Students will examine the text structures of nonfiction texts in this lesson. Students are going to:
- Determine the author's intention, and consider the transitions and textual structure elements.
- Determine the purpose of the author's work.
- Find pertinent passages in a text that illustrate the author's point of view.

- How can readers decide which information from what they hear, read, and see to believe?
- How do literary and informational texts become meaningful to strategic readers?
- How does interaction with text elicit thought and response?
- What is the true purpose of this text? 

- Author’s Purpose: The author’s intent is either to inform or teach someone about something, to entertain people, or to persuade or convince the audience to do or not do something. 
- Expository Text: Text written to explain and convey information about a specific topic. Contrasts with narrative text. 
- Informational Text: Nonfiction text, written primarily to convey factual information. Informational texts include textbooks, newspapers, reports, directions, brochures, and technical manuals. 
- Text Structure: The author’s method of organizing a text. 
- Nonfiction Structure: An organizational structure found in nonfiction (e.g., sequence, question/answer, cause/effect, problem/solution). 
- Transition Words: Words that help maintain the flow of ideas in a text and signal the author’s purpose. 
- Thesis: The subject or major argument of a composition. 
- Topic Sentence: The sentence in a paragraph that states the main idea. 
- Heading: Words or phrases in bold print that indicate the topic of a portion of the text.

- “Guppy Gulch, Pennsylvania: A Middle Atlantic State’s Dive Haven,” by Dave and Sheri Albrecht. Diving USA Dive Sites Across America. http://www.dtmag.com/dive-usa/locations/GuppyGulchPA.html 
Alternative articles:
- “Should kids be banned from indoor tanning facilities?” http://junior.scholastic.com/issues/05_13_13/book#/14 
- “Interview with J. Michael Fay, Conservationist” http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/peopleplaces/interview-mike-fay/
Teachers may substitute other texts to provide a range of reading levels and text complexity.
- Author’s Purpose handout (L-8-1-1_Author's Purpose and KEY)
- Common Transitions handout (L-8-1-1_Common Transitions and KEY)

- This lesson's objective is to explore the various types of text structures while expanding on prior knowledge of nonfiction text structures. 
- Walk around and watch as students complete the study guide questions to gauge their understanding of the material. 
- Assist students in evaluating their progress toward the lesson's objectives by providing them with constructive criticism on their work. 
- Analyze the text's transitions and organization to determine the author's intent and draw conclusions. 
- Determine the author's intention. 
- Find pertinent passages in a text that illustrate the author's goals.

Explicit instruction, modeling, scaffolding, and active engagement 
W: Assist students in recognizing various nonfiction text structures, ascertain how text structures offer a logical flow of ideas for reader comprehension, and investigate how transitions contribute to the author's purpose being understood. 
H: Involve students by expanding on their past understanding of the author's intention and asking them to recognize the goals of different genres as well as how authors convey those goals. 
E: Ask students to examine text structures in light of the author's goals, recognize text structures, and then assess how textual elements and transitional phrases contribute to the author's goals. 
R: When assessing a text for meaning and structural elements, give students some time to consider how well they understood text structures. 
E: Assign students to find passages from the text and words that serve as transitions to help them understand the author's point. 
T: Use small-group discussions, individual responses, whole-class participation, and materials with varying reading levels to differentiate instruction. 
O: Arrange learning experiences so that direct instruction is given to the class as a whole at first, then individual or group activities are used for organization and transition use, and finally group sharing is used again for summarization and clarification. 

Focus Question: How does a writer convey their intentions?

State, "With a partner, determine the purpose of an author who writes a novel, textbook, newspaper editorial, or complaint letter."

Encourage students to present their answers to the class. Ensure that students can accurately identify the purpose of each author for each genre.

novel: narrate, entertain, and tell a story
textbook: give information, educate, and clarify
newspaper editorial: express a viewpoint, make a case
complaint letter: clarify and explain what went wrong, and request a replacement product or a refund.

Ask students to come up with ideas for how writers convey their goals. (Possible answers include word choice, organization or structure, and inclusion of data or proof.) Say this: "Authors use a range of techniques to communicate their goals. Selecting a specific textual structure is one method. The author ought to select a structure that effectively communicates the text's meaning."

Part 1

Say: "We will examine how authors of nonfiction texts employ particular structures to help convey meaning in this lesson."

Give copies of the worksheet entitled "Author's Purpose" (L-8-1-1_Author's Purpose and KEY). Assist students in reviewing the various structures by having them finish the matching portion. Discuss the answers as a class and go over any terms that the students are having trouble understanding again. Address any inquiries regarding the potential applications of various text structures to further the goals of writers.

Assign the second half of the worksheet to students, and have them match the text structure type to the brief samples. Encourage students to compare their answers with a partner and talk about the rationale behind them when they're done. As a class, go over the right answers after this discussion. Ask students to explain their decisions, citing specific passages from each text to bolster their arguments, if their answers deviate from the key.

Part 2

Say, "Tell them that nonfiction writers also use text features to support the structure they choose to communicate a text's meaning. Although text features are nothing new to you, we will now examine how they serve an author's purpose."

On the board or interactive whiteboard, list the following textual elements: thesis, heading, topic sentence, and transition. Then, to assist students in determining the function of each feature, pose the following queries:

"Which aspect of a nonfiction text conveys the main idea and position throughout?" ( thesis)
"Which element conveys a paragraph's primary idea?" (Topic sentence)
"Which aspect of the article separates it into various topic-based sections?" (the heading)
"Which element ties the concepts in sentences and paragraphs together?" ( transition)

If necessary, review the concepts. Say, "Now let's look at some typical transitions and how authors use them to further their goals." Give the students the Common Transitions handout (L-8-1-1_Common Transitions and KEY) to complete. As a class, go over the answers and address any questions that students may have regarding the connection between the author's intention and the transitions. Describe how transitions are necessary to keep a text's ideas flowing. To ensure understanding, spot-check the handouts.

As they read sample texts from textbooks, newspapers, magazines, or internet sources, have students work in small groups to identify transitions in the texts. Subsequently, assign the groups to read the text aloud, skipping the transitions. Ask the groups to debate how the text is altered in the absence of transitions. Discuss the results as a class. Say, "Transitions are the glue that holds ideas together. Without them, concepts are less apparent and the reader may not understand the text's intended meaning." Address any queries regarding the application of transitions.

See Related Resources for more information on transition words and phrases.

Part 3

Allow students to read "Guppy Gulch, Pennsylvania: A Middle Atlantic State's Dive Haven." Next, assign them to complete the following tasks in groups:

determine the author's goal.
find the textual passages that reinforce the goal.
find the text's transition words and connect them to the main idea.

Once students have completed their work, ask the groups to present their findings to the class. There are multiple goals for this text. In addition to describing a local attraction, other goals include providing background information about the location and persuading readers that it's an enjoyable place to visit. Make sure the students have recognized the text's numerous purposes—depicting, informing, narrating, and persuading—during the discussion. To make sure they understand the assignment, ask students to provide examples of text passages that illustrate the author's point of view as well as any transition words they come across. Say, "As you can see, a single text may have multiple purposes and a variety of approaches to accomplishing them. We can comprehend a text's true meaning more fully if we are aware of the author's motivations."

Extension:

For students who are prepared to go above and beyond the requirements, you can assign a speech, magazine article, or nonfiction essay and ask them to identify the text structures in each, providing examples as support.
Students who require further opportunities to understand transitions may be given a reading-level appropriate text and asked to circle or highlight transition words within the text, search for the purpose that the words serve, and then put a label on it.