U4 Freedom Walkers - Informational Text Structure

Define

Text structure is the organizational pattern that an author uses to present ideas in a text. Some of the
most common text structures include: sequential, problem and solution, cause and effect, and
comparison and contrast.

Sequential: Authors present information about events or steps in a process, in the order in which
they take or have taken place.

Problem and Solution: A writer presents a problem or a series of problems, and offers solutions on
how to solve them.

Cause and Effect: Authors who specialize in history or science topics often use this structure to
explain how or why something happened.

Comparison and Contrast: Authors use this structure to present information about things that are
different but have something in common, such as two points of view on a subject.

Identification and Application:

●Identify the purpose of the text:

○Does the text describe real people, places, or events?

○Does the text describe a problem and propose a solution?

○Does the author explain a process, or offer instructions?

○Does the author express an opinion or idea that he or she would like to persuade the
reader to accept?

●When you’re reading a text, look for certain words and phrases that may be clues to the type of
text structure an author uses. For example, the use of dates and words such as then and finally
indicate a sequential text structure.

●Then consider how this text structure contributes to the development of ideas in the text.

●Ask yourself questions as you read. For example, ask: What events are listed and discussed?
Does one event lead to another? Why might the author have chosen to use this particular text
structure for this topic?

Model

Recognizing how information is organized in a text can help the reader discover the author’s purpose, focus
on important ideas, and better understand the topic.

Consider how Russell Freedman has organized the information in this excerpt from Chapter 2 of Freedom
Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The purpose of this chapter is to tell the story of
15-year-old Claudette Colvin and her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white passenger.
Yet the author begins the text by describing the experiences of two other young African American bus riders:

Two youngsters from New Jersey —sixteen-year-old Edwina Johnson and her brother Marshall, who
was fifteen— arrived in Montgomery to visit relatives during the summer of 1949. No one told them
about the city’s segregation laws for buses, and one day they boarded a bus and sat down by a
white man and boy.

With this passage, Freedman establishes a few facts. First, the reader learns that bus segregation was an
issue in Montgomery at that time, and secondly, the reader can infer that in New Jersey, buses were not
segregated, since the Johnsons did not see that their actions would be a problem.

Model

Freedman confirms this information in the next paragraph:

The white boy told Marshall to get up from the seat beside him. Marshall refused. Then the
bus driver ordered the black teenagers to move, but they continued to sit where they were.
Up North, they were accustomed to riding integrated buses and trains. They didn’t see now
why they should give up their seats.

Freedman organizes the text using a sequential text structure. This allows him to present historical
events in the order that they occurred, beginning with the experiences of Edwina and Marshall
Johnson in 1949. He goes on to explain that “during the next few years, other black riders were
arrested and convicted for the same offense — sitting in seats reserved for whites.”

In addition to alerting the reader to Montgomery’s unjust law of segregated bus seating, the opening
paragraphs help set the stage for Claudette Colvin’s story, which takes place almost six years later.

Model

In paragraph 6, Freedman introduces the reader to Colvin and begins telling her story. As he tells her story, in paragraph
12, Freedman repeats a phrase readers encountered earlier to provide context and emphasis:

No,” Claudette replied. “I don’t have to get up. I paid my fare, so I don’t have to get up.” At school, Claudette had
been studying the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and she had taken those lessons to heart. “It’s my
constitutional right to sit here just as much as that [white] lady,” she told the police. “It’s my constitutional right!”

Remembering the lessons from her studies, Colvin challenged the driver’s order, telling him, “It’s my constitutional
right!” By choosing to repeat Colvin’s words—the same words that opened the text—the author gives them a context,
and emphasizes their importance. They serve to frame the stories of the people and events described in this chapter.

The use of a sequential text structure helps the reader understand how the experiences of Claudette Colvin, Edwina and
Marshall Johnson, and other African American bus riders in Montgomery are connected, fit into the overall development
of the ideas expressed in the text, and contribute to an event of historical significance, the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Your Turn

Read these sections from Chapter 2 of Freedom Walkers to determine how the two paragraphs
are connected and contribute to the development of the topic. Then answer the follow-up
questions.

The driver called the police, and Edwina and Marshall were arrested. Held in jail for two days, they
were convicted at a court hearing of violating the city’s segregation laws. Judge Wiley C. Hill
threatened to send them to reform school until they were twenty-one, but relatives managed to get
them an attorney. They were fined and sent back to New Jersey. . . .

Blacks had been arrested before for talking back to white officials. Now it was Claudette’s turn. She
was crying and madder than ever when the police told her she was under arrest. “You have no right
to do this,” she protested. She struggled as they knocked her books aside, grabbed her wrists, and
dragged her off the bus, and she screamed when they put on the handcuffs.

Multiple Choice

Part A

Which of the following explains how the two paragraphs are connected and contribute to the development of the ideas in the text?

• The police were harsh and rough in both instances.

• Things were much worse in 1955 than they were in 1949.

• Edwina and Marshall were treated better than Claudette was.

• All three teenagers were arrested for standing up for their civil rights.

Multiple Choice

Part B

Which sentences or phrases from the passage support your answer in Part A?

• “Edwina and Marshall were arrested”/“police told [Claudette] she was under arrest”

• “violating the city’s segregation laws”/“talking back to white officials”

• “Wiley C. Hill threatened to send them to reform school” / “dragged her off the bus”

• “They were fined and sent back to New Jersey” / “she screamed when they put on the handcuffs”