I emphasized her struggles, heightened tension and suspense, and intentionally created an emotional punch. A narrative style is the best way I know of distilling a story and getting to the heart of it.
The biggest challenge [of writing a narrative] is staying within the nonfiction fence. While I want kids to cheer, gasp, and cry for Apis mellifera , I cannot anthropomorphize to achieve this goal, and I cannot make up anything. Every detail in the book has to be documented.
It has to come from a reliable source. By reading a variety of related passages, students can gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the topic as well as all that the wonderful world of nonfiction has to offer.
Children can also gain important insight into the kinds of texts they enjoy reading and writing the most. Even though there are a lot of text features, readers don't feel overwhelmed because the design helps them navigate across the pages, from the yellow headline to the central photo to the main text on the left to the secondary text features on the right.
Would you want to live inside a rotting whale carcass at the bottom of the sea? You would if you were a bone-eating snot flower worm. The females spend most their lives attached to a whalebone. As the plumes wave through the water, they take in oxygen. The worm's 'roots,' which are embedded in the whalebone, ooze acids that break down the bone.
They absorb fats, oils, and other tasty treats from the decaying bone, so they—and the worm—get all the nutrients they need to survive. From the moment I began thinking about Ick! The challenge of writing expository nonfiction is choosing a great hook, a compelling text structure, and just the right voice. Since gross animals are a powerful hook in and of themselves, that was the easy part of conceiving this book. I had lots of intriguing animal examples, so I knew a list text structure would work well.
And the content just cried out for a playful, conversational voice that would delight as well as inform. Like the bone-eating snot flower worms in Ick! A desolate landscape stretches before you. Soar along. She varies sentence length to build drama, and her imagery is spot-on. The craftsmanship behind this book is undeniable. Biographies tend to have this built-in, but many STEM topics will not work in a narrative style.
By framing her book as an undersea adventure, a journey to a hidden world beneath the waves which has a built-in story arc , the author found her way to a narrative style. My memory was wrong.
That's good! I sat down beside a pond to type that first sentence and more came flooding out. I typed wildly, with one finger, trying to capture everything. When I looked up 30 minutes later, I had a word draft. By putting the kid reader in the pilot seat for a typical dive day, I had found the heart and structure of my story. Once I decided on using the structure of a dive day [a narrative with a sequence text structure], many of the decisions were made for me For example, expository nonfiction is the best choice for books that explain or describe widely-accepted science knowledge or concepts, while narrative nonfiction is a better choice for titles that focus on the role of humans in making scientific discoveries.
Narratives can explore how scientists carry out investigations or the nature of scientific inquiry. One comes from Ick! My hope is that comparing these two texts will further assist you in differentiating the two writing styles and in understanding the best situations for using each kind of text.
And it has a variety of text features, including captions with facts and figures, a stat stack for kids and adults who love data, a sidebar about red-spotted purple caterpillars which look a whole lot like bird poop , and a factoid that describes even more surprising butterfly food choices, from mud and blood to sweat and urine. While some narrative lovers might feel a bit overwhelmed by this layout, info-kids will be excited by the cornucopia of choices.
Many butterflies eat just one thing—flower nectar. But red-spotted purple butterflies prefer a different kind of meal. At least seven kinds of butterflies sip juices from rotting fruit, animal dung, and dead animal bodies. Why in the world would butterflies choose such curious cuisine? Because the juices are packed with nutrients the butterflies need to stay healthy.
Since Ick! To make the expository text engaging, I employed a casual, playful, conversational voice and included a healthy helping of strong, precise verbs and alliteration along with a dash of onomatopoeia. While I sincerely hope that kids will be as excited to read Ick!
Moth Ball is perfectly suited for a narrative writing style because it conveys an experience. The first spread top features a group of children observing an incredible variety of moths attracted to a white sheet illuminated by a special light.
And the second spread which loosely connects to the food theme of the Ick! Be patient. On a warm night, moths become more active as the night gets darker and the hour gets later. Some people never, not once in their whole lives, connect with moths this way. So take your time. Soak it all in. There might be more moths to meet. Party on, friends! Be kind to your guests. Watch them sip homemade nectar, and marvel at how they do it. There are so many things to love about the way this book is written.
Even though the language is remarkably simple, each word has been carefully chosen to instill a sense of wonder and awe, which will undoubtedly inspire many young readers to begin planning a moth ball of their own. After reading the book, I wondered what inspired Griffin Burns to write about a moth ball rather than a more general introduction to moths.
I also wanted to know how and why she decided to employ a narrative writing style. I never asked myself what would be the best writing style for a book about moths. Instead, I stumbled into a subject that was new and fascinating to me—moth watching, and I saw immediately that there was a beautiful and intriguing narrative ready-made—a moth watching party, or moth ball.
Those two things convinced me that I wanted to make this book. This is not a book that gives a reader everything they'll ever want to know about moths. My fondest wish is that readers finish and do two things immediately: 1 hit the library for more books about moths and 2 start watching the moths in their own neighborhoods. According to Griffin Burns, one big advantage of writing a narrative is the built-in text structure.
Narrative is telling a story. Expository nonfiction might well be technical writing, where you tell your reader how to use a product. One may also ask, is a recipe an expository text? The author can describe a place, a person, or an animal. They can inform the reader about a job, how to pronounce a word, or provide a synonym. Encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, thesauruses, magazines, textbooks, cookbooks, written directions, and websites are all examples of expository text.
Expository text exists to provide facts in a way that is educational and purposeful. The text is fact-based with the purpose of exposing the truth through a reliable source. True and deliberate expository text will focus on educating its reader.
Other descriptors of exposition are clear, concise, and organized writing. Expository text : Usually nonfiction, informational text.
Examples include news articles, informational books, instruction manuals, or textbooks. Invite each team to sort the books into the five types—narrative, expository literature, traditional, browsable, and active. Expository Writing The purpose of this type of nonfiction writing is to explain or inform a reader about a certain topic.
With expository writing, the reader may or may not have prior knowledge about the topic being discussed, so research is central to successfully executing expository nonfiction. The purpose of a narrative text, or a narrative essay, is to tell a story. An expository text includes factual information that's designed to educate readers, typically involving research, and has a more formal style. Expository text is a type of informational text that provides factual information about a topic using a clear, non-narrative organizational structure with a major topic and supporting information.
It is informational text text that gives information that explains something to the reader. The only difference is that expository text can include opinions. Informational text just sticks to the facts. Categories of expository writing include description, process, comparison, cause and effect and problem and solution essays. Whether writing or analyzing expository writing , the key factors to include are the thesis statement, support, overall structure and tone.
Another word for expository. Explanatory, clarifying; that serves to elucidate. Here's a quick rundown. Fiction texts are not strictly true while they may contain true events or real people , while nonfiction texts are based on facts.
These distinctions are based on what is in the text. Sometimes, a reader has to read very carefully to figure out if something is fiction or nonfiction. Narrative texts tell a story. It's easy to find a beginning, middle, and an end. Usually, narrative texts have characters, settings, conflicts, and a theme. Expository texts, on the other hand, are structured to explain information. Instead of using the narrative structure, authors of expository text use a host of other text structures.
Lots more on expository text structures here and here and here! The tricky part In the classroom, it's sometimes easy to use "nonfiction" as a shorthand for "expository". It's true--most expository text is nonfiction, and most nonfiction text is expository.
But biographical and autobiographical writing is a notable exception. A personal narrative, for example, is a true account of a story from someone's life--a nonfiction narrative. At the same time, I've seen more and more expository fiction lately. Many students like to read encyclopedic style guides to comic book characters. These guides follow an expository structure, but convey fictional information.
This points to teaching students the words expository and narrative , of course. Some teachers don't like to do this because it adds to the overall vocabulary load of students, and I can understand their point. I think that fourth graders can easily handle it. Teachers in younger grades, I'd love to hear your thinking on when these terms can make their way into the language of the classroom. So what do we call it? Instead of using the word "story", what should we call texts? Well, I usually fall back on the word "text".
Make sure that you teach this word early in the year. If you work with ELL students, show them the difference between "text" and "test". I also throw in the words selection and passage , as these are likely to show up on standardized tests. And, of course, there is much to be said for sending the question back to the students.
What should we call this piece of text that we're looking at? What does it remind you of? How is it similar to other texts you've read? Even if they do not know the strictly correct terms, they can often give texts names that will help them to make connections across genres. It would be interesting to find out. As I unpack my classroom this August after another classroom move, I know that I'm going to leave my classroom library slightly disorganized. Looking at these kinds of text in the first week of school--and talking about how we can put them in categories--will be a great way to start the year.
By Emily Kissner at July 30, Labels: expository , narrative , text structure. Snowwhitesister June 1, at PM. Emily Kissner June 2, at AM. Anonymous June 17, at PM.
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