Webinar: Diversifying Nonfiction — The “Fierce Urgency of Now”

News-O-Matic hosted an informative webinar with Kim Eggborn (Coordinator of Elementary Social Studies for the Howard County Public School System) and Russell Kahn (Chief Content and Education Officer at News-O-Matic) on Wednesday, February 15th.

They discussed the importance of diverse nonfiction texts and how News-O-Matic can help represent the multi-faceted experiences of people from the past and today.

There is multi-leveled diversity across American classrooms, with students from different states, nations, races, religions, and linguistic origins. While teachers work hard to foster a culture of inclusivity and involvement in their classrooms, many nonfiction resources are still lacking in diversity. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the “fierce urgency of now” during his speech at the March on Washington in 1963. Sixty years later (and in the middle of Black History Month), we meet his call to action to ensure that children grow up seeing themselves in the texts they read — even (and especially) informational texts.

Watch the recording now.