Exploros | Writing Informational Text

Engage

Overview

In this experience, students write an informational passage with a cause-and-effect organizational structure. First, they choose a topic and then move through the writing process from prewriting, to drafting, to revising and editing. They use informational text features in their writing.

At the end of the experience, students will self-evaluate their work based on a rubric. You may review the rubric with them at any point during this experience.

Objectives

Plan and write informational text, moving through the writing process.
Apply informational text features and organizational strategies to an informational passage.
Revise and edit informational text.

Duration

One week. You may want students to draft or research information outside of classroom time.

Every choice you make impacts something else; every choice causes an outcome. These cause-and-effect relationships are around you all the time. As you look at history or science or your daily life, you can see the impact one event has on another. In this experience, you will explain a cause-and-effect relationship as you write an informational text with a cause-and-effect organizational structure.

Objectives

Plan and write informational text, moving through the writing process.
Apply informational text features and organizational strategies to an informational passage.
Revise and edit informational text.

Look at the following picture. What do you think is happening with the young girl? What do you think was the result?

girl in bed looking at alarm clock, realizing that she has overslept

Describe what just happened and what you think the result was. Use your imagination!

Post your answer

The purpose of this exercise is to have students start thinking about cause and effect. Possible effects of oversleeping are a disruption in daily routine, a bad mood that affects work and relationships, or an effort to adopt an earlier bedtime.

Some cause-and-effect relationships are a sequential series of events and effects, where the effect becomes the cause of the next effect. But not all sequences of events have a true cause-and-effect relationship. This distinction may be difficult for middle school students, but be on the lookout for clear cases where students mistake sequence for cause-and-effect.

What you just described is a brief cause-and-effect relationship. The girl woke up late and therefore her morning was different than it probably normally is. Every decision she had to make was caused by the fact that she overslept. In the rest of this experience, you will explore some cause-and-effect relationships, choosing one to develop and write about in an informational text.

When everyone is ready to continue, unlock the next scene.