Students first need to understand common text structures in non-fiction texts. Guiding students to analyze text and media to take notes then is an essential instructional practice. As we know, non-fiction text comes at us in many different forms. The complexity can sometimes overwhelm students, so helping them with visual versions can enhance their learning. Here are a few of the main text structures: 

Cause and Effect | Chronology – Sequencing | Compare and Contrast | Main Ideas and Details | Problem – Solution 

I was fortunate to work with a master teacher who teaches lessons connecting the text structure to specific note-taking strategies. The teacher, Monica Escobar, shares the following strategies with her students using diagrams to connect the strategies to the structures. 

She teaches the following strategies: Annotated Diagram | Boxes and Bullets | Cause, and Effect (Flow Chart) | Cornell (my addition) | Reverse Boxes and Bullets | T-Chart | Timeline | Venn Diagram | Web

Here are images of the strategies and the structures they support: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image Source