#9: Fiction V. Nonfiction texts for ELLs

To show the similarities and differences of fiction and nonfiction texts, I used the Glencoe:  Exploring Our World 7th grade World Cultures textbook, and a version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, modified for ELLs by Hampton Brown Publishers.  Both texts are used by my 7th grade ELL students, and each one requires them to use different lenses for reading to gain information. This is the graphic organizer that I created to illustrate the differences between the texts:

The 7th grade students are familiar with the 7 keys to reading comprehension strategies, and we discuus and apply them to any text that we read.   These keys can be used to take meaning from either fiction or nonfiction texts.  The fiction text that I chose is adapted for ELL students, so there are critical thinking questions at the beginning of each chapter, highlighted difficult vocabulary with subscript definitions, and there are short summaries at the beginning of each chapter.  The nonfiction World Cultures text shares these features.  They are conducive for setting a purpose for reading, guiding low readers, and for thinking critically during and after reading the text.  The main differences in the non-fiction text are that it provides a glossary, website links, informational articles, and other extensions that provide opportunities for learning about the content that are not found in the fiction text.