Fountas & Pinnell Genre Study

Genre Study: Teaching with Fiction and Nonfiction Books is the foundational text of the Genre Study Suite. In exploring Genre Study, Fountas & Pinnell advocate teaching and learning in which students are actively engaged in developing genre understandings and applying their thinking to any genre. It is through using genre understandings that your students think, talk, and read texts with deeper understanding, and write effectively. Genre Study is a professional resource that teachers can use with students to embark on an exciting exploration into the study of genre.

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The Genre Study Suite Bundle is a comprehensive suite of resources that focuses on genre study through inquiry-based learning with an emphasis on reading comprehension and the craft of writing. An inquiry approach engages students in exploring texts so that they can notice and name the characteristics of each genre and construct a working definition that guides their thinking of reading and writing. This suite provides the tools needed to help you and your students lay the groundwork for a lifetime of literacy exploration. The bundle includes:

Genre Study: Teaching with Fiction and Nonfiction Books Genre Study Quick Guide a companion to Genre Study: Teaching with Fiction and Nonfiction Books This spiral-bound companion to Genre Study: Teaching with Fiction and Nonfiction Books is designed to help you actively engage students in the exploration of texts so that they can notice and name genre characteristics, and construct working definitions that guide their thinking as readers and writers. This handy reference guide contains a master genre chart outlining the definition, key characteristics, and a list of mentor texts by genre. Genre Prompting Guide for Fiction and Genre Prompting Guide for Nonfiction, Poetry, and Test Taking are comprehensive tools that you can use to explore genres with your students during interactive read-aloud, Reader's workshop, Writer's workshop, guided reading lessons, shared reading, and intervention lessons. The prompts in these ready reference flip charts are designed to help teachers guide students' inquiry toward explicit understandings of the characteristics of genres.

In the Genre Prompting Guides, Fountas & Pinnell have organized prompts by genre, and also literary elements and structure.

Fiction Genres
Realistic Fiction
Historical Fiction
Traditional Literature (including folktales, fairy tales, fables, epics, legends, ballads, and myths)
Modern Fantasy (including simple animal fantasy, low fantasy, high fantasy, and science fiction)

Nonfiction Genres
Narrative Nonfiction
Biography
Autobiography
Memoir
Expository Nonfiction
Procedural Texts
Persuasive tests

Forms of Poetry
Lyrical poetry
Narrative poetry
Free Verse
Haiku
Limericks
Concrete poems

Test Taking
Multiple Choice Questions
Short Answer Questions
Extended Response Questions