Context and Text Structure

Understanding text structure is crucial for reading comprehension. Direct and strategic instruction of text structure will be maximized when the context is included that is related to students’ lives (Williams, 2018). When teaching, educators must begin to move to use culturally relevant pedagogy for students so that students are engaged and willing to learn. Students know how to use text structure in oral dialogue, but they must transfer what they know orally to writing (Williams, 2018). Students come with a multitude of prior knowledge, the teacher just needs to tap into it. Using prior knowledge and context, teachers can use what students already know to analyze text structures effectively. Agency – what matters most to students – represents the power to pursuit questioning, and students want to explore issues that directly relate to their lives (Mirra, Filipiak, & Garcia, 2015). Teachers need to give students text that relates to their lives and apply the analysis of text structures using these culturally relevant texts. Students want topics that they can choose, and they feel are representative of the experiences of their lives. Some educators may not live in their community and students do not want to be stereotyped. Students want topics that they can choose, not what the teacher gives them, because it gives students the autonomy, they need to learn about topics they find important

According to Williams (2018), “The five basic text structures identified by Meyer are description, sequence, comparison, cause-effect, and problem-solution” (p. 1925). Students typically do these things in daily discussions, but they do not notice it. It a teachers’ responsibility to bring these five text structures to light through instruction. Teachers can implement the instruction of text structures to improve reading comprehension daily. Teachers can use well-structured short paragraphs that encompass five-basic text structures (Williams, 2018). The use of culturally relevant text will provide students the necessary engagement and then the teacher can jump on this engagement to teach the five structures. It is crucial that the teacher teaches using expository and narrative formats (Williams, 2018). Typically, teachers skip teaching expository text because of the complexity and challenge of the text itself for students. Another strategies teachers could use to address is modifying the problematic text to make it more accessible so that students can engage with the text and make mental representations and accurate understandings of what they are reading (Williams, 2018). This is what it is to differentiate instruction for struggling students – you want to make the content, or, in this case, reading accessible to all students. Again, it must relate to the context of the community or issues that students want to learn about. Teachers must relinquish their power to the students as Mirra et al (2015) state, “a profound commitment to flipping traditional classroom power dynamics and honoring young people not simply as adults-in-training, but as curious and critically thinking civic agents on their own terms” (p. 54). At first, it is hard to give power to the students, but you must trust that they will act like adults – they’re about to get into the “real-world” soon anyway.

I could implement these strategies in my classroom when breaking down application problems. Some students struggle with application problems because they cannot transfer what they have learned. If they can find the patterns in the application problems by looking for the text structure that is common with them, the students will find success.