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:
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