In this article, the author examines how young learners became critical information architects for presenting community and classroom data. The article begins with an overview of the literature on critical literacy, critical data literacy, and young children's visual cultures. Next, it lays out the project's context, modes of inquiry, and methods…

Compares the traditional view of science with the more multidimensional view outlined in science reform documents. Outlines different genres of science nonfiction trade books. Describes a science text set and how it is used to encourage both science inquiry and science literacy practices in a unit on sound and hearing. (SG)

Considers how nonfiction is the genre most likely to spur children's passion and wonder for learning. Describes how educators teach students that their best writing teachers are the authors they love, not the encyclopedias they need for beginning research. (SG)

Notes the author was unprepared for the generativeness of a curriculum driven by students' interests and curiosity. Describes the implications for the "Explorers Club," an activity in which her second-language-learning third and fourth graders generate lots of questions, pick the 6 best, and research answers to those questions at the library. (SG)

Describes how students parallel the process of author Megan McDonald in conducting research and collecting information to provide ideas for the form and content of their writing. Notes that guiding students to record and organize information in a graphic format helps them to transfer those interesting details to new types of writing. (SG)

Explores the creation of "An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly." Selects this book because of the unprecedented decision to give the 1998 Orbis Pictus Award to both the author and the illustrator for a work in which text and illustration melded together. Develops an event model, revealing the creation of this…

Discusses how research comes alive when students explore a range of alternate genres instead of writing the traditional research report. Notes that multigenre writing helps most students grow as researchers, thinkers, and writers while they develop a fundamental understanding of the different purposes for which text can be used. (SG)