Learning to write using the text structures is a great way to help students recognize the structures in text they read. This is a set of interactive notebook pages which will help your students organize their own writing by using five different text structures:

-problem/solution
-description
-cause/effect
-compare/contrast
-sequence

These pages can be used on their own, or as a follow up to my Text Structure Explained Powerpoint Lesson


There are two pages for each structure. The first page is a reference page students can glue into their notebooks. They can return to this again and again any time they are working with text structures. The reference page includes the definition of the text structure and why an author would use it, an example paragraph, graphic organizer, and a list of signal words. I always have students highlight the signal words in the example paragraph.

The second is the student interactive page. This can also be glued into the notebook as instructions to writing their own paragraph. You can assign any topic, have students research the topic, and then write their paragraph below the page in their notebooks. This page includes a graphic organizer and signal words.

The example paragraphs are all written using the topic of beetles. This is a great way for students to see how the structure changes when the information you want to write about changes, even when the basic topic is the same.

This activity could be used whole group, small group, or as an independent writing practice in a center.

These pages are made to fit in a composition or spiral notebook.