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Using Text Structure

This document discusses teaching students to recognize common text structures in expository texts to improve comprehension. It introduces four main text structures - description/list, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, and order/sequence - along with their defining characteristics and signal words. The purpose is to encourage students to identify the overall structure of a text and monitor their understanding. Teachers should model identifying structures, have students write examples, and progress to analyzing longer texts. Recognizing structures helps readers comprehend expository material.

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Hwa-hwa de la Cruz
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45 views

Using Text Structure

This document discusses teaching students to recognize common text structures in expository texts to improve comprehension. It introduces four main text structures - description/list, cause and effect, comparison/contrast, and order/sequence - along with their defining characteristics and signal words. The purpose is to encourage students to identify the overall structure of a text and monitor their understanding. Teachers should model identifying structures, have students write examples, and progress to analyzing longer texts. Recognizing structures helps readers comprehend expository material.

Uploaded by

Hwa-hwa de la Cruz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Using Text Structure

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ARTICLE SECTIONS

o Description
o Purpose
o How to Teach Readers to Use Text Structure
Description
One assumption that many teachers make is that a student who is a proficient reader of literature
will, in turn, be a proficient reader of expository texts. That is not necessarily so.

The trouble that many good readers of literature tend to have with expository texts has to do, in part,
with text structure. Text structure refers to how the text is organized. For example, a text might
present a main idea and then details, a cause and then its effects, an effect and the causes, two
different views of a topic, etc.

While most pieces of fiction follow the same or similar general organizational patterns, different
expository texts can have very different text structures. Therefore, it is important to teach students to
recognize common text structures found in expository texts.

Purpose
Teaching students to recognize common text structures found in expository texts can help students
monitor their comprehension. Attempting to identify the text structure early on in the reading of a
new text encourages the reader to question how subsequent sections of the text fit into the identified
text structure. 

If a subsequent section does not seem to fit into that text structure, the reader is faced with one of
two possibilities. Either the reader needs to reevaluate the choice of text structure, or he or she needs
to reevaluate his or her understanding of the text. Either way, the process of identifying the text
structure will encourage the reader to monitor his or her comprehension of the text.

How to Teach Readers to Use Text Structure


o Introduce the idea that expository texts have a text structure. Explain to students that
expository texts (such as the text in their science and social studies textbooks) have different
organizational patterns. These organizational patters are called text structures.
o Introduce the following common text structures. Explain that text structures can often be
identified by certain signal words.

Signal
 Text Structure  Description
Words

Description/List This structure resembles an For example, for


Structure outline. Each section opens instance, specifically, in
with its main idea, then particular, in addition
elaborates on it, sometimes
dividing the elaboration into
subsections.

EXAMPLE: A book may tell all


about whales or describe what
the geography is like in a
particular region.

Cause and Effect In texts that follow this Consequently,


Structure structure, the reader is told the therefore, as a result,
result of an event or thereby, leads to
occurrence and the reasons it
happened.
EXAMPLE: Weather patterns
could be described that explain
why a big snowstorm occurred.

 Comparison/ Texts that follow this However, unlike, like,


Contrast structure tell about the by contrast, yet, in
Structure differences and similarities of comparison, although,
two or more objects, places, whereas, similar to,
events or ideas by grouping different from
their traits for comparison.
EXAMPLE: A book about
ancient Greece may explain
how the Spartan women were
different from the Athenian
women.

Order/Sequence Texts that follow this Next, first, last, second,


Structure structure tell the order in another, then,
which steps in a process or additionally
series of events occur.
EXAMPLE: A book about the
American revolution might list
the events leading to the war.
In another book, steps involved
in harvesting blue crabs might
be told.

o
o Show examples of paragraphs that correspond to each text structure.
o Examine topic sentences that clue the reader to a specific structure. Look for the signal words
that are associated with each text structure.
o Model the writing of a paragraph that uses a specific text structure.
o Have students try writing paragraphs on their own that follow a specific text
structure. Writing paragraphs that follow certain text structures will help students recognize these
text structures when they are reading.
o For students who are proficient with paragraph organization, do steps 3 –6 with longer
chunks of text or entire chapters and articles.
o For more information see: Simonsen, S. (1996). Identifying and Teaching Text Structures in
Content Area Classrooms. In D. Lapp, J. Flood, & N. Farnan (Eds.), Content Area reading and
Learning: Instructional Strategies (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

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