Nonfiction Texts
McKellar, D. (2007). Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail. Hudson Street Press.
I selected this book because it is an excellent resource for middle school students who are struggling in math. It offers various tips and tricks for students to use to help them in math and explains concepts to readers in an easy-to-understand way. This book also incorporates writing skills into math lessons. As for the authority, McKellar uses real testimonials of her own as well as from other people. The text is accurate in that it gives multiple different ways and gives practice problems with detailed solutions. This book is appropriate for middle school mathematics students because it uses examples that are relevant to middle school students' everyday lives. This text definitely has literary artistry because McKellar uses words that students of this age group can understand and analogies that they can easily relate to. Finally, the attractiveness of the book is very inviting to students of the middle school age. On the front cover is a young girl (the author, Danica McKellar) who is good at math, the cover is colorful, different fonts are used to grab attention, and it gives you a peek at what is inside the text.
In my classroom, I would keep this book in my classroom library and have it (probably several copies of it) available to students for reference. As a teacher, I can use this text to learn different ways of teaching a certain topic to my students to make the learning more exciting, understandable, and engaging. I could also use this text to find some practice problems and then use the detailed step-by-step answer key to help my students further understand their math education. This book gives several real-life scenarios and makes math relate to the students everyday lives. McKellar's book can help students make text-to-self or text-to-math connections.
I selected this book because it is an excellent resource for middle school students who are struggling in math. It offers various tips and tricks for students to use to help them in math and explains concepts to readers in an easy-to-understand way. This book also incorporates writing skills into math lessons. As for the authority, McKellar uses real testimonials of her own as well as from other people. The text is accurate in that it gives multiple different ways and gives practice problems with detailed solutions. This book is appropriate for middle school mathematics students because it uses examples that are relevant to middle school students' everyday lives. This text definitely has literary artistry because McKellar uses words that students of this age group can understand and analogies that they can easily relate to. Finally, the attractiveness of the book is very inviting to students of the middle school age. On the front cover is a young girl (the author, Danica McKellar) who is good at math, the cover is colorful, different fonts are used to grab attention, and it gives you a peek at what is inside the text.
In my classroom, I would keep this book in my classroom library and have it (probably several copies of it) available to students for reference. As a teacher, I can use this text to learn different ways of teaching a certain topic to my students to make the learning more exciting, understandable, and engaging. I could also use this text to find some practice problems and then use the detailed step-by-step answer key to help my students further understand their math education. This book gives several real-life scenarios and makes math relate to the students everyday lives. McKellar's book can help students make text-to-self or text-to-math connections.
Einspruch, A. (2010). Using Decimals to Plan Our Vacation. Mankato, MN: Capstone Press.
This book is a wonderful text for middle school students because it gives students the opportunity to practice what they are learning and apply it to a real-life situation. The authority of the author is all on the Library Congress Page at the beginning of the book. There is a section dedicated to educational references used in the text. This text is accurate because it is full of illustrations, charts, graphs, and other visual aids that can help students better understand and it fully explains how each conclusion is reached. Einspruch's text is very age appropriate for the younger audience because it is organized in a way that students can easily find and understand information and it also uses language relevant to the young reader age group. The use of text features such as headings, images, lists, and graphs represents the literary artistry of this text. Lastly, the front cover of the text shows a beach that is very appealing to most students. By opening the book, the attractiveness of the text becomes very clear. It is not a simple novel that would take a while to read. It has very short paragraphs and uses questions to engage the students.
I would use this text as a post-lesson activity for my students. Using this text, the students can learn how to apply what they have learned to something that everyone hopes to do in the future. For one strategy, I could use this during whole-class instruction. Together, we could go through the book and figure out the cost of going on vacation and maybe brainstorm ideas on how we could save the money needed to go. I could also do this same activity in small groups or pairs. I would probably base a project off of this text. Students will be asked to choose a vacation destination from a given list. Each destination will have a cost that students will need to budget for. They would have to explain how they will be able to afford the vacation and how much money they will set aside for each aspect of the vacation. Then, the students would be asked to present the project to the class. This project will increase student's writing, mathematics, and speaking and listening skills.
This book is a wonderful text for middle school students because it gives students the opportunity to practice what they are learning and apply it to a real-life situation. The authority of the author is all on the Library Congress Page at the beginning of the book. There is a section dedicated to educational references used in the text. This text is accurate because it is full of illustrations, charts, graphs, and other visual aids that can help students better understand and it fully explains how each conclusion is reached. Einspruch's text is very age appropriate for the younger audience because it is organized in a way that students can easily find and understand information and it also uses language relevant to the young reader age group. The use of text features such as headings, images, lists, and graphs represents the literary artistry of this text. Lastly, the front cover of the text shows a beach that is very appealing to most students. By opening the book, the attractiveness of the text becomes very clear. It is not a simple novel that would take a while to read. It has very short paragraphs and uses questions to engage the students.
I would use this text as a post-lesson activity for my students. Using this text, the students can learn how to apply what they have learned to something that everyone hopes to do in the future. For one strategy, I could use this during whole-class instruction. Together, we could go through the book and figure out the cost of going on vacation and maybe brainstorm ideas on how we could save the money needed to go. I could also do this same activity in small groups or pairs. I would probably base a project off of this text. Students will be asked to choose a vacation destination from a given list. Each destination will have a cost that students will need to budget for. They would have to explain how they will be able to afford the vacation and how much money they will set aside for each aspect of the vacation. Then, the students would be asked to present the project to the class. This project will increase student's writing, mathematics, and speaking and listening skills.