1. Author’s craft: Making Non-Fiction Texts Interesting grades 2-5
by Laurie Marshall

2. Materials Needed
Text book on animals or any text on animals that would be considered boring
How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly? by Robin Page and Steve Jenkins (2008).
Two Venn Diagrams- one for how students felt while listening to the books and one for what students learned from books
A list of facts about animals (enough facts for students to work in groups of two)

3. How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?
Process
Read textbook format text to students about animals.
On the textbook side of the feelings Venn Diagram, have students tell how they felt when you were reading the textbook.
On the textbook of the learning Venn Diagram, have students tell what they learned while you were reading the textbook.
Textbook
How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?

4. How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?
Process
Read How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?
On the How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly? side of the feelings Venn Diagram, have students tell how they felt when you were reading the book.
On the How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly? side of the learning Venn Diagram, have students tell what they learned while you were reading the book.
Textbook
How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly?

5. What Makes It Interesting?
Discuss with students what makes How Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly? intersesting.
How did the authors present the information that make it fun to read? (They may “gross out” the reader, the information might be presented in a scary way, the information might be something the reader would never think could happen, etc.)
How could they tell us the same information in a boring way?
What made the textbook not as interesting?

6. Put Learning to Practice
Break students up into groups of two or three.
Give each group a fact about an animal (you may choose to make all your facts about one animal).
Ask students to make the boring fact interesting by using words in a fun way (they may “gross out” the reader, the information might be presented in a scary way, the information might be something the reader would never think could happen, etc).
Let students add illustrations to their interesting fact.
Compile all facts into a classroom book.

7. Works Cited
Page, R. & Jenkins, S. (2008). How many ways can you catch a fly? Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.