3321 M&W Nonfiction

This week we learned all about the nonfiction genre of literature. I have got to say, I look at nonfiction in a completely different light now. Yes, I am one of those people who has always immediately categorized anything that is nonfiction as boring. I know that this is completely wrong, but before this class I always thought of nonfiction as things like our history text book (gag!) and I don't have any good memories concerning my old history text books!

I loved the examples that our professor brought to class! It especially interested me whenever we talked about The Magic School Bus. I was OBSESSED with The Magic School Bus growing up; I had every single book and never missed an episode of the show! I never actually stopped to think "hmm, is this fiction or nonfiction"? Without thinking it through the first thing that I want to answer is fiction, because "fiction is fake" and since it is a cartoon I don't automatically think of it as real. But the things that these books and television episodes teach are scientific facts and children really learn a lot from them. I suppose this is where the "faction" category comes in, and I think that it is quite a catchy word that is very much common sense. It is perfect for teaching children about important things, and the small fiction or cartoon (I'm not saying they're the same thing) portion is what draws children in.

After reading and discussing chapter 9 I'm no longer afraid of being bored with nonfiction books. I definately want to have a lot of nonfiction books in my classroom, and I thought that the nonfiction/fiction scavenger hunt was a great idea; especially to introduce children to the nonfiction genre and break those horrible stereotypes. I plan on using that activity for sure in my future classroom!