Nonfiction helps students develop analytical and evaluative techniques to critically approach nonfiction reading. In part 1, Acquiring Critical Tools, students examine the writer’s background, purpose, attitude, and audience; the reader’s background and attitude; questioning as an essential channel of communication; the difference between denotation and connotation; and the use of propaganda devices. Part 2, Journalistic Samples, explores interviews, columns, reviews, articles, editorials, and editorial cartoons. In part 3, Essays, students respond to formal and informal essays, wit and humor, and various rhetorical modes. Part 4, Personal Chronicles, investigates diaries, journals, letters, personal reflections, memoirs, biographies, profiles, portraits, and sketches.

Students read nonfiction from each of the genres and assess it. Students participate in exercises that spark thought about their own nonfiction writing and help them realize how language can shape their thinking. Lessons also emphasize how nonfiction is influenced by both the writer’s and the reader’s point of view.