Teaching Nonfiction and Media Literacy Through Comparison

Mr. Vaughn's second grade class and Foster Village librarian, Lynda Pelletier, recently collaborated on a lesson in which students compared spiders and insects using a nonfiction article located on the Internet. Ms. Pelletier wanted students to understand that articles located on the Internet are also nonfiction. Students considered the topic, main idea, and supporting details and located the topic, main idea, and supporting details from a nonfiction article found online. In addition, students created a glossary on scientific vocabulary located within the text. As a final activity, students used the iPad app, DoodleBuddy, to draw and label the parts of a spider from their research. TEKS addressed in this activity included the following.

• 14A: Identify main idea in a text and distinguish it from a topic.
• 14B: Locate the facts that are clearly stated in a text.
• 15B: Use common graphic features to assist in interpretation of text.
• 16A: Recognize different purposes of media.
• 19A: Establish purpose for reading selected text based on content to enhance comprehension.