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Text Structure Description

This document discusses text structure, which refers to how information in written text is organized. It outlines common text structures such as description, sequence, problem-solution, cause-effect, and compare-contrast. Teaching students to recognize these structures helps with comprehension. The strategies can be used individually or with groups. Students learn to analyze structures, which helps when reading. Teachers choose a text, introduce the structure, and model its use with graphic organizers.

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Shanita Nelson
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98 views2 pages

Text Structure Description

This document discusses text structure, which refers to how information in written text is organized. It outlines common text structures such as description, sequence, problem-solution, cause-effect, and compare-contrast. Teaching students to recognize these structures helps with comprehension. The strategies can be used individually or with groups. Students learn to analyze structures, which helps when reading. Teachers choose a text, introduce the structure, and model its use with graphic organizers.

Uploaded by

Shanita Nelson
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Text Structure

Background
Text structure refers to how the information within a written text is organized. This strategy
helps students understand that a text might present a main idea and details; a cause and then its
effects; and/or different views of a topic. Teaching students to recognize common text structures
can help students monitor their comprehension.

Benefits
Teachers can use this strategy with the whole class, small groups, or individually. Students learn
to identify and analyze text structures which helps students navigate the various structures
presented within nonfiction and fiction text. As a follow up, having students write paragraphs
that follow common text structures helps students recognize these text structures when they are
reading.

Create and Use the Strategy


To create the text structure strategy teachers should:

1. Choose the assigned reading and introduce the text to the students.
2. Introduce the idea that texts have organizational patters called text structures.
3. Introduce the following common text structures (see charts for more detailed
information):
o description,
o sequence,
o problem and solution,
o cause and effect, and
o compare and contrast.
4. Introduce and model using a graphic organizer to chart the text structure.

To use the text structure strategy teachers should:

1. Show examples of paragraphs that correspond to each text structure.


2. Examine topic sentences that clue the reader to a specific structure.
3. Model the writing of a paragraph that uses a specific text structure.
4. Have students try write paragraphs that follow a specific text structure.
5. Have students diagram these structures using a graphic organizer.

Examples
Table adapted from http://forpd.ucf.edu/strategies/strattextstructure.html
Text Structure: Definition/Example Organizer
This type of text structure features a detailed
description of something to give the reader a
mental picture. Descriptive Pattern
Description
EXAMPLE: A book may tell all about whales or Describing Qualities
describe what the geography is like in a particular
region.
This structure presents the causal relationship
between an specific event, idea, or concept and Cause-Effect Pattern
the events, ideas, or concept that follow.
Cause and Effect
Process/Cause and
EXAMPLE: Weather patterns could be described Effect
that explain why a big snowstorm occurred.
This type of text examines the similarities and
differences between two or more people, events,
concepts, ideas, etc.
Comparison/Contrast
Comparison/Contrast
EXAMPLE: A book about ancient Greece may
explain how the Spartan women were different
from the Athenian women.
This text structure gives readers a chronological
of events or a list of steps in a procedure.
Sequence Pattern
Order/Sequence EXAMPLE: A book about the American
Chronological
revolution might list the events leading to the
Sequence
war. In another book, steps involved in harvesting
blue crabs might be told.
This type of structure sets up a problem or
problems, explains the solution, and then Problem-Solution
Problem-Solution
discusses the effects of the solution. Organizer

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