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Reading informational text is an important part of everyday life. We read directions, newspapers, instructions, recipes, textbooks, how-tos, and articles on a daily basis as adults. Children are no different. However, this skill is often overlooked when we think of English classes. We tend to spend time on literature, learning to analyze the great authors of the past. This is fine and dandy, but when students enter college and the work force, they are faced with tasks that require them to read informational text, and not so much literature. It's important that students learn how to read, break apart, and analyze these types of texts. It's often difficult to find informational text that is both interesting and relevant to middle school age children. It's often considered "boring", and students tend to groan when faced with a textbook. Scope Magazine by Scholastic changes this. With a monthly subscription, students read expository articles written at their reading and interest level. With new content each month, students experience varied topics, debates, and stories from real people. In my classroom, we will break apart these articles to practice specific skills such as text structures, summarizing, comparison, and using whole-text to answer a question. And all of this is pre-packaged in a magazine for me, as the teacher, to design individualized lessons around.
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