The structures of informational texts Reading Khan Academy

hello readers let's talk about structure when architects and engineers design building one of the considerations they have to make is structural support how's this thing going to stay upright how do we make sure it doesn't blow over in the wind or collapse in an earthquake and so they say okay maybe we'll put reinforcing steel in the concrete or put braces on the outside or big old pylons in the center well writers do pretty much the same thing when an author creates an informational text they ask themselves the same question how's this thing going to stay upright how shall structure this text because although it's not physical in the way that building is physical texts have structure you can't touch them but you can see them now there are many ways to structure piece of writing but today want to talk about five chronology compare and contrast cause and effect problem in solution and description let's talk about each one in turn using the medium of one of my favorite foods pizza recognize that's really weird looking pizza but you can learn anything i'm going to get better at it before this video is over so chronology chronology is events described in order chronos is greek for time so anything that has that distinctive c-h-r-o-n root is going to be about time chronicle chronometer chronically you can suss out if text is using chronological structure if it's sequence in particular order or if it's telling story from history recipes are also chronological right in order to bake the cake properly you have to turn the oven on first and to that end you can generally identify this text structure by looking for time words like first or last or finally so chronological account could be the history of the origins of modern day pizza in 19th century naples or step-by-step recipe for making pizza dough here's an example of the chronology of ordering pizza this is how you order pizza first look up reviews or ask neighbor to find the best pizza near you then call the pizza place and place your order be sure to give your address next it's time to wait when the pizza finally arrives make sure to tip the delivery person compare and contrast you've probably heard of this one when text compares two or more ideas that's compare contrast the compare step discusses similarities how things are similar and then the contrast step discusses how those things are different look for clue words like same or different both and neither in contrast or on the other hand here's an example when talking about pizza long-standing debate is often between deep dish and thin crust pizza one benefit of deep dish pizza is how efficient it is because of its thickness 12 inch deep dish pie can serve six people one drawback is that it can be quite messy to eat thin crust pizza is good because it's less messy than deep dish but it's thin so it takes larger pizza or multiple pizzas to feed the same number of people as deep dish pizza can cause and effect this one does what it says on the tin right it describes how one idea or event causes another here's an example to celebrate my great report card my parents let me order pizza with all my favorite toppings after we ate we were too stuffed to do anything else now what caused us to get pizza my great report card what was the effect of the pizza we were stuffed maybe it was stuffed pizza if you stuff yourself with stuffed pizza does that make you more stuffed than if you stuff yourself with unstuffed pizza you may scoff but this is the stuff that keeps me up at night problem and solution in this kind of text structure the author describes problem and that explains how that problem was solved so imagine you want pizza but you can't have traditional pizza because you're celiac you can't have wheat necessity is the mother of invention enter the cauliflower crust pizza made from cooked cauliflower cheese and variety of gluten-free flours all right so what was the problem you can't eat wheat and pizza dough is made of wheat how do you solve that problem by making pizza crust out of cauliflower which promise tastes better than it sounds finally description this is sort of like an encyclopedia entry that explains basic information about topic like an explainer piece about what pizza is i'm going to read this as though have never heard of pizza before pizza round flatbread traditionally served warm originated in naples italy in the 19th century this flatbread is generally baked at very high temperatures topped with flavorful tomato sauce and melted mozzarella cheese and served in slices if you find yourself looking at an informational text and you're struggling to figure out what the structure is subtract the specifics if you subtract the specifics it'll help you think about the structure and if it helps you can substitute those specific details about the text with pizza is this silly yeah of course does it work think it does so is the text structured like recipe or the history of pizza if so it's chronology is it comparing two kinds of pizza well then it's compare and contrast does it explain how good report card led to pizza dinner its cause and effect does it describe pizza problem and how it was solved in pizza way well that's problem solution structure and finally does it straightforwardly describe what pizza is without detailed chronology comparison or problem because if so that's description those are only five possible ways to structure piece of writing they're by no means the only ways but identifying these will give you the tools to learn even more structures so that you can better understand how writers shape ideas hope that this helped and also hope that you want pizza now because certainly do you can learn anything dave it out