Guiding students to analyze text and media to then take notes is a very important instructional practice. Students first need to understand common text structures in non-fiction text. As we know, non-fiction text comes at us in many different forms. The complexity can at times be a bit overwhelming for students so helping them with visual versions can enhance the learning. Here are a few of the main text structures: Cause and Effect | Chronology – Sequencing | Compare and Contrast | Main Ideas and Details | Problem – Solution
I was fortunate to work with a master teacher who teaches lessons connecting the text structure to specific note-taking strategies. The teacher, Monica Escobar, shares the following strategies with her students using diagrams to connect the strategies to the structures. She teachers the following strategies: Annotated Diagram | Boxes and Bullets | Cause and Effect (Flow Chart) | Cornell (my addition) | Reverse Boxes and Bullets | T-Chart | Timeline | Venn Diagram | Web
Here are images of the strategies and the structures they support:
