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What Is Text Structure: Definition, Types, Teaching Methods

“Secondly, the glass was broken, but first, he threw the stone. He threw the stone, and now the neighbors are angry. We started again where we stopped, the skateboarding in the streets.”

Did you understand what is being said above? Don’t worry, no one did. That’s how unstructured text makes it hard to understand what is conveyed. The struggle to form sentences and present clarity in text is one of the biggest challenges in writing. We are here to teach you more about what is text structure and how teachers and parents homeschooling their kids can implement these teaching strategies.

Text Structure Definition

What is Text Structure? It refers to the organization of information and ideas in content. It shows how the text makes sense. A good text structure in a sentence is easy to understand. It has all the elements needed to comprehend the text.

Why Is Structuring a Text Important in Writing?

  1. The structure of text is fundamental to be taught in school because it makes students skilled readers and aids in writing assignments and reports.
  2. Different text structure examples help them interpret the information.
  3. It will help understand what the author was trying today and in what context.
  4. Without understanding what is text structure, the content will be ambiguous, unclear, and unorganized.
  5. Research Conducted by the National Literacy Trust supports the importance of proper text structure guidance among youngsters with the statement:

“Levels of writing enjoyment have reduced by 12.2 percentage points over the past 13 years, which means that, over that time, there has been a 26% decrease in the number of children and young people aged 8 to 18 who say they enjoy writing in their free time.”

What is the Students’ Writing Proficiency Level?

The national report card has found significant differences between the language proficiency levels of private and public students and the different educational levels.

Public School Private School 
Grades 4 to 12th 70% to 85%90% to 94%

This explains why schools and teachers need to reinforce the text structuring of lessons and improve the teaching methods. 

3 Common Mistakes Students Make in Structuring Text

  • Disconnecting Sentences and no relevance.
  • Disorganized Paragraphs with no sequence.
  • Unclear Transitions between paragraphs and sentences.

5 Primary Types of Text Structure

Following are some of the common types of text structure based on what information they provide. It will help avoid the mistakes mentioned above.

Descriptive

This type of structure describes the features or details of the author’s message. It introduces the reader to the object or situation by describing its appearance, geography, size, height, or other information. Such text structure utilizes persuasive writing tips and influences people’s thoughts. It helps students picture the situation in their minds and understand what is text structure and its context.

Example:

The chocolate cake was decorated with walnuts and almonds.

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Sequence

This type of text structure tells readers about the order of events in the context. Describing sequences in writing helps inform readers about an event or situation’s stages, steps, or processes. Historical papers are the best text structure examples for identifying chronological order.

Example

The Djoser step pyramid of Saqqara is the earliest pyramid built in Egypt, dating back to 2700 BC. Later, other cities started to build pyramids as well.

Cause and Effect

This text structure clarifies the causes and effects of a particular situation or event. This is used in plenty of research papers every day. It helps students understand how a cause impacts different variables. Such text structure is common in dissertation writing projects.

Example

Due to the increase in fossil fuel burning, global warming has become alarming.

Problem And Solution

The author introduces a problem to the readers and then proposes a solution. This structure helps students interpret the problem and find its solution better. It is one of the most popular types of essay structure assigned to students.

Example

When the black death prevailed in 1348, doctors started practicing potions, bloodletting, augmentations, and pastes.

Compare and Contrast

This text structure compares the similarities and differences between events, situations, subjects, or literature. It will help students look at the different aspects and angles and compare the information.

Example:

Mexico is also home to some spectacular pyramids. However, compared to the pyramids of Giza, the pyramids of the Mayan dynasty were smaller and steeper.

5 Fun Teaching Methods For Text Structure

Now that we understand different text structures let’s discuss how teachers can make text-structuring lessons fun and exciting. Firstly, they primarily focus on writing mechanics and conventions; then, there are 5 more methods to use.

Practice Prediction

One of the best ways to teach students how to recognize a text structure is to have them predict the next transition words or structured phrases. Make it a pre-reading habit to have students predict the text structure.

Once they are done guessing, give them the content to read and check whether their predictions are accurate to test their knowledge.

How To Make It Work

  • Give students a topic with lots of ‘Now and then structure.’
  • Have them predict the next transition words to make a sequence.
  • Provide them with reading material and ask them to detect the structure.

Use Graphics To Organize

Provide students with graphics charts, images, and tables relatable to their reading material. Graphics are essential in strengthening sentence structure in students’ minds.

Let’s See How It’s Done

Give them a chart or a table to organize the information they extracted from the reading material. Tables may differ based on what is text structure it is written in, such as problem-solving or causes and effect tables. For example, a table like this:

Add Colors Into Learning

Get your students to use highlighters and colors to mark different text structures and what is text structure placement. Differentiating structures of text through different color highlighters or pencils helps students to detect and understand their position in the context.

How To Make This Work?

  • Make a color code for every kind of text structure. For example, red is for sequence, blue is for description, green is for cause and effect, orange is for problem and solution, and purple is for compare and contrast.
  • Ask the student to extract the general idea and what is text structure of the entire reading material based on which color was used the most.

Develop A Comprehensive Storyboard

This enjoyable practice will entertain students of all types of coursework and help them discover things. It is most functional for narrative and literature review materials. It allows students to break down the scenes and events in the context and organize them in a storyboard.

How to Make It Work

  • For example, you gave them Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Provide students with reading material and also a storyboard.
  • Ask them to describe the play scene by scene by filling out the storyboard. They would be able to do it after determining what is text structure in the dialogues and scenes.
  • Let the students present their interpretations of the scenes and explain how they understand the sentence structure.

Organize A Text Structure Hunt

Get your students to hunt for different topics and reading materials through newspapers, fiction and non-fiction books, magazines, blogs, or any online research resource. Ask them to find different scenarios and text structure examples to identify what structure an author uses to display their information.

How Do We Make This Work

  • Assign them the task of hunting for information through different resources.
  • Once they are done identifying and marking the structure, ask them to share their work with the class and present their ideas.
  • This activity is going to be very engaging and encouraging for students to expand their learning of what is text structure and build good relationship between students and professors in class.

Resources To Improve and Practice Text Structure

No.SourceWhat Do you Get From It
1BooksFiction or Non-fiction books, exciting and engaging ideas.
2MagazinesA number of interviews, blogs, and writing on diverse topics.
3NewspapersInformational columns, expert reviews, investigations, and
4ArticlesDetailed research papers and reports on serious issues
5WebsitesBlogs, web content, online articles, current affairs, and news. 

Confused? Still? Let Us Help You

It’s pretty common for students to face issues in understanding and practicing what is text structure. If you are unsure how to start and practice, you can get in touch with a professional yet cheap academic writer to get the best advice.

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Now You Know What Is Text Structure!

It’s better to conclude that the idea of what is text structure needs to be taught to students from starting grades. It’s a process that gradually strengthens with practice and different activities. Structures of text have different types, and all have their specific role to play within the context. Teachers should engage students in different activities to foster structuring sentence learning.

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