When teaching nonfiction text structures, it can be really helpful to spend some time focusing on the key words and phrases that are specific to each text structure.
Our students love to find patterns and rules in life, and they quickly notice when specific words or phrases particularly lend themselves to descriptive, order & sequence, cause & effect, compare & contrast, or problem & solution texts.
Which makes this word sort a perfect activity when teaching or reinforcing nonfiction text structures.
This is activity is super simple and low prep. Simply print each student a “sorting mat” (the white page pictured above).
Each student will also need the words/phrases to sort. Please note, that on the back of the word cards, each word is used in a sentence. This means you’ll need to print this page back-to-back. Check out the diagram below to see how to align the pages for printing.
Since every printer and copier can vary, you may need to test out a few pages to make sure they are aligned. I added letters to each corner, so as long as your printer is matching those up, everything will print perfectly.
This is a great activity for students to do in pairs where they can discuss each word/phrase and explain why it fits a specific text structure.
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