Dear Annie (Judith Caseley)
Mr. Lincoln’s Whiskers (Karen Orloff)
Click Clack Moo: Cows that Type (Doreen Cronnin)
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf (John Scieszka)
Regarding the Fountain (Katie Klise)

Sources for locating examples of Persuasive Writing:
Your Local Newspaper (Letters to the editor and op/ed pieces)
New York Times On Line Edition (Requires free registration for daily delivery)
Sources for locating examples of Persuasive Essay:
New York Times On Line Edition (Requires free registration for daily delivery)

Teacher Resources:
Units of Study (Katie Wood Ray)
http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/writing/elem_writing/Bib/Persuasive.htm (Links to related WebQuests)
http://www.region15.org/curriculum/pwp.pdf (Tons of related graphic organizers ranging from the typical to the creative and all designed for writers of persuasion)
http://www.mcrel.org/compendium/activityDetail.asp?activityID=87 (Identifying persuasion in the mail)
http://content.scholastic.com/browse/lessonplan.jsp?id=153 (Recognizing persuasion in the world of advertising)
http://www.writingcentre.ubc.ca/workshop/tools/argument.htm (Elements of persuasion)
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/lessons/20000414friday.html (Lesson plans from the New York Times)
Wondrous Words (Katie Wood Ray)
Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (Katie Wood Ray & Lester Laminack)
Is That A Fact? Teaching Nonfiction Writing K-3 (Tony Stead)*
Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing and Research in Grades 3-8 (Stephanie Harvey)

*Don’t be fooled by this one, teachers of older students can definitely benefit from reading this one!
Newspaper Articles--Written in third person to answer the questions who, what, when, where and why in the form of an article written in 3rd person voice. Explains, relates or describes real events which are of interest to the audience.

Texts written as or featuring newspaper articles:
Extra! Extra! Fairy Tale News From the Hidden Forest (Alma Flor Ada)
Texts to build schema:
Deadline! From News to Newspapers (Gail Gibbons)
Newspaper Reporters: An Introduction to Newspaper Writing
The Furry News: How To Make A Newspaper (Loren Leedy)

Biography/Biographical Feature Articles--Models for short biography and feature articles written about people. Teachers may also want to look at the list of mentor texts for younger writers as examples of form and organization.

Texts to model biography:
The Man Who Named the Clouds (Julie Hannah)
Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesear Chavez (Kathleen Krull)
The Story of Coretta Scott King (Patricia A. Pingry)
Dizzy (Jonah Winter)
George Did It (Suzanne Tripp Jermaine)
Through Georgia’s Eyes (Rachel Victoria Rodriquez)
Gregor Mendal: The Friar Who Grew Peas (Cheryl Bardoe)
Time For Kids Biography Series
Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King (Doreen Rapapport)
Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Mohammad Ali (Charles R. Smith)
Famous Firsts: The Trendsetters, Groundbreakers, and Risk-Takers Who Got America Moving (Natalie Rompella)
Tales of Famous Americans (Peter Roop)
Dolly Madison Saves George Washington (Dan Brown)
Giants of Science Series
Houdini: World’s Greatest Mystery Man and Escape King (Kathleen Krull)
Magellan’s Great World (Great Explorers) (Stuart Waldman)
Nothing But Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson (Sue Stauffacher)
The Book of Changes: A Collection of Interviews by Kristine McKenna)
Talking Artists, Vol. 1-3 (Pat Cummings)
Teacher Resources:
Units of Study (Katie Wood Ray)
Wondrous Words (Katie Wood Ray)
Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (Katie Wood Ray & Lester Laminack)
Is That A Fact? Teaching Nonfiction Writing K-3 (Tony Stead)*
Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing and Research in Grades 3-8 (Stephanie Harvey)

*Don’t be fooled by this one, teachers of older students can definitely benefit from reading this one!

Personal Essay--Todd County defines the personal essay as an essay written in the first person, containing narrative elements and reflective of the author’s point of view or beliefs. In addition to narrative elements (vignettes which contain story elements), writers should include opinions and facts.

Specific Essays, Essay Collections or Web Resources to support Genre Study:
National Public Radio This I Believe Series (All essays available in text form and many available as audiofiles): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138
This I Believe Website (More organized that NPR, includes essay tips and examples for young people): http://www.thisibelieve.org/
This I Believe: The Personal Philosophy of Remarkable Men and Women (Anthology, ed. Jay Allison)
Units of Study in the Writer’s Workshop (Article by Isoke Nia)
Immersion Time Table