Reading:
Non-Fiction
Text Features
This is a link to our Quizlet to help you study!
Text features are an important part of non-fiction books. They use fewer words and give more visual information than regular text. When you are reading, you should pay attention to these features. I often take a look at them first so I can get an idea of what the text will be about.
Titles and Subtitles
The title is the name of the book or piece of writing.
Sometimes there is a subtitle that comes after it, which explains more about what the book is about.
Table of Contents
This lists the chapters and what page they can be found on. It gives you a way to go to the information you want more quickly. It also helps you know more about what is in the book.
Headings and Subheadings
These are like titles but they are not for the whole book or article. Headings help to organize information within a section of a non-fiction text. The heading tells you what the general information will be in this specific section (often a page or two). A subheading will tell you what the next few paragraphs are about.
Font Choices
Key words are often shown in bold. These are words that are important to the topic. Bold fonts draw our eyes.
Italics can be used for names and titles, quoted speech, foreign words, or to make a word stand out.
Font style and size is important. Usually titles are very large to catch your attention, with subtitles being a bit smaller. Headings are the largest font on the page and subheadings are smaller. This breaks up the text on the page and makes it look more exciting to read.
Using different colours of text can be effective as long as it is still readable. Light colours of text can be seen best on dark backgrounds. Highlighted text is usually a key word or very important information.
Text Boxes and Sidebars
Text boxes help separate blocks of text from the rest of the page and from images or backgrounds. Look at these to see interesting facts, definitions of words, captions for photographs, and other important information.
Sidebars are a special kind of text box that appear at the side of a page. They contain information related to the rest of the page.
Bullets
Bullets are used in a list. They go in front of every item on the list. Bullets can be circles, squares, or some kind of icon.
Visual Text Features
Have you ever heard "A picture is worth a thousand words"? Well, authors use visual text features to help explain information quickly and clearly. It is usually the first thing you notice when you open a book. They help make you interested in the information as well.
Photos are images that have been taken with a camera.
Illustrations are images that have been drawn.
Diagrams show how something works or how it is structured.
This is another kind of diagram without an illustration.
Cutaways show you the inside of something.
Maps show you information about a location.
Timelines show you how something develops over time or an order of related events.
Charts present information in a visual way. You have to stop and think about what you are seeing.
Graphs are a kind of chart. You can have bar graphs, line graphs, etc.
Tables are another kind of chart that you can use to compare and contrast information.
Icons are symbols that give information to the reader. There are icons on maps, in text books, and on websites.
Understanding Visual Text Features
Captions often appear at the bottom of photos and illustrations. They explain what is happening.
Labels are used to identify parts of a photo or illustration. They have a line that identifies which part it is talking about.
A key or legend is used to tell you the meaning of icons, colours, and other features of maps, graphs, charts, and tables.
The scale shows you how distance is shown on the map. For example, 1cm = 1km.
Glossary and Index
The glossary is like a mini-dictionary. It explains key words in the text. Usually, the glossary is found at the back of a book.
The index is also found at the back of the book. It tells you on which pages you can find specific words. This helps to make researching faster. If you have a book about electricity but you only want to read about switches, you can look up "switches" in the index and go to those pages. The page number that is in bold is the one with the most information on that word.
Organizational Structures
There are many ways that non-fiction authors organize their writing. Think of examples of books or articles that you have seen. How were they organized?
This video explains some basic organizational structures in non-fiction.
Problem and Solution
This structure is used to tell about a problem and offer one or more solutions.
Problem - There isn't enough parking downtown.
Solutions - We have several options. We could build another parkade, or make a parking lot by tearing down an old building, or run more buses into the downtown area.
Compare and Contrast
When you compare two things, you say how they are similar. When you contrast two things, you say how they are different.
Compare: West Kent and West Royalty are two Charlottetown elementary schools. They both have very nice teachers and great principals. There is a variety of playground equipment at both schools.
Contrast: West Kent is a smaller school, but it has a French immersion stream as well as English stream classes. West Royalty is larger and still expanding. They are planning an extension for the school. They have a fantastic core French teacher.
Cause and Effect
The cause is why something happened (before.) The effect is what happens as a result (after.)
Cause: Seals often give birth on ice flows, but there hasn't been a lot of sea ice this year.
Event: Seals have been seen on the beaches and they have even been seen on a road in Charlottetown!
Effect: The police have issued a warning to drivers and pedestrians to stay away from the seals.
Sequence
A sequence tells events or instructions in order.
The history of soccer is unclear. Many countries played similar games. In China, the military played a game with a leather ball between 3000-2000 BCE. Players were not permitted to use their hands. Around 2500 BCE, Egyptian paintings show women playing with a ball. In 1000 BCE, the Japanese were playing a ball game on a field that was marked by 4 trees. The Chinese and the Japanese had an international game in about 50 BCE. Teams in Mexico first played with a rubber ball in the year 600. In England the first games were played in 700, but they were very violent and were outlawed three different times until it was finally allowed in 1605. Around this time, visitors to North and Central America found that the Indigenous peoples had similar games, but is unclear how long they had been playing them. The goals in one game were a mile apart and there were 1000 players! In 1815, a university in England first set the rules of soccer.
Description
With this text structure, the focus is on describing the topic. This can be done in many different ways. Sometimes people start off with general information and then give more detailed descriptions as they go on. Others start off by describing the most important things first.
The blue jay is a common bird on PEI and easy to identify. If you see a hint of blue and white in the trees and hear and angry screech, it's probably a blue jay. If you look closer, you can see they have a thick black beak and black legs and feet. The chest is either white or grey. On their heads they have a crest of blue feathers that sticks out. The blue colour continues down the head, back, and tail. At the tip of their wings they have gorgeous bands of black, white, and blue. It is difficult to tell the males from the females.
Can you read a picture?
You don't read picture books as often now that you are in grade six, but pictures are still an important part of non-fiction reading.
What facts can you list about the picture above? (Do not interpret yet.)
There is snow and ice in the images on the posters.
It looks like the containers are partially filled with ice.
The writing on the posters looks like Chinese.
There are three people wearing orange uniforms.
The men in the boxes are attached to equipment.
The one on the right looks like he has a blood pressure cuff.
It looks like there are microphones above the tanks.
The men in the boxes look calm.
Can you make any connections to the picture?
I know they use machines to read blood pressure at the pharmacy.
I know that people sometimes do challenges to see how long they can stay in cold water or ice.
I know that sometimes those challenges are for charity.
Using the facts and the connections, what do you think is happening? Make an educated guess.
I think that these men are doing some sort of ice challenge to see how long they can stay in the tank. I think it is on television, because of the microphones. It looks like an organized event, because they are monitoring their health.