Features of Non-Fiction Foldables and Lapbook

My ELL students need to constantly reloop, review, and re-learn important concepts throughout the year. The challenge is finding new ways to review learned material. One of the hardest concepts for my students this year has been recognizing and using text features.

They're about to start their THIRD benchmark test of the year in reading tomorrow, and there are usually a lot of questions about non-fiction text features, so I wanted to review this today. First, I started out with this fun little Non-Fiction Rap:

Then, we followed that up by making this fun little lapbook full of foldables. First, I had students make the foldables and glue them into the folder. Then, I had little strips printed out with definitions for each text feature. I had students match those definitions with the correct features and glue them inside the flaps. Next, each student chose a Non-Fiction book from a selection that I had set aside for them. I set aside ones that had at least one example of each type of feature. Finally, they went on a scavenger hunt for the text features in their chosen books and filled in the information in the appropriate places in their foldables. Here are some pictures:

My students really had a blast with this lesson, and it really helped them to review the features of non-fiction texts while using an authentic non-fiction book that was appropriate to their grade level. I'm really hoping that when the data comes back for this benchmark, it will show improvement for my kiddos in this area!

Update: If you're interested in trying this in your classroom, I created a FREEBIE with complete instructions to make it a little easier! Click the button below to download from my TpT store!