Think back to when you were in school.  We all learned the difference between fiction and nonfiction, but take a moment to think about how you would define that term for your students.  I specifically remember one of my teachers reminding us that NF stood for nonfiction and not fake.  Last week I asked you to share your own definition of nonfiction in 5 words or less.  Here’s a word cloud I created based on the definitions you all shared:

You’ll notice as you look at this that the terms that appeared most in our definitions were informational, factual, facts, and real.

As we all know, when reading a nonfiction text, we cannot always accept everything at 100% factual.  Think of just about any controversial topic.  You can find nonfiction pieces written in support of and against global warming, evolution, or the risks of tobacco use.  Does that mean that both sides of the story are true?  Or are they both lying to us?  Most of the time, it’s much more nuanced than that.

For a variety of reasons, authors may omit information, tell us little white lies, or manipulate their research and data.  The reality is that nonfiction can be so challenging because it forces us to interact with the text in ways that fiction never expect us to do.  As Beers and Probst say, we must understand when reading nonfiction that “the author is not offering the truth, but one vision of the truth.”  Sometimes a nonfiction author will go so far as to explicitly tell us the inference they want us to make.  The author wants us to accept their version as the truth without questioning, but we must think about the purpose the author has for writing.

This brings us to the question, how do we really define nonfiction?  I love the definition that Beers and Probst put forth, and is much deeper than the definition I was given of “not fake”:

Nonfiction is that body of work in which the author purports to tell us about the real world, a real experience, a real person, an idea, or a belief.

To me, the key word here is purports.  Every author has a purpose in their writing, and depending on that purpose they may lead us to conclusions that we wouldn’t generally make if we were in possession of all the facts.  This definition reminds us of the importance of reading with a questioning stance.

By seeking the author’s purpose while we are reading, we will be better able to look at nonfiction and understand why an author made the choices they did.  If you want to see a great example of an article that can be used to look at author’s purpose, take a look at “Vampires Prey on Panama” found on page 261 of Reading Nonfiction.  As you read the article, pay close attention to the words that are used to describe the farmer compared to the words that are used to describe the scientist.  Who’s the antagonist?  Who’s the hero?  Why does the author choose to write in this way?  If our students learn to have that questioning stance as they read nonfiction, they will be better at identifying the author’s purpose.

The nonfiction signposts will also help our students to get the author’s purpose.  During our PD with Beers and Probst last week, they identified 2 signposts in particular that help us better understand the author’s purpose.  I’ll share with you a little about each of those signposts next week.

In the past week it’s been great seeing so many of the teachers in our building working to integrate the 3 main questions that were the basis of my post last week.  So I’m curious, how do you define nonfiction for your students?  I’d also love to hear more about how you have been implementing the questions into subject areas other than reading, or what you’ve noticed about the thinking that your students are doing as a result of these questions.  Share your thoughts in the comments below.