Because my books are expository nonfiction rather than narrative nonfiction. Text structure is a critical factor. There is no built-in story. If you were writing a biography about a person’s life or if you’re writing about a historical event or a historical period, there’s a built-in story and narrative nonfiction works really well, but when you’re just sharing facts, it’s a whole different kettle of fish. And a narrative writing style really doesn’t work. So expository nonfiction is really the way to go.
And with narrative nonfiction, you have a sequence text structure, you’re following the events or the person’s life. But with expository nonfiction, you can have any tech structure that you can think of. And so there are five main text structures that students are learning in schools. But the truth is that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many more they can be book specific and there are also some that are common, but don’t happen to be in those five text structures that kids are learning.
So for my book, Thank You, Moon, this has a compare and contrast text structure. And then within the compare and contrast text structure, it’s important to understand how the information is going to be arranged, how it’s going to be organized. So this is what’s called a list book, which is basically talking about an animal behavior or a phenomenon, and then how it affects various different animals. And then so we’re comparing the way that the different animals respond to moonlight. For some it helps them to find food, some it helps them avoid enemies, some it helps them migrate, some it helps them with their reproductive cycle. And within that, I’m pairing different animals by the kinds of things that they do under the moon. I’ll just read you a little tiny snippet.
Thank you, moon, for being Earth’s constant companion in space and making life on our planet possible. And you can see this stunning art here by Jessica Lannan, who is just so talented. Thank you for guiding tiny turtles to the sea, and dung beetles to their burrows. Thank you, moon, for giving lions a chance to feed their families, and gazelles a chance to eat in peace. And then there’s one plant in the book. This is a joint pine. It’s when it releases its pollen so that the moss can come and pollinate it.
And so you can see how those pairs actually help with the flow of the text within this compare and contrast text structure.
