Text Structures From Nonfiction Picture Books - Available April 2025 - Preorder Now!

Using Nonfiction Picture Books for Lively, High-Impact Lessons That Inspire Student Reading, Writing, and Response

Want to make an unbelievable story utterly irresistible to young readers?

Make sure the story’s true. Nonfiction, like poetry, can have a bad reputation for being boring, but in the hands of able picture book authors, it’s anything but. In Text Structures From Nonfiction Picture Books, elementary and middle grade teachers can channel the curiosity piqued from amazing true tales to help students further their reading comprehension and writing skills.

With the bite-sized format of nonfiction picture books as a starting point, this practical book shares over 40 low-prep, quick-access lessons to get students reading, writing, and responding to nonfiction texts with ease. The book provides a wealth of instruction, including:

• Step-by-step lessons with multiple ways to use each picture book to prompt students’ writing and analysis of the text
• An extensive list of nonfiction picture book titles organized by “books about people,” “books about places,” “books about things,” and "books about animals”
• Topics, text structures, and writer’s craft moves provided for each book
• Lessons that introduce kernel essays, truisms, and reading response
• Embedded terms, examples, and assignments to teach the vocabulary of writer’s craft including refrain, polysyndeton, antithesis, and more!

Based on master writing teacher Gretchen Bernabei’s instructional model, the lessons offer a lively, high-impact mix of reading aloud, discussion, modeling, student writing, and peer share. Plus, readers have access to a complete companion website full of text structure reproducibles, reading response prompts, additional lessons and extensions, student samples, and links to demo videos.

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