It's Monday! Here's What I'm Reading...

Jen Vincent at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye and Ricki Ginsburg at Unleashing Readers cohost It's Monday! What are You Reading? weekly on their blogs.  To see what others are reading and recommending each Monday, or to participate, be sure to head over to these blogs.

Some of the third-grade teachers have been asking me about endings for nonfiction writing pieces. Inspired by the post about endings from Clare and Tammy, as well as how Georgia Heard writes about endings in The Heart of Nonfiction, I gathered up some nonfiction mentor books with different endings.

Surprising Sharks by Nicola Davies is a wonderful example of a circular ending. She begins the book with the fear that humans have when they hear that a shark is in the water, but ends with the fear that sharks have when they hear that humans are in the water. Nicola Davies also wrote Big Blue Whale,demonstrating another way to have a circular ending. 

The students loved looking at Stay: the True Story of Ten Dogs by Michaela Muntean and loved the ending in this book, as well. Michaela Muntean closes the book with a powerful quote from the owner of the dogs about the importance of his animals in his life. 

What's in the Pond and What's Under the Log, both by Anne Hunter demonstrated how writers can leave readers with a responsibility. Anne Hunter talks to her readers, reminding them to take care of ponds and remember to replace logs in order to take care of the animals that live in those worlds. 

Another set of students examined Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe by Vera Williams and found that writers can also end information pieces with a thought or an image at the end of the day. They loved trying out this technique in their own writing. 

We found some other ways to end our work by looking at other books in the room. This work inspired the students to not only read closely, but also to provide creative sense of closure for their own writing. So fun!

Happy reading and writing!

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