Teaching the Key Traits of Expository Nonfiction With Children's Books

To craft engaging nonfiction prose, young writers should focus on a specific idea or concept of interest and use acclaimed children's books as mentor texts to help them understand options for developing their ideas. In this article, the authors provide examples of high-quality children's nonfiction for exploring various formats and text structures and for developing effective expressive voice and rich language-all craft techniques associated with excellent expository informational writing and consistent with the Common Core State Standards. Specific discussion questions and activities are included.