Teaching with Text Sets

The adoption of the Common Core State Standards by so many states has generated much discussion on the role of nonfiction in the language arts and content area curriculum. What does it mean to have 50% of elementary school reading be comprised of informational/nonfiction texts? What does that look like? I worry that the discussions do not get past the dichotomy of fiction vs. informational text/ nonfiction to get at the heart of the possibilities that stand before us. What happens when we move past the dichotomy, and start thinking about curriculum that uses multiple genres and text types simultaneously? How can text sets help students of all ages critique information, connect with communities around the world, compare and contrast multiple perspectives, and construct new texts?

I am proud to announce that today is the official publication date for Teaching with Text Sets, a professional book for teachers that I have co-authored with my Lesley University colleague Erika Thulin Dawes. In the book, we demonstrate how to create, organize, and use multigenre, multimodal text sets as a tool for teaching elementary and middle school language arts and content.  If you'd like to see examples of two of our specific text models, head over to The Classroom Bookshelf. You can also learn more about the book at Shell Education or Amazon.