Teaching the Organizational Structure of Text Passages
Reading comprehension is much more than just decoding language and word meaning. It also involves drawing significance and meaning from the text you are reading. Teaching students to read texts well and understand what they are reading is a difficult task. It requires patience, determination and a strong foundation in student learning as well as text organization.
There are two kinds of text organization: narrative and expository. Narrative text organization is by far the easier to teach; this is essentially the structure of storytelling and fiction. It is often relatively easy for students to pick up on this structure. Expository text may take many forms and teaching students to pick up on the organization can prove challenging.
Instructions
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Narrative Text Structure
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1
Read a text out loud to students. Provide time for them to read the same text silently. Tell students to write down a few observations about the story. Model this on the board before students do it individually; write down a conflict you see as part of the story.
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Ask students to tell you how many parts of the story they think they've identified. Allow the correct answers to come from the students as opposed to planting idea. Because narrative story structure is prevalent in our culture through bedtime stories for younger students and movies and popular novels for older students, your students will likely be able to identify the important parts of narrative text organization.
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3
Rename the identified parts of narrative text organization with the students. Teach students the academically accepted name for the elements of the story--for example, conflict for "problem" or "fight," rising action for the building of the plot and climax for the height of the action.
Expository Text Structure
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4
Design your lessons on text structure clearly. Teach explicitly--this does not mean that your approach cannot still be student-centered, but remember you are imparting knowledge to which students probably do not have extensive exposure. Adjust your teaching methods to allow for a clear direct-instruction (explicit teacher-delivered instruction) section of this lesson.
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Identify for yourself the organizational structure of the text your will be teaching--there are list, cause and effect, comparison/contrast and order structures. Write down the structure and delineate what exactly it is you need to teach students about this organization of text.
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Identify the shape of the organization structure you're teaching students as well as identifying words that expose early on which kind of structure the text takes. This is particularly useful for students in the secondary grades, as it will help them with reading comprehension on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
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Design a graphic organizer worksheet that will help student visually organize their thoughts on the text structure. Include a place on the worksheet for students to write down the trigger words that expose which kind of structure the text has, as well as the information the text relays. Model use of the graphic organizer on the board before assigning students to this exercise (this is part of the explicit instruction).
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8
Conduct a brief performance assessment to see if the students responded well to the lesson and have learned the targeted organizational structure of the lesson. Split the class into groups and have each group study a different text and analyze it for organizational structure. Allow time for the groups to share their findings with the whole class. Assign homework that allows the students to practice their new expository reading skills.
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9
Repeat these steps with any modifications or variations you deem necessary for each expository organizational text structure.
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References
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