52 short nonfiction texts for American History (1750-1800) with 10 new lessons for content literacy
“We turn information into knowledge by thinking about it. These texts support students in using the Toolkit’s comprehension and thinking strategies as tools to acquire and actively use knowledge in history.” —Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis
To support cross-curricular strategy instruction and close reading for information, Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis have expanded their Toolkit Texts series to include a library of short nonfiction for American history with 10 all-new Toolkit lessons.
Building on selections from popular children's magazines as well as original articles, these engaging, age-appropriate texts will keep your active literacy classroom awash in historical resources that depict the controversies, issues, and dramas that shaped historical events, including the exploits of lesser-known individuals.
These short nonfiction texts for American history include:
- 10 comprehension strategy lessons for close reading in content literacy.
- Short nonfiction articles on a wide range of topics and at a variety of reading levels.
( 45 articles in Colonial Times and 52 articles in The American Revolution and Constitution ) - A bank of historical images, primary source documents and artifacts, plus primary source documents and artifacts bibliographies, web sites, and ideas for online investigations.
- A Digital Companion Resource provides all of the texts, primary source documents, and the image bank in a full-color digital format so you can display them for group analysis.
| Lesson | Title |
| 1 | Read and Annotate: Stop, think, and react using a variety of strategies to understand |
| 2 | Annotate Images: Expand understanding and learning from visuals |
| 3 | Build Background to Understand a Primary Source: Read and paraphrase secondary sources to create a context for a topic |
| 4 | Read and Analyze a Primary Source: Focus on what you know and ask questions to clarify and explain |
| 5 | Compare Perspectives: Explore the different life experiences of historical figures |
| 6 | Read Critically: Consider point of view and bias |
| 7 | Organize Historical Thinking: Create a question web |
| 8 | Read with a Question in Mind: Focus on central ideas |
| 9 | Surface Common Themes: Infer the big ideas across several texts |
| 10 | Synthesize Information to Argue a Point: Use claim, evidence, and reasoning |
The CCSS and other state standards expect that children will read a variety of texts on a common topic and synthesize the ideas and information.
| These short nonfiction texts were selected using the following criteria: |
| Interest/Content | Because kids love the quirky and the unexpected, these texts highlight important but often lesser-known or unrecognized perspectives and voices from the past. |
| Visual literacy | Since visual literacy is an essential 21st-century skill, these texts include historical images, paintings, and maps, as well as diagrams, timelines, charts, and photographs. |
| Writing quality and accuracy | To foster student engagement, these articles feature vibrant language in an active voice supported by a rich assortment of visual features. |
| Reading level/complexity | These texts are written at a range of reading levels and include a wide variety of topics to capture the interests of all readers. |
Anne Goudvis has taught students in grades K-6 over the years, beginning her teaching career in urban schools on the south side of Chicago. She spent many years as a staff developer in the Denver area, working in culturally and linguistically diverse schools. Currently, Anne works with schools and districts around the country to implement progressive literacy practices and comprehension across the curriculum. She is the coauthor with Stephanie Harvey of Strategies That Work and The Comprehension Toolkit series, along with resources including Scaffolding the Comprehension Toolkits for English Language Learners. A history buff, she and Stephanie also coauthored the Short Nonfiction for Teaching American History series, which includes strategies for teaching historical literacy and student articles about often overlooked voices and people in history. With Inquiry Illuminated, Anne, Steph, and Brad Burhow show how curiosity and student agency thrive as kids engage in Researcher's Workshop across the curriculum.
Stephanie Harvey has spent her career teaching and learning about reading and writing. After fifteen years of public school teaching, both in regular education and special education classrooms, Stephanie worked for twelve years as a staff developer for the Denver based Public Education and Business Coalition (PEBC), a partnership of leaders from education and business, who support innovation in public schools. Insatiably curious about student thinking, she is a teacher first and foremost and currently serves as a private literacy consultant to schools and school districts. In that role, she conducts keynote speeches, presentations, workshops, demonstration lessons, coaching sessions and ongoing consultation to teachers, reading specialists, literacy coaches, principals and district administrators. With a focus on K-12 literacy, her specialties include comprehension instruction, inquiry-based learning, content area reading and writing, nonfiction literacy, and the role of passion, wonder and engagement in teaching and learning. Stephanie has written many articles, books and resources; her Heinemann publications include the title Comprehension and Collaboration which she co-authored with Smokey Daniels, and The Comprehension Toolkit series which is an in-depth Curricular Resource for comprehension instruction co-authored with Anne Goudvis. Click here to read recent Heinemann Blogs from Steph. Connect with Steph at @StephHarvey49 » Listen to an interview with Stephanie Harvey on Education Talk Radio - 2/29/2012 (30:35)
