Nonfiction Elements Text Features

Some Common Text Features within Non-Fiction Captions: Help you better understand a picture or photograph Comparisons: These sentences help you to picture something {Example: A whale shark is a little bit bigger than a school bus.} Glossary: Helps you define words that are in the book Graphics: Charts, graphs, or cutaways are used to help you understand what the author is trying to tell you Illustrations/Photographs: Help you to know exactly what something looks like Index: This is an alphabetical list of ideas that are in the book. It tells you what page the idea is on. Labels: These help you identify a picture or a photograph and its parts Maps: help you to understand where places are in the world Special Print: When a word is bold, in italics, or underlined, it is an important word for you to know Subtitles: These headings help you to know what the next section will be about Table of Contents: Helps you identify key topics in the book in the order they are presented Parenthesis: To provide more information

Text Structure Simply put, text structure is how the author organizes the information within the text.

Why do text structures matter to readers? Tells readers what kind of structure to expect, it helps them connect to and remember what they’ve read better. It gives readers clues as to what is most important in the text. It helps readers summarize the text.  For example, if we’re summarizing a text that has a sequence/time order structure, we want to make sure we summarize in the same structure.  (It wouldn’t make sense to tell an autobiography out of order.)

Examples of Non-Fiction Text Structure 1. Problem/Solution The author will introduce a problem and tell us how the problem could be fixed.  There may be one solution to fix the problem or several different solutions mentioned. Real life example: Advertisements in magazines for products (problem-pain; solution-Tylenol) 2. Cause and Effect The author describes something that has happened which has had an effect on or caused something else to happen.  It could be a good effect or a bad effect.  There may be more than one cause and there may also be more than one effect. (Many times, problem/solution and cause and effect seem like “cousins” because they can be together.) Real life example: A newspaper article about a volcano eruption which had an effect on tourism

Text Structures 3. Compare/Contrast The author’s purpose is to tell you how two things are the same and how they are different by comparing them.Real life example: A bargain hunter writing on her blog about buying store-brand items and how it compares with buying name-brand items. 4. Description/List Although this is a very common text structure, I think it’s one of the trickiest because the author throws a lot of information at the reader (or lists facts) about a certain subject.  It’s up to the reader to determine what he thinks is important and sometimes even interesting enough to remember. Real life example: A soccer coach’s letter describing to parents exactly what kind of cleats to buy for their kids.

Text Structure 5. Time Order/Sequence Texts are written in an order or timeline format. Real life examples: recipes, directions, events in history Note: Sometimes the text structure isn’t so easy to distinguish.  For example, the structure of the text as a whole may be Description/List (maybe about Crocodilians), but the author may devote a chapter to Compare/Contrast (Alligators vs. Crocodiles).  We must be explicit about this with students.