ENTRY #9

There are many challenges to teaching English Language Learners the difference between fiction and non-fiction.  It is important to use a graphic organizer to outline the differences for these students.  It is also helpful to be mindful of which texts are used to teach this.  Using a fiction and a non-fiction text that have similar themes can be more powerful for students, than using two texts with no similarities.  Two such texts are: Birthdays Around the World by Jackie Glassman, and A Letter to Amy by Ezra Jack Keats.  The first book details how birthdays are celebrated in different countries throughout the word.  The narrative text tells a story about a boy who is inviting a special friend to his birthday party.  After having read both texts, a graphic organizer could be completed in a whole or small-group setting.  Since quite a few differences exist between the two genres, it is important to keep the graphic organizer as simple as possible to allow students more access to the information.  Here is an example of a graphic organizer depicting the differences between the two genres based on the texts mentioned above:

Fiction	Non-Fiction
- tells a made-up story about made-up people - drawings to illustrate the story - the story tells about a problem and how that problem is solved - has different characters - each page has the words in one area and a picture either under or next to the words	- gives true information about a topic - has real photographs of what its talking about - had headings to tell the main ideas of the book - uses bold text to highlight important words - shows how to make things that are mentioned in the book - has maps - has captions describing the photographs - there are words all over the page in different areas and boxes

Some fiction text features will prove to be a challenge for English Language Learners.  Fiction that is unrealistic and portrays characters that aren’t human can be confusing as some students may not understand the idea of telling a story and would be confused right from the start.  Fictional texts may also cover topics or ideas that are unfamiliar to students. In particular A Letter to Amy discusses a birthday party and, depending on the different students’ cultures, the idea of a birthday party may not be familiar to them.  If you were reading just A Letter to Amy then these students would benefit from a conversation, prior to reading the story, about birthdays.  One thing that is beneficial to these students is the illustrations.  English language learners will be able to get some understanding of the story based on the illustrations alone.

Non-fiction texts also provide some difficulties to students who are not native-English speakers.  While the photographs and headings can increase the students’ comprehension of the text and the main ideas, the amount and organization of the words can be overwhelming.  In the text Birthdays Around the World, much of the page is covered with writing and or pictures.  This can be overwhelming to any student as they may be confused about where to start or which words correspond with what graphic.  While bold words are beneficial in that they highlight the important vocabulary from the text, it is important that this vocabulary is introduced before reading the text as it may present more challenges.

When teaching students who are English language learners it is important that we keep these challenges in mind.  We should adapt our teaching techniques to address specific needs PRIOR to the start of the book.  Enough background knowledge should be provided before we can expect our students to tackle any text.  It is important that we recognize and teach the differences between fiction and non-fiction, and model for our student how to approach both types of texts.