ABSTRACT
Student attempts at non fiction often result in superficial handling of the material. Delving into a topic with a researcher’s eye takes time. Many children’s first attempts at nonfiction writing happen unintentionally. For some students, finding the right topic is easy. More often than not, the writer already knows something about the subject. Krista wants to write about bats because her class has been building bat houses in science. Nonfiction books are different from the picture storybooks and novels that students more frequently read. There are lots of ways to organize information as it’s coming in, such as learning logs or journals, index cards, and research folders. Writing well requires selecting the salient facts out of a larger pool. Beginning nonfiction writers will often write all of what they know in their attempts to fill a page or two.
