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Nonfiction Lesson 8
Nothing but Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson
As we’ve read nonfiction books, we have looked at the text structures and text features, used background knowledge and context clues to discover the meaning of new words, and determined the authors’ purpose. Whether reading literary nonfiction, a biography or a reference text, we have used our new strategies to make sense of what we’ve read and learn new information.
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Then we’ll be able to share our thoughts and feelings about Althea and her life. Let’s take a look at the types of questions we should be asking ourselves as we reread the biography.
Before we reread the text, let’s look at some questions to help us recall the key points.
Display Appendix 1: Questions to Ask about the
Text” and read through the questions.
If students already know the answer to some of the questions from the first reading of the text, ask them to share their responses.
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Where: Story begins in Harlem, NY
When: 1927-1958 (time line at the end of the book)
Why: Determination/wanting to “be somebody someday”; and
How: Practice and instruction
Learning all of this information about Althea really helps us understand who she was and the remarkable life she led. I want you to think about all of the details we have learned from the text and ask yourselves.
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Asking basic questions like who, what, where, when, why and how allows us to really think about and remember what we have learned and focus on the main points of the text. Once we have really focused on all the key ideas and features, we can think about how we feel about the topics, people, and or ideas and use evidence from the text to support our feelings and opinions. Today we will reread the biography of
Althea Gibson. As we read through the text again, let’s focus on the main points to get a clear picture of the information presented.
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Begin reading, stopping to allow students to answer questions listed on the lines provided on the Appendix that they didn’t/couldn’t answer from the first reading.
Ask students to stop you when they hear specific details in the text that answers one of the unanswered questions. You may want to write their responses on the lines provided on the
Appendix of share them orally. Keep referring to the text for the answers, pointing out supporting evidence from the text. Some possible answer examples include…
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“ What do I think, and how do I feel about the subject-Althea? Why do I think that?” Make sure that you use examples from the text to back up your feelings and opinions
Allow students a few minutes to develop an opinion and consider their feelings. Then ask them to turn and talk about these with a partner. After partner discussion, invite several students to share their responses with the class. Make sure that students share evidence from the text to back up their opinions and feelings about the subject.
We have learned how to understand and explain topics of our nonfiction texts and how to use evidence from text to express how we feel about the topics.
.presented.