Reading and writing non-fiction - it's complex and not boring!

I have always had a funny relationship with how we deal with non-fiction texts in schools. For years, I have felt that we just haven’t got it right. We oversimplified the teaching of non-fiction in terms of triplets (writing to advise, inform, instruct) and reduced it down, largely, to simple techniques. If you are writing a blog, you must have X, Y and Z. We are spending a lesson looking at writing to advise today, people. No matter what level or approach of teaching non-fiction, it was largely reductive and simplistic. For this reason alone, teachers would rather teach stories rather than non-fiction. You can see the collective yawn when it comes to Paper 2 on the GCSE exam paper. Even the teachers go: do I have to? It is ‘so’ boring!

Why do we have this issue with non-fiction? Why is it always seen as the poor alternative to fiction? Narrative is the key thing. We love a narrative. We love structure, order and patterns. When we read a story, we enjoy the progression of one narrative and see how the writer structures that narrative and plays around with the order and patterns of things. For the most part, we are reading about one person and their relationship with others.

I’d be bold to say that, as humans, we are wired for story. We read, speak and write stories on a regular basis and it is the thing that both entertains and informs our lives. Through stories we understand the world. Non-fiction does have elements of story, but doesn’t have emotional connection or structures and patterns. If I am reading a novel, I know that Tom, the main character, is my compass for the story. Read a piece of non-fiction and the writing moves from Tom, Betty and rice  and then spins to Victorian greed. The subject and focus moves. Constantly. I am not following one person’s story, but hundreds of micro narratives that logically or thematically link but don’t have a clear cohesion with a clear personal narrative.  

That’s just one issue with non-fiction texts, so what else is there? 

# Denseness of ideas. One text can cover so many different ideas encapsulated in four paragraphs. It can cover religion, ethics, spiritualism, class issues and geographical poverty in one small text. Rather than tell a narrative of one of these ideas, instead the writer has threaded a narrative around these elements and there will not be a Tom to unite these things together. 

#Mind model and picturing. As we read a story, well most of us, we construct a model or image in our brain. We visualise the story as it is going on. Tom is sad. I picture in my head Tom crying. Non-fiction doesn’t easily allow for this mind modelling. For example: The French Revolution was an economic problem.  

# Reading speed. Students read and approach non-fiction like it is fiction. We read fiction quickly and at a pace so we can get to the next bit. Completion is key. Non-fiction cannot be read quickly. You can, but largely it is a slower paced read as we digest an idea or think about a point mentioned. 

# Inferences related to different knowledge domains. I like Charlie Brooker as a writer and I have used a number of pieces of his work in lessons, but the amount of knowledge students need to understand a paragraph. He will make inferences that relate to politics, TV shows from the 80s, sex and many other things. Often, I find I have to spend my time teaching the prior knowledge than actually read the text.  

#Non-fiction is largely written with a literary quality. Like narrative, writers cycle through nouns when describing one aspect. That tends to be fine when talking about characters in a car. When making inferences, you can make some easy assumptions. There’s only three people in the car it could possibly refer to. Imagine how hard it will be to make an inference if you are talking about a global war with hundreds of key players. 

For a lot of the reasons above, I can see that examiners tend to take non-fiction texts that lean toward fiction in their approach. This you can certainly see in the GCSE English Language exams. They tend to have two or three people and focus on one moment or event. So, how do we help our students get better at reading non-fiction? 

[1] Talk about synonyms and how writers cycle through nouns. 

Look at how Queen Elizabeth I could be referred to in a text. If a student doesn’t know that these all refer to the same person, then their understanding will lack precision. 

Queen Elizabeth

Elizabeth I 

Queen

Queen of England Queen of Ireland

monarch

head of state  

ruler

sister

daughter

Henry VIII’s daughter Mary’s sister

Anne Boleyn’s daughter

Virgin Queen

Protestant  

 

It isn’t just people that this relates to. Look at how the government can be ‘named’ in a text. 

Assembly 

Parliament 

Regime 

Powers that be

Governing body 

Powers 

Senate 

Congress  

State 

Authority 

Ministry 

Rule 

Council 

Cabinet 

Establishment 

How we do this depends on the text. There might be space in the curriculum to do this before reading the text, but you can do this when reading and make it part of the online inference process. The first sentence refers to the government. What word in the second sentence also means government? 

[2] This / It 

Students need support with ‘it’ and ‘this’ because they rely on students making cohesive inferences. Lots of students are experts on using this and it at the start of a sentence. Yet they aren’t experts when reading a text. That’s because the cohesion between ‘this/it’ and the subject it refers to isn’t so clear. There may be sentences between them or the subject isn’t so clear. 

When it uses the word ‘it’ was it referring to? 

[3] Pronouns 

This is slightly linked to the previous one, but I felt it needed addressing in its own way. In the same way writer’s don’t want to mention the name Queen Elizabeth, they will rely on using pronouns in addition to synonyms. We need to remind students of this when reading. Who does the ‘her’ refer to? This again is one of those things that students need to understand the use of pronouns and the connection between that pronoun in a sentence and the reference to the noun in the previous sentence.  

[4] Topic sentences are key for inferences later in the paragraph. 

Like sentences, the rest of the sentence depends on you recalling the subject of the sentence. Inferences later in the text are reliant on a reader recalling the first thing described in the topic sentence. That’s why it is important for students to read, know and commit to memory the topic sentence. Plus, it pays for us to keep going back to the topic sentence as we read. All those pronouns and synonyms probably relate to the initial subject mentioned in that first paragraph.  

[5] Reading speed is the key. 

We need to model the slowness of reading non-fiction. The stop and start nature of it. The reading purpose should be clear. It isn’t to get to the end without dropping off to sleep. It is to get a detailed understanding of an idea or topic. That involves lots of checking and rechecking what has been read.

[6] Questioning. 

Students view non-fiction in simplistic terms and so their default reading relies on skimming and scanning. Therefore, questions asked by teachers need to work against skimming and scanning. Questions should be testing understanding and not rely on the search of knowledge. How did Queen Elizabeth feel about the rebellion? 

Let’s stop treating the reading of non-fiction in fiction reading terms. We do a disservice if we do this. My reading of non-fiction is built from decades of reading. I love reading non-fiction texts, but we need to stop the dangerous oversimplification at all levels. Lean in to the complexity of non-fiction and teach real texts with the understanding of its complexity. Reading non-fiction needs changing. 

 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

Sources: 

Effective Teaching of Inference Skills for reading -  Anne Kispal (2008)

https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/EDR01/EDR01.pdf

Children’s inference generation: The role of vocabulary and working memory - Nicola Kate Currie, Kate Cain (2015)  

(PDF) Children’s inference generation: The role of vocabulary and working memory (researchgate.net)

Online inference making and comprehension monitoring in children during 

reading: Evidence from eye movements – Holly Joseph , Elizabeth Wonnacott and Kate

Nation (2021) 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1747021821999007