Informational Texts

Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Michael W. Smith, and James E. Fredericksen: Get It Done!: Writing and Analyzing Informational Texts to Make Things Happen

Say:
Having spent several years teaching English 101 and 102 classes, I find it interesting that the first few chapters discuss "informational/ explanatory texts" using categories like cause-effect, compare/contrast, and definition. In my experience, these were all categories used to assign argument papers to first year college students. Arguments of definition papers involved debates about "marriage," what constitutes a "fair" judicial system, and whether certain leaders were "evil." Arguments of cause-effect might trace the influence of the past or argued that the road of today would lead to a certain kind of future. Arguments of compare and contrast evaluated and made cases for "the best" in sports, music, politics, or argued for a side in the age-old book vs. movie debate. My point is -- the three colleges at which I taught always focused the Freshman English assignments on argument, and used these categories to explain them. Until I started reading this book, I never considered these categories as anything but argument, although I can see now how they can be taught as informational/explanatory and why that approach would be useful. This book has given me a new perspective on something I thought I already knew pretty well. I love it when that happens.

Inquiry excites me. I love that this book gets into essential questions as the context for inquiry. The authors say that "inquiry, as we see it and research offers compelling proof, is the most powerful context for all teaching and learning and for all forms of reading and composing" (45). LOVE. I also see similarities between the book Understanding by Design and this one, because one of the ways we plan using essential questions is to think about what we want the culminating composing task to be, and then work backward to make sure we're preparing our students to be able to do it. Once again, frontloading is crucial, as we need to emphasize practice and make sure to offer frontloading that is both "conceptual and procedural" (49).

Chapters 6-12 are fantastic models of exactly HOW to take each category of informational text and apply it to the classroom. Especially useful for me were the chapters on compare/contrast, cause and effect, and I also really liked the one about lists. As I mentioned before, I'm used to teaching these with a more "argument-centric" approach, and it's incredibly helpful to have the authors describe the how-to's of each so well. There are also some pretty neat graphic organizers included in each chapter, as well as CCSS-aligned lessons. Awesome and useful tool to have for my classroom.

Do:
My CT uses a really neat annotation-practice each week called "Article of the Week." She's frontloaded annotation techniques with her students, and I even saw her revisit some of the frontloading lessons when she felt her students weren't annotating the articles sufficiently. The students are given a contemporary article from a major newspaper or newsmagazine, and they are instructed to read it, annotate it, and answer EOC-style questions about it (as continuing practice for the EOC). I love the results my CT has gotten from these weekly activities, and they've allowed the students to be a part of the ongoing real world discussions happening around sports scandals, scientific discoveries, politics, etc. I include a sample Article of the Week below.