Students in the English Language Arts classroom have access to more author commentary than ever. While following authors on social media may deepen students' engagement with their assigned reading, it also threatens to subdue students' own interpretations of the authors' texts. This essay explains how educators can introduce basic aspects of…

Biography is a hybrid. It is history crossed with narrative. The biographer has to present the available facts of the life yet shape their arbitrariness, untidiness, and incompleteness into an engaging whole. The readerly appeal lies in the prospect both of gaining documentary information, scrupulously researched and plausibly interpreted, and of…

Describes a two-week unit about Benjamin Franklin, and discusses what happens when 9- and 10-year olds use their own language and life experiences to learn new content. (SR)

In this article, fifth graders investigate biographies to expand their knowledge of what real scientists do. The goal of this activity is to find a way to show students that all kinds of people participate in the scientific enterprise. After finding picture-book biographies, the author's next job was to ensure that students saw more than a good…