Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Informational and Graphic TextsReading Non-Fiction Across Cultures and Periods: Choosing Texts and Strategies
1.1 1.2About 70 minutes
Learning goals- I can choose informational and graphic texts from diverse cultures and historical periods for a focused study.
- I can write an annotated bibliography entry that summarizes, evaluates and reflects.
- I can select the most appropriate reading strategy for a text and explain my choice.
- I can use a graphic organizer and a semantic differential scale to respond to an essay on a controversial topic.
Words to know
informational text
A text whose main purpose is to inform, explain or persuade about real people, events and ideas: essays, articles, reports, editorials, memoirs, speeches.
graphic text
A text that communicates through images and design as well as words: infographics, charts, maps, comics and graphic novels.
annotated bibliography
A list of sources, each with a citation and a short paragraph that summarizes, evaluates and explains how the source will be used.
annotation
The short paragraph under a citation; also, notes you write on a text as you read.
graphic organizer
A chart or diagram for recording ideas while reading, such as a claim / evidence / reaction table.
semantic differential scale
A rating line between two opposite adjectives (for example clear and confusing) on which a reader marks a judgment.
controversial topic
An issue on which reasonable people disagree.
Hook: every text is a time capsule
Imagine someone in the year 2126 finds a news website from today. What would they learn? Not just the facts in the articles, but what we worried about, what we joked about, and whose voices got the headlines. Informational texts are time capsules. When you read essays, articles and reports from different cultures and historical periods, you learn the content and the world that produced it.
This unit is about informational and graphic texts: essays, articles, editorials, reports, speeches, memoirs, infographics, comics and graphic novels. (Novels, poems, plays and short stories are studied in the sibling unit Reading Literary Texts.) In this first lesson you will choose a range of texts and pick the best reading strategies for each one.
Remember from Grade 10
In ENG2D you sorted texts into literary, informational and graphic families, set a purpose for reading and used strategies before, during and after reading (previewing, questioning, annotating, summarizing). Grade 11 asks more: read texts from diverse cultures and historical periods, and select the most appropriate strategy for each text instead of using the same one every time.
Reading widely: cultures and periods
The curriculum asks you to read a variety of student- and teacher-selected texts from diverse cultures and historical periods. Why does that matter?
- Different periods show how ideas change. An essay written in 1915 about whether women should vote shows you arguments people really made, and how the writer had to persuade readers who disagreed.
- Different cultures show that there is more than one way to see an issue. Memoirs and essays by First Nations, Métis and Inuit writers, for example, often connect personal experience with community, land and history.
- Different forms (a satire, a memoir, a report, a feature article) teach you to adjust how you read.
Here is a sample reading list for a Grade 11 non-fiction study, from 1729 to today. You do not need to read all of these books; the point is the range.
Choosing texts for independent study
When you pick your own texts for an independent study, a good set has:
- One clear focus question, for example How do writers argue for change?
- Variety: at least two forms, at least two periods or cultures, and at least one graphic text.
- Credible sources: who published it, and is the writer in a position to know?
- A record of what you found, often an annotated bibliography.
An annotated bibliography lists each source in a standard citation format (in Ontario schools usually MLA), followed by a short paragraph, the annotation. A good annotation does three jobs: summarize (what is it about?), evaluate (how reliable and useful is it?) and reflect (how will it help your study?).
Worked exampleLet's write an annotated bibliography entry
A student studying How do writers connect personal experience to identity? chooses Richard Wagamese's memoir One Native Life. Model one MLA-style entry with an annotation.
- Citation (MLA 9): Wagamese, Richard. One Native Life. Douglas & McIntyre, 2008. Author's last name first, title in italics, publisher, year.
- Summarize (1 to 2 sentences): A collection of short autobiographical pieces in which Ojibwe writer Richard Wagamese reflects on events from his life and on reconnecting with his Ojibwe identity.
- Evaluate (1 to 2 sentences): As a memoir, it is a first-person source: strong evidence of the writer's own experience and perspective, though not a history textbook. The short pieces make it easy to quote and compare.
- Reflect (1 sentence): I will compare how Wagamese links small personal moments to identity with how Sheila Watt-Cloutier links her life to the Arctic environment in The Right to Be Cold.
A complete entry = citation + summary + evaluation + how I will use it. Notice that the evaluation names the source's kind (first-person memoir) and what it is and is not good evidence for.
Selecting the most appropriate strategy
Good readers do not use every strategy on every text. They match the strategy to the text and the purpose. The question is always: What does this text make hard, and which tool solves that?
| If the text is... | the hard part is... | so choose... |
|---|
| a long report with headings | keeping track of sections | preview headings first; write one line per section |
| an essay on a controversial topic | separating claims from your own reaction | a graphic organizer: claim / evidence / my reaction / question |
| an essay from 1729 or 1915 | old vocabulary and unfamiliar context | a quick background search; a glossary of unfamiliar words |
| an infographic | reading data accurately | read title, labels, units and source before the numbers |
| a graphic memoir | reading words and pictures together | slow down at large panels; ask what the image adds that the words do not |
A text to practise on
Close Main Street to Cars on Summer Weekends
(An opinion essay written for this website.)
Every July, Main Street in our town turns into a parking lot that happens to have shops. Drivers circle for spaces, families squeeze along narrow sidewalks, and the patios that restaurants worked so hard to build sit beside idling engines. It is time to try something different: close the four downtown blocks of Main Street to cars on summer weekends.
First, people, not parking spaces, keep shops open. When a street is pleasant to walk along, people stay longer and stop in more often. A shopper on foot can wander into the bookstore and the bakery; a driver usually stops at one place and leaves.
Second, a car-free street is safer and more welcoming. Children, older residents and people who use wheelchairs or walkers could move freely without dodging bumpers. Buskers, art displays and the Saturday farmers' market would finally have room.
Some business owners worry that customers who drive will stay away. That concern is real. The town can answer it with clear signs to the two public lots behind Main Street, a free shuttle from the arena, and a one-summer trial with a survey of shop owners in September.
Our downtown should be a place where people want to spend a Saturday, not a place they drive through. Let's give the street back to the people for one summer and see what happens.
Worked exampleLet's use a graphic organizer and a rating scale
Read Close Main Street to Cars on Summer Weekends. Use a claim / evidence / my reaction / question organizer, then rate the essay on a semantic differential scale.
- Thesis: close the four downtown blocks to cars on summer weekends (last sentence of paragraph 1).
- Claim 1: people on foot keep shops open. Evidence: walkers visit more than one shop; drivers usually stop at one. My reaction: sounds logical. Question: is there a study or survey that shows this?
- Claim 2: a car-free street is safer and more welcoming. Evidence: children, older residents and people who use wheelchairs or walkers move freely; room for buskers and the market. Question: what about deliveries to shops?
- Counterargument and rebuttal: some owners fear losing customers who drive; the writer offers signs to parking lots, a shuttle and a one-summer trial with a survey.
- Rating: see the scale below. The essay is clear and fairly convincing, but its evidence is mostly reasoning and examples, not data, so well supported gets a middle score.
The organizer keeps the writer's claims separate from your reactions and questions. The scale turns a vague feeling (it was okay) into a specific judgment you can explain.
A semantic differential scale places your judgment between two opposite words. This reader found the essay clear (1) and fairly convincing (3), placed it well toward one-sided (6), and gave support a middle score (4) because there is no data.Just for funSwift's satire A Modest Proposal has a full title of nearly 30 words (the exact count varies by edition), beginning A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country. Modest it was not, at least in length.
Hands-on activityBuild a mini reading list
You need: a library card or your library's free website, a notebook, and about 30 minutes.
- Write a focus question that interests you (for example How do people write about climate change? or How do athletes tell their own stories?).
- Find four texts on it: at least two forms (for example an article and a memoir), two different periods or cultures, and one graphic text (an infographic, a comic, a chart-heavy report).
- For two of them, write an annotated bibliography entry: citation, 1 to 2 sentence summary, 1 to 2 sentence evaluation, 1 sentence on how you will use it.
- For each text, note one reading strategy you would choose and why.
What to look for: variety that is real (not four news articles from the same week), annotations that evaluate and not just summarize, and strategies that match what makes each text hard.
Your turn
1Name the three jobs of a good annotation in an annotated bibliography.
Summarize the source, evaluate its reliability and usefulness, and reflect on how it will help your own study.
2Why read informational texts from different historical periods? Give one reason.
They show how ideas, arguments and values have changed over time, and how writers persuaded the readers of their own time.
3In the Main Street essay, where is the thesis, and what is it?
At the end of paragraph 1: close the four downtown blocks of Main Street to cars on summer weekends.
4Which strategy would you choose for a 40-page government report with many headings? Why?
Preview the headings (and summary, if there is one) first and write one line per section, because the hard part is keeping track of a long structure.
5What is a semantic differential scale?
A rating line between two opposite words (for example convincing and unconvincing), usually with 5 or 7 points, where you mark your judgment.
6Which part of the Main Street essay answers a counterargument? What is the answer?
Paragraph 4: owners fear losing drivers; the writer answers with signs to the public lots, a free shuttle, and a one-summer trial with a survey.
More practice: warm-up
1What does MLA stand for in citations?
Modern Language Association, whose citation style is widely used in English classes.
2Name one strategy to use before reading.
Any one: preview headings and visuals, check the author and date, set a purpose question, recall what you already know.
3Name one strategy to use during reading.
Any one: annotate, fill a graphic organizer, pause and paraphrase, reread a hard part, look up a key word.
4Is a memoir a literary text or an informational text?
It is usually classed as non-fiction (informational), but it uses literary techniques such as scene and dialogue, so it sits between the two families.
5In the Main Street essay, how many downtown blocks would close?
More practice: on your own
1A student's annotation says only: This book is about a man's life. What is missing? Improve it.
It has a (vague) summary but no evaluation and no reflection. Better: A memoir of short pieces about the writer's life and his Ojibwe identity. A first-person source, strong for personal perspective but not a full history. I will use it to compare how memoirists connect small moments to identity.
2Why is an I agree / I disagree reaction not enough when you read an essay on a controversial topic?
It records your opinion but not the writer's claims and evidence. You need to understand the argument fairly first, then react, so your judgment rests on what the text actually says.
3You are reading Nellie McClung's 1915 essays. Name a strategy to help with the historical context and explain it.
A quick background search on women's suffrage in Canada around 1915 (who could vote, what the opposing arguments were), so you understand whom she was trying to persuade and why her arguments are shaped as they are.
4Give the Main Street essay a rating for fair to both sides and justify it with evidence.
Sample: 5 of 7 (leaning one-sided). It does mention business owners' worry and answers it, which is fair, but it gives no voice to drivers or delivery workers and does not admit any real downside of the plan.
5Why should an independent study include at least one graphic text?
Graphic texts (infographics, comics, charts) present ideas differently, through images, layout and data. They test different reading skills and often reach different audiences, so they broaden your understanding of the topic.
Challenge
1Design a strategy plan for reading A Modest Proposal (1729) for the first time. Name one strategy for before, during and after, and justify each.
Sample: Before: read a short background on Ireland's poverty in the 1720s and learn that the piece is a satire, so you are not misled by its surface. During: annotate any place where the tone seems calm but the idea is shocking (mark it !), because satire depends on that gap. After: write one sentence on what Swift really criticizes. Each choice targets what makes the text hard: old context, irony, and hidden purpose.
2Explain how the same reading list could be varied but still not diverse. How would you fix it?
Sample: four different forms (essay, report, article, infographic) all written by people from one culture, one country and one decade are varied in form but not diverse in perspective, culture or period. Fix it by adding a text from another period and texts by writers from different communities, for example a First Nations, Métis or Inuit writer, or a writer from outside Canada.
3Write a three-sentence annotation for the Main Street essay as if it were a source for a study on downtown planning.
Sample: An opinion essay arguing that a town's four downtown blocks should close to cars on summer weekends, because walkers support more shops and the street becomes safer and more welcoming. It is clearly organized and answers one counterargument, but it relies on reasoning rather than data and does not name a writer's qualifications. I will use it as an example of a local argument for pedestrian streets, and look for traffic or sales studies to test its claims.
Quiz
1. Which reading list best meets the expectation to read texts from diverse cultures and historical periods?
2. A good annotation in an annotated bibliography...
3. The best strategy for a long report with many headings is to...
4. On a semantic differential scale, a reader marks...
5. In Close Main Street to Cars, how does the writer respond to business owners' worry?
6. Why is a graphic organizer with claim / evidence / my reaction helpful for a controversial essay?
What this lesson teaches: ENG3U Reading and Literature Studies 1.1 (reading a variety of texts from diverse cultures and historical periods) and 1.2 (selecting and using the most appropriate reading comprehension strategies).
How to help at home:
- Ask your teen to tell you the focus question for their reading list and why each text was chosen.
- When they read an opinion piece, ask: What is the writer claiming? What is your reaction? Are those the same thing?
- Visit the library together; ask a librarian for non-fiction by writers from different communities and periods.
Common difficulties:
- Annotations that only summarize. Ask: How reliable is it, and how will you use it?
- Using one strategy for everything. Ask: What makes this text hard? and choose the tool for that.
- Old texts feel impossible. Five minutes of background reading makes a 1729 or 1915 text much easier.
Facts used: A Modest Proposal (Jonathan Swift, 1729); In Times Like These (Nellie McClung, 1915); One Native Life (Richard Wagamese, Douglas & McIntyre, 2008); The Right to Be Cold (Sheila Watt-Cloutier, 2015). The Main Street essay was written for this website.