Fiction vs. Nonfiction

In Readers' Workshop we're learning about nonfiction text features.  What better way to explore nonfiction than to compare it to fiction?  Students worked in small groups to compare and contrast two books about a common topic - one of them in each genre.  They wrote their noticings using a venn-diagram in their reading journal.

The book on the left is clearly a fiction story.  The book on the right is nonfiction.  Students can easily identify the genre based on the title and picture on the front cover.  

This group of boys can't help but concentrate on the content of their nonfiction book!

These girls are comparing their books side by side. 

An example of student work.