← Back to course
Reading and Writing 6-8 / Week 07 / Press Day
6/6
Week 07 · Informational Texts

Press Day

Press Day: a guide of your own
// How a piece of nonfiction is built
⏱ about 20 min

Press Day: A Guide of Your Own

Saturday morning, the porch smells like fresh paper. The crew folds the week's issue at the long table.

"This issue is all nonfiction," Rocket says, creasing a page. "A guide, a report, a feature and an explainer."

Raven stacks the folded copies in the basket. "And one more piece. Yours."

"Mine?"

"The student's," Raven says, nodding at the notebook. "A short guide about a place in the neighborhood, built with one structure."

Nova hovers over the basket, counting copies with a flicker of light. "Pick the shape first," she says. "Then the words will know where to go."

Rocket slides the basket to the top step. By dinner it is empty.

  1. Structure is how a nonfiction text is organized: sequence, compare and contrast, cause and effect, or problem and solution.
  2. Signal words give the structure away: first and finally, alike and unlike, because and as a result, problem and fix.
  3. Every section and sentence has a job in the whole. Ask what the text would lose without it.
  4. Purpose is why the author wrote. Strong nonfiction acknowledges other viewpoints and responds to them.
◇ READ YOUR GUIDE ALOUD
Read one of this week's Signal pieces aloud to a family member or friend.
Ask them to name the structure. Then show them one signal word that proves it.
Read them your own guide from the Signal notebook.
Ask for one compliment and one question. Write both in your notebook.
PRESS DAY CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
You want to write a guide to the skate ramp, one step at a time. Which structure fits?
You want to explain why the porch lamp stays on until dinner. Which structure fits?
A neighbor disagrees with your guide. What should a fair writer do?
Press Day checkTrue or false?
Choosing a structure before writing helps the words know where to go.?
A guide should hide any viewpoint that disagrees with it.?
Signal words help a reader find the structure.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEStructure, signal words and fairness to other views are the three habits of this week.
Which word in the recap names the reason an author wrote a text? Type the one word.
WHY THIS EXERCISEPurpose is the question behind every nonfiction piece: what did the writer want the reader to understand?
Checklist
My guide is about a place in the crew's neighborhood: the porch, Maple Street, the garden, the library branch or the ramp.
I chose one structure and used at least two of its signal words.
My first sentence tells the reader what the guide will do.
I named one other viewpoint and responded to it in a kind way.

Your guide is in the basket. Next week you write a full explanatory piece, section by section, at the Signal Desk.

← Friday