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The use of teaching practices that involve intertextual relationship discovery in today's elementary classrooms is increasingly essential to the success of young learners of reading. Teachers must constantly strive to expand their perspective of how to incorporate the dialogue included in prior knowledge assessment. Teachers must also consider how the use of fiction and non-fiction text relate to each other when building young learner reader comprehension skills. This paper first briefly examines the premise of a universal approach to including prior knowledge as intertext. It then provides a case example of how prior knowledge is integral to an intertextual teaching practice.

Presents a basic framework for guiding children in report writing using children's informational books as models in the process. Discusses various aspects of report writing. Describes specific book titles as they relate to these aspects. (MG)

This paper explores the positivist, museum-based, and touristic constructions of indigenous cultures in the Americas, as represented in the DK "Eyewitness" series, and then overturns these constructions using an artist book created by the authors. In our analysis of the nonfiction series, we identified three trajectories: cataloguing, consignment to the past, and pleasurable display. Using techniques borrowed from "new historiography" and the decolonizing methodologies of Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999), we suggest ways in which adults and young people might "speak back" to these positivist paradigms.

This article examines how non-fiction children's television programmes portray bodily changes and sexuality at puberty. Engaging with the body and the sexuality of children in the broadcast media raises cultural and social challenges. Public concern about social morality and the 'sexualisation of children', sexual objectification and pornography, together with the construction of childhood as a naïve pre-sexual stage of life, have silenced children's television when it comes to the subject of children's sexuality. However, a few programmes have offered an alternative to this taboo. Based on a study of 30 non-fiction programmes submitted between 1964 and 2016 to "Prix Jeunesse" international festival for children's media, this paper describes and analyses how these programmes present unique, thought-provoking and innovative ways of engaging with the culturally controversial issue of the body and sexuality on children's television.

In the summer of 2002, the authors' university offered an online course, titled "Swims with Words: Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Nonfiction" (referred to as "CNF"). "Swims with Words" is a seven-week online writing course that immersed students in reading and writing nonfiction texts so they could explore nonfiction's value and its relation to other genres, and investigate its potential for their own writing and teaching. This was a new approach to teaching writing (online), as well as a new genre for all of the 18 participants. Before the course began, the authors designed their research project to explore how teachers develop their own understanding of a new genre, how their own writing develops, how their writing instruction changes, and how all of this happens through an online venue. In this paper, the authors focus on how teachers form their concept of this genre. They expected the participants' understanding of this genre--their mental models of CNF--to influence what they tried in their writing and in their teaching of writing.

As concerns mount over the costs and benefits of higher education, it may be worthwhile to glance at the benefits of high school education at present as well. Of course, high school costs, while high, are borne by the taxpayers in general, but it is reasonable to hope that there are sufficient benefits for such an outlay. One of the most frequently heard complaints of college professors is that their new students (and many of their older students) cannot seem to read and write. This author contends that American public high schools in general do not believe in having students read complete nonfiction books, but confine reading assignments to excerpts or textbooks; nor do they believe in having students do the research and writing necessary for serious term papers. In this article, Fitzhugh focuses on the high school flight from reading and writing and explains that American public high schools confine assigned reading mainly to works of fiction and assigned writing to personal and creative efforts. The author argues that if educators do not assign importance to reading nonfiction and writing term papers, it should be no surprise that when their students arrive at college or in the workplace, they cannot read or write very well. (Contains 7 footnotes.)

In this article, the authors provide a synopsis of the 2014 Children's Literature Assembly (CLA) Workshop. The Workshop explored how fiction and nonfiction children's and young adult's literature create opportunities for in-depth learning in the content areas. Participants had the opportunity to hear the stories of authors and illustrators of fiction and nonfiction children's literature as they talked about creating books that explore science and mathematics concepts. The panel of presenters (Jennifer Brown, Kate Messner, Jon Scieszka, Jason Chin, Susan Stockdale, Melissa Stewart, Leslie Bulion, and Emily Jenkins) led participants on informative and entertaining excursions through their creative, inventive, and ingenious processes. Two master teachers (Kendall Donald and Emily Whitecotton) also shared curricular invitations for bringing these kinds of texts into practice in their fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms. Participants at the 2014 CLA Workshop were inspired by the work of these gifted authors and illustrators. While the audience learned about their unique approaches to creating books, they also came to see persistent themes shared in the writing. By the end of the workshop, audience members were able to walk away knowing more about a number of outstanding fiction and nonfiction K-8 titles. The teachers also introduced the audience to curricular invitations and offered valuable classroom strategies for gathering information and inspiration through these beautifully and thoughtfully crafted books.

Purpose: Mental illness has become an important public health issue in society, and media are the most common sources of information about mental illnesses. Thus, it is important to review research on mental illnesses and media. The purpose of this paper is to provide a narrative review of studies on mental illnesses in the media and identifies important research gaps. Design/methodology/approach: A combination of searching key databases and examining reference lists of selected articles was used to identify relevant articles. In total, 41 empirical studies published in the last 12 years were reviewed. Findings: The review found that substantial research had been done to investigate media portrayals of mental illnesses and the effects of such portrayals might have on the public. Media still portray mental illnesses negatively in general, which contributes to the ongoing mental illness stigmatization. Nonetheless, discussions of mental illnesses in direct-to-consumer advertisements and social media tend to be more objective and informative. These objective portrayals could help improve mental health literacy and reduce stigma. More importantly, media can also reduce the stigma if used strategically. Research has found that entertainment-education programs and web-based media have strong potential in reducing mental illness stigma. Recommendations for future research are also discussed. Practical implications: Findings can guide future efforts to use media to educate the public about mental illnesses and reduce mental illness stigma. Originality/value: This study reviews the most recent research on mental illnesses in the media and provides important references on the media representation of mental illnesses, media effects of such representation, and using media to reduce stigma.

Wooten and Clabough interviewed editors and an author-scientist of the award-winning Scientists in the Field to gain more background and depth into this series.

After having seen Jody Picoult's "Plain Truth," which is on the paperback best-seller list from "New York Times Book Review," and an ad for a novel called "A Version of the Truth," in this article the author talks about truth and how it is being told by some writers from a different point of view. It seems that truth is everywhere, and also nowhere. Look at the oxymorons of today: virtual reality, true lies, docudrama, infomercials, situational ethics. Then there is that old saw, truth is stranger than fiction, or its mirror image, fiction must be more real than life in order to be believable. Many are sold semi-autobiographical novels, memoirs of dubious provenance, historical fiction, and creative nonfiction. Writers invent the truth every time they pull words from their minds and set them to paper. Hence, some writers tell their own version of the truth, which is to say, they tell lies. As an historical novelist, particularly one that writes for young people who must never be lied to, the author grapples with the question, is history "true"? But do all writers tell lies, those who write novels that deal with social and political and religious ideas? Since she may never resolve this issue, the author stands beside Anne Lamott when she advises, "Tell the truth as you understand it. If you're a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act--truth is always subversive."

In this paper, we explore our use of a dialogical storytelling approach to alleviate some of the tensions involved in researching another person's embodied experience. These tensions concern the problems of (a) how to "access" another's embodied experience and (b) how to "represent" that experience. We consider these issues through sharing creative nonfiction stories, alongside theoretical reflections, drawn from our research into the meaning and value of an adapted sport and inclusive adventurous training course for military personnel who have experienced serious injury and/or trauma. In terms of accessing another's embodied experience, we observe how co-experienced physical movement seemed to allow taboo tales to be shared. In moments like these, there is a sense of "doing together" that supports story sharing--embodied interaction is the medium that allows it to happen. We suggest that evocative stories of personal embodied experience are unlikely to be shared or witnessed "without" an immersive embodied interaction. In terms of representation, we propose that faithful portrayals of embodied experience are most likely to be achieved through particular writing strategies. Because another's embodied experience can only be glimpsed tangentially, through a physical-emotional sensibility, it needs to be evoked, implied or rendered through aesthetic forms. We have found storytelling to be one way of writing that allows us to express and communicate complex and sometimes ambiguous forms of embodied knowledge, understanding and wisdom that we may not yet have fully grasped ourselves.

In this column, the author reviews books and other resources that address issues related to teaching tolerance for those of other religions, races, gender orientations, and cultures. It reviews titles related to Jewish oppression, including Doreen Rappaport's (2012) "Beyond Courage, the Untold Story of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust". It also addresses the civil rights movement and intolerance toward lesbians, bisexuals, gays, and transsexuals, including the powerful "October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard" (Newman, 2012). Nonfiction titles about cultures and people of the Middle East are also reviewed, including "Sharing Our Homeland: Palestinian and Jewish Children at a Summer Peace Camp" (Marx, 2010). Online and other free resources about teaching tolerance are reviewed, describing many materials from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

This paper focuses on an educational encounter between staff, students and the River Spey, Scotland in September 2009. The themes of water and embodied and culturally constructed ways of knowing the river were used to inform a creative non-fiction narrative that was drafted during and shortly after the journey, and was later refined. Textual descriptions of both significant and seemingly mundane aspects of the experience were built up through observation, discussion and reflection upon actual events as the authors "sought a solution" to writing a narrative-based representation of the experience. This process endeavours to represent an "insider's" view of the experience through descriptions that strive to portray the "meaning, structure and essence of the lived experience[s]" for a particular group of people at a particular moment in time. We propose that this kind of storytelling has the potential to represent important elements of outdoor educational experiences and the places where they occur that would be difficult to relay in other forms of research writing. The paper is presented in three parts: setting the scene; the textual representation of the Spey descent programme; and participants' evaluations and summary. (Contains 9 notes.)

This article presents an interview with Phillip Hoose, National Book Award winner for young people's literature for his book "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice," a true story of a teen who refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Hoose is no stranger to the world of literary honors. His "We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History" was a contender for the 2001 National Book Award while "The Race to Save the Lord God Bird" nabbed the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award as the best nonfiction book of 2005. He was the first nonfiction author to win the young reader's National Book Award. As a writer, he shares that nonfiction and fiction writing are the same. They have the same tools as writers and the same challenge. Today, he is working on another book with Melanie Kroupa for FSG, a YA book. Through his new book, he wants to rope readers into caring and for kids to be deeply involved with their families.

The authors adopt the stance that, even though strategy use should be taught to help learners monitor their comprehension, such instruction is not sufficient to insure transfer or ownership. Further, such instruction often emphasizes only literal recall, limiting students' understanding. Therefore, the author argues that teachers should consider the complexity of comprehension to identify key strategies that support learners' understanding of multiple texts. Through the identification of three different "facets" of comprehension, the author provides examples of common strategies used in a sixth-grade classroom that support multiple ways of understanding a nonfiction text. (Contains 1 figure.)

Extensive reading has long been considered as a potent means for facilitating language acquisition for second language learners, especially in the contexts of primary and secondary schools where students are elementary or intermediate learners. In one of the universities in Hong Kong where English is used as a medium of instruction, the development of reading and writing skills has been designated as one of the major objectives of the curriculum reform. This paper reports a small-scale action research study on implementing guided reading sessions in an independent language learning centre of the university, which aims at helping university students who are second language learners of English develop interest and ability to access extensive reading materials targeted at general first language readers. Students were guided to read a short extract from popular fiction or non-fiction materials and responded to comprehension questions. They then had a short discussion to make use of ideas they gained, and reflected about their learning experience. Results seemed to indicate potential for these reading sessions to develop students' ability and interest in extensive reading, according to the data collected from both student and teacher participants.

Biologist and graphic novelist Jay Hosler has long been introducing young readers to biological subjects through entertaining narratives combining strongly fictional elements with nonfictional ones. Extensive application of fiction to nonfictional subject matter is uncommon, even in graphic novels, but Hosler's "The Sandwalk Adventures" (2003) makes an illuminating case study in the pedagogical benefits of entwining fact and fiction. The book, an introduction to the basic concepts of evolutionary theory, revolves around conversations between Darwin and a pair of young follicle mites residing in his eyebrow. Two competing tales of origins, theistic and scientific, emerge in the telling. In the first section of the paper, I show how Hosler deploys their rivalry to cast doubt on the factuality of received "facts" and to cultivate openness to verifiable ones. In the second and third sections, I analyze the functions of "Sandwalk's" literary form, a simulation of conversational storytelling: it helps Hosler illustrate selection pressures and processes, and engage readers in a scientific mode of thought.

In recent years, memoir and the entire genre of creative nonfiction have received some negative publicity and some harsh criticism. Many have dismissed the "fourth genre," as it's called, as a form for the narcissistic and self-involved. Matters certainly are not helped when high-profile writers of memoir are revealed to be frauds and fiction writers masquerade as memoirists in order to sell books, turning themselves, not coincidentally, into literary heroes and talk-show celebrities. In this article, the author contends that although writers of personal essays and autobiographies must often rely on vulnerable memory, they should not engage in sheer invention if they want to call their work "nonfiction."

Although teachers focus on style, fluency, tone, and correct grammar in writing, they rarely emphasize the importance of content. Both the National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges and the NAEP seem to favor emotional and personal writing, at least at the high school level. Judging from their guidelines, both the SAT and the WASL promote fictional nonfiction in their writing sections. This is a great disservice to students, who end up struggling with writing requirements in college. Assigned to remedial classes, they often drop out of college. Fitzhugh, the founder of The Concord Review, offers students a place to publish their academic essays.

Recently some writers and scholars have complained that the academy, particularly American Indian Studies (AIS) programs, gives too much attention to American Indian literature while ignoring scholarly works that focus on the pressing needs of American Indian communities in the areas of economic development, social justice, and sovereignty, among others. For example, in the preface to "Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities", Devon Abbott Mihesuah and Angela Cavender Wilson write: "Awards are seemingly presented to...poets and novelists....Not enough is being written about tribal needs and concerns, but an inordinate amount of attention is focused on fiction." Almost every person teaching in AIS programs probably would agree that attention needs to be focused on tribal needs and concerns. In this article, as a professor of American Indian literature, the author respectfully disagrees with Mihesuah and Wilson's assertion that too much attention is focused on fiction. It seems that quite the opposite is true. The author examines the situation to test the validity of the claim that too much attention is given to American Indian literature to the detriment of writing that emphasizes tribal needs and concerns through three different lenses: (1) coursework offerings in AIS programs and departments and course concentrations chosen by students in AIS programs; (2) the representation of literature and writing about literature versus scholarly writing in the main peer-reviewed journals that publish American Indian articles; and (3) awards given for literature and nonfiction scholarly writing. The author talks about the traditional value of storytelling and discusses American Indian literature as a subversive act. (Contains 23 notes.)

Readers of most literary works usually find themselves in the role of witness, where their very act of reading initiates a process in which students or apprentices and teachers or educators take part in a "narrative" of imparting knowledge. An intertextual reading of literary works on the one hand and of current educational texts (e.g., programs, curricula or educational theories) on the other highlights the existence of plot and characters in "pedagogical literature" while stressing the apparent absence of these features in educational texts. Plots, and characters, exist not only in works of art but also in current life. As such they configure and reflect descriptions, explanations, justifications, desires and expectations of human action. Accordingly, educational plots and characters organize and reflect educational action by giving different answers to questions such as: How to educate? Why? Who educates whom? and what means are to be used in order to achieve educational objectives? These questions are generally answered orally or in written modalities that configure and are configured by plots and characters. Plots and characters are also one of textual procedures that contribute to texts' construction at their narrative level. The purpose of this essay is to study the role and functioning of plot and characters in educational texts. The underlying assumption of this study is that "plot" and "character" mediate and are mediated by educational-ideological texts as a way of creating coherence and plausibility among potential readers. (Contains 9 notes.)

In this article, the author provides his analyses on Richard Kluger's "Simple Justice," a book that portrays the major players involved in the landmark "Brown" decision. He comments generally on Kluger and highlights a few interesting aspects of his analysis, including his interpretation of the actions of then clerk and later justice and still later Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his interpretations of the value of historians as expert witnesses. Finally, on the basis of his rereading of Kluger, he reconsiders his initial inability to find something important to say about desegregation and arrive at what he hopes is a meaningful conclusion that can be related to further historical work on the topic. (Contains 21 notes.)

Describes the author's personal family struggle with entering the field of English. Notes how it is becoming increasingly difficult for today's students to be able to make choices among instrumentalist and intellectual paradigms of education and work. Concludes by voicing a hope that educators can invent new rules for "academic" writing in this new century. (SG)

Includes four papers from the 1991 conference on nonfiction for children that was sponsored by Drexel University and the Free Library of Philadelphia. Topics discussed include writing books for children; research for illustrating children's books; and the winner of the 1991 Drexel Citation, Aliki Liacouras Brandenberg. (LRW)

Hopes that teachers will expose students to many personal narratives, novels, poems, and other works from the vast body of Holocaust literature. Presents annotations of 21 recent Holocaust books for young people (published between 1994 and 2001) including fiction, nonfiction, personal narratives, and picture books. (SG)

Presents an interview with Jerry Stanley in which he talks frankly about his view of history, his writing process, the creation of his historical works, and his personal past. (SG)

Presents an interview with James Cross Giblin. Discusses how writing non-fiction books for children aged 8 to 12 gives him the opportunity to pursue his research interests, meet interesting and stimulating experts in various fields, and share his enthusiasm with a young audience. (SG)

Presents a "conversation" with Penny Colman (adapted from her remarks at a panel discussion at a recent convention). Considers that nonfiction is dominated by male writers, especially for young adults and adults, and by true stories that feature boys and men. Discusses her exploration of the world of nonfiction by women. (SG)

Presents a collection of excerpts from a recent virtual class discussion students (primarily senior English majors planning to become English teachers) had on a course listserv regarding young adult literature. Contains annotations of 10 recommended works of YA literature. (SG)

Explores the creation of "An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly." Selects this book because of the unprecedented decision to give the 1998 Orbis Pictus Award to both the author and the illustrator for a work in which text and illustration melded together. Develops an event model, revealing the creation of this illustrated narrative. (SG)

Presents an interview with William E. Coles, Jr. Notes that his writings on composition are among the earliest and best examples of creative nonfiction in composition studies. (SG)

Uses Orbis Pictus Award Committee criteria (accuracy, organization, design, and style) to examine an informational book, "Rice Is Life," by Rita Golden Gelman. Subjects the book to a deeper critical analysis. Suggests that it is important to help students become critical thinkers about everything they read, including informational books. (SG)

Contends that to tell one's own true story, to write personal creative nonfiction, is to tell other people's true stories as well. Notes that because of an author's insistence on her own perspective, creative nonfiction is not fair, but it is true. Concludes that the primary aim of creative nonfiction is to tell a good story. (PM)

Notes that because creative nonfiction exists at the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, reality and recreations of reality, and emotional and factual truth, it raises vexing issues. Discusses what carries more weight: the responsibility to a participant in a story or to the larger story of which she is an important part. Wonders if telling any story, no matter how honest and revealing, is worth creating pain in someone's life. (PM)

Examines the question of whether writers have to stick to literal facts of a story. Contends that the type of memoir a writer produces is determined in part by that writer's sensibility, as well as by how that writer views the genre. Concludes that the emotional truths of memoirs are often better served by how they are remembered than by how they happened. (PM)

Presents three interviews with the 2000 CLA (Children's Literature Assembly) Breakfast Speakers. Discusses how Osborne has written for virtually every genre for all ages and discusses the new Magic Treehouse book. Talks about Wells' two Mother Goose books, McDuff books and books to come. Considers where Giff gets her ideas for books and discusses her reaction to her book "Lily's Crossing." (SG)

Offers an interview with Jennifer Armstrong, writer of historical novels and nonfiction for children. Discusses her beginnings as a reader and a writer, her creative process, her purposes in writing nonfiction, her concerns about accuracy, and the origins of her second nonfiction book, "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance." (SR)