Okay, so it’s a dumb name-nonfiction-but it’s an important type of reading and writing. It’s essential to success in school and a key to getting a job as well as getting promotions. It’s what we mainly utilize after we leave school.
A study sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2010 found that each day the average kid in the U.S. spends about four and a half hours watching TV, two and a half hours listening to music, an hour and a quarter playing video games, and about 25 minutes a day reading. How much of that time spent reading n…fiction? Less than 4 minutes!
Enter the Common Core State Standards, with its heavy emphasis on n…fiction. A good thing? Absolutely! And I’m not just saying that because I’m the author of 24 n…fiction books, either. I’m saying that because it makes sense.
Reading about real things helps build background knowledge, an important variable in student achievement. Better than that, it helps motivate kids by connecting them with their curiosities and interests.
Why is n…fiction a dumb name? Because it’s based on what it is not. Not fiction. When I do author visits to schools I share my disdain for the name and then give the kids an example: “From now on, there is no such word as boy,” I tell them. “Those guys sitting among you are non-girls.”
Of course this gets a wild “Hahaha” from the females in the group. And then I reverse it. The kids get it. Then I ask them to come up with a new, improved name for n…fiction. We get some interesting suggestions:
Realia
Realiisim
Factical
Faction
Realwriting (see my website name)
Try this with your class. What do they come up with?
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