Supporting informational writing in the elementary grades

Donovan, Carol A., & Smolkin, Laura B. (2011). Supporting informational writing in the elementary grades. The Reading Teacher, 64(6), 406-416.

Donovan and Smolkin outline a helpful, practical framework for looking at the various kinds of text structures found in informational texts for children. This framework is much more useful than some of the categories of text structures found previously in the literature and in reading methods texts. The typical categories of text structures (e.g., Listing, Time Order, Comparison/Contrast, Cause/Effect, etc.) have been less than helpful for my own teaching because those categories examined informational text structures on too large a scale—a macro level, almost—when in reality informational text is much more complex than that, with multiple smaller structures occurring in any given text. When my students (both children and preservice teachers) looked for examples of the old macro-type text structure categories in informational texts, they often had a hard time finding them. Donovan and Smolkin’s categories CAN be found in typical children’s informational books; I know, because after I read this article, I looked in a number of exemplary children’s informational books and easily found examples of all of Donovan’s categories there. My mind immediately began racing with the possibilities of using these categories instructionally, and I could not wait to try those possibilities out with learners. When a framework creates that reaction in me as a teacher, I know it is a “keeper.”

There are eight categories in Donovan and Smolkin’s framework, and they are arranged along a developmental continuum, with the first category, Labels, presented as the simplest type of informational text at the most basic developmental level, and moving through increasingly “mature” developmental categories. We move from Labels , to Fact Statements, to Fact Lists, to Couplets (often connected by pronouns), to Fact List Collections, to Couplet Collections ,to Single and Unordered Paragraphs, to the most sophisticated structural category, Ordered Paragraphs. The continuum, which is outlined in the very helpful Table 1 (pp. 408-409), along with examples of each category, can be used in several ways. The authors suggest using it as a way of determining children’s informational text writing “levels” and then planning instruction to move the children from one developmental level to the next. For example, if a child has mastered Labels (“This is a bat.”), then he or she is ready to be scaffolded to move on to Fact Statements (“Bats are mammals.”). A Fact List (“Bats are mammals. Bats eat insects. Bats can fly.”) is the next step, and then it is on to the much more sophisticated Couplet structure (“Bats have wings with long fingers. These fingers help the bat move through the air.”). The sequence could move a child through all eight developmental levels over time. The developmental nature of Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum is potentially useful for both pre- and post- instruction assessment, and for instruction, not just in writing informational text as the authors intend, but also for helping children read and comprehend instructional text. Although the authors’ research was done with elementary age children, the categories and the developmental continuum can also be applied to older children in middle school and even high school, and the informational texts they read and write.

A Dozen Discussion Prompts:
1. Why is it important to teach children to read and write informational text from a young age? Why has informational text not been emphasized in the early elementary years until recently?

2. Look at Donovan and Smolkin’s developmental continuum and its eight categories. Find a good children’s informational book by an accomplished author of the genre (Suggestions: Gail Gibbons, Seymour Simon, Sandra Markle, Kathryn Lasky) and attempt to find examples of some of the categories within the continuum. What did you discover?

3. How can learning about informational text structures like those in the continuum help children learn to write informational text?

4. What do you think about using Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum as an assessment tool? How would that kind of assessment actually be done in the classroom? What kinds of data would result, and how would they be communicated?

5. Think about how a lesson designed to move children from one level to the next would look in the classroom. For example, how would you design a plan to move young children from Labels to Fact Statements? Or, select any two levels of the continuum and describe how you might help children move from one to the next.

6. Couplets seem to involve a fairly large developmental leap; literacy research has documented that readers and writers can struggle with the relationships between pronouns and their referents, which is what is involved in couplets. English Learners often have difficulty with these kinds of structures. What might be the best way to help learners understand how they work?

7. Can Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum be applied to students beyond the elementary grades? Why or why not?

8. Do informational texts in various subject areas (science, history, math, etc.) have their own specific text structures? Are any of the categories in Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum more prevalent in certain subject areas? If you are a middle/secondary teacher, think about the subject area(s) you teach. Which of Donovan and Smolkin’s categories are most prevalent?

9. Are there any categories you might add to Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum? Did they leave out any informational text structures that you think should be there?

10. If you work at the middle/secondary level, and you believe the continuum could be extended beyond Donovan and Smolkin’s highest level, Ordered Paragraphs, what would the next level (s) be if you continued the continuum?

11. In what jobs/professions do people need to write informational texts? What kinds of texts do people write “on the job” and what sorts of structures are seen in them? Relate this to Donovan and Smolkin’s continuum if possible.

12. What are some good uses of a developmental continuum like Donovan and Smolkin’s? What are some potential misuses?