ABSTRACT
As students get older, they read more and more nonfiction texts (indeed, the National Institute for Literacy (NIL, 2007) found that “expository text is the most prevalent text structure in most middle and high school texts” and “students encounter expository text across their content-area courses”). Perhaps this prepares students for the real world. Even if you are an avid fiction reader (as I am), you interact with many nonfiction texts—anything from newspapers and how-to instructions, and from progress reports to the text you are currently reading. Although there are multiple types of nonfiction texts, there are a handful of similarities that they share:
text features tend to be important (e.g. headings, captions, etc.);
there tend to be more visuals, graphics, and figures;
individuals do not always read nonfiction in a linear fashion: they may search and seek the exact topic they are looking for (which you may have done with this book), and the authors tend to include asides throughout the book, which also renders the book less linear;
the purposes of nonfiction are generally to provide information or to convince the reader of something;
because of the clearly embedded text structures, some students find it easier to summarize nonfiction texts;
some common categories of expository text structure are: cause/effect, problem/solution, compare/contrast, chronological order or sequence, concept idea with examples, and proposition with support.
