Reading and Literature Studies · Reading Informational and Graphic Texts

Non-Fiction Forms: Essays, Long-Form Journalism, Memoir, Reports and Speeches

2.1About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can identify the characteristics of complex non-fiction forms, including the personal and lyric essay, investigative feature, memoir, formal report, open letter and speech.
I can classify speeches as forensic, epideictic or deliberative and explain how a speaker uses an occasion.
I can explain how the characteristics of a form help communicate a text's meaning.
I can recognize hybrid forms and explain why a writer might blend forms.

Words to know

personal essay
A reflective non-fiction piece in which a writer explores an idea through their own experience.

lyric essay
An essay that uses poetic techniques such as fragments, white space and repeated images more than linear argument.

investigative feature
Long-form journalism that uncovers information through documents, interviews and data, often over months.

nut graf
The paragraph in a feature that states why the story matters, usually after an opening scene.

memoir
A non-fiction account of part of the writer's life, shaped around a theme; narrower than a full autobiography.

open letter
A letter addressed to a person or group but published for the public to read.

epideictic
Ceremonial speech that praises or blames, such as a eulogy, tribute or commemoration.

deliberative
Speech about future action: what should we do?

forensic
Speech about past actions: what happened, and was it just? (as in a courtroom)

Hook: the form is part of the message

Imagine the same facts about a town's water problem delivered as a formal report with numbered findings, a 6,000-word magazine investigation that opens on a grandmother boiling water at dawn, a memoir chapter, an open letter to the premier, and a speech at a public meeting. Each would make you feel, trust and act differently.

The curriculum asks you to identify the characteristics of text forms and explain how they help communicate meaning. In Grade 12 the forms are longer and more varied, and many texts deliberately blend them.

Remember from Grade 11

In ENG3U you compared news reports, features, editorials, op-eds, essays, formal reports and speeches, and studied satire and parody. Grade 12 adds the personal and lyric essay, investigative journalism, the open letter and the classical kinds of speech, and asks you to explain how a writer uses or bends a form.

Forms placed by their usual balance of purposes. A formal report sits near inform; a memoir sits near reflect; a speech often sits between argue and reflect. Real texts can move around.

Form	Key characteristics	How the form shapes meaning
Personal essay	first person; an idea explored through experience; often inductive	makes an idea feel lived and earned
Lyric essay	fragments, white space, repeated images, juxtaposition	lets the reader assemble meaning; suits grief, memory, uncertainty
Investigative feature	opening scene, nut graf, documents, many interviews, data	combines human story with proof; builds a case over length
Memoir	a chosen period or theme of a life; scenes and reflection	a first-hand witness; truth of experience rather than complete record
Formal report	executive summary, numbered findings and recommendations, appendices	impersonal authority; designed for decision-makers
Open letter	addressed to one person or group, published for all	public pressure; readers become witnesses
Speech	written for the ear: repetition, signposts, direct address, rhythm	a shared moment; the occasion itself carries meaning

Seven complex non-fiction forms and how each one shapes meaning.

Worked example

Let's identify forms from their features

Identify the form of each invented excerpt and name two features that reveal it.

A. At 5:40 a.m., Martha, a grandmother of four, fills the kettle for the third time. ... For 11 years, residents of this community have boiled their drinking water. Documents obtained by this newspaper show that a repair was approved twice and never built.

B. Finding 3: Water treatment operators reported staffing shortages in 7 of 10 communities surveyed. Recommendation 3.1: Fund two certified operator positions per community.

C. Dear Premier, You told us in March that clean water was your first priority. We are writing to you, and to every Ontarian who reads this, to ask what has changed since then.

A: investigative feature. It opens with a scene centred on one person, then moves to a nut graf (For 11 years...) and cites documents obtained by the newspaper.
B: formal report. Numbered findings and recommendations, impersonal language, a statistic from a survey (7 of 10).
C: open letter. A salutation to one person, but an explicit public audience (every Ontarian who reads this), and a pointed question that creates pressure.
How form shapes meaning: the feature makes the problem human and proven; the report makes it actionable; the open letter makes it accountable in public.

Name the form, cite the features, then explain what the form does for the message. (The names, numbers and community in the excerpts are invented.)

Speeches: the three kinds

Aristotle's Rhetoric sorted speeches into three kinds by what they ask and which time they face:

Forensic (judicial): about the past: what happened, and was it just? Courtrooms, inquiries, defences.
Epideictic (ceremonial): about the present: who or what deserves praise or blame? Eulogies, commemorations, graduation speeches, apologies.
Deliberative (political): about the future: what should we do? Legislatures, debates, campaign speeches.

Powerful speeches often turn one kind into another. A famous example: in 1852, the formerly enslaved abolitionist Frederick Douglass was invited by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society to give an Independence Day address in Rochester, New York (he spoke on July 5). Instead of simply praising the holiday, as the occasion expected, he asked his audience, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? He used a ceremony of praise to deliver an indictment of slavery and a demand for change.

The three kinds of speech face different times. Douglass's 1852 speech was booked as epideictic (a celebration) and became forensic and deliberative: a judgment of the nation's past and present, and a call to act.

Worked example

Let's analyse how a speaker uses an occasion

Explain how Douglass's 1852 speech uses its occasion and form to communicate meaning.

Occasion and expectation: an Independence Day event invites praise of the nation's founding ideals of liberty (epideictic).
Turn: Douglass's question, What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?, uses the pronoun your, separating himself and enslaved people from the celebration. The form's expectation of praise is turned into blame.
Effect: because the audience came to celebrate liberty, the contradiction between their ideals and slavery becomes impossible to ignore. The occasion itself becomes the evidence.
Kind of speech: epideictic in setting, but forensic in judging the nation and deliberative in demanding change.

Analysing a speech means asking what the occasion expects and how the speaker meets or breaks that expectation. (The quotation is the speech's famous question; the rest of this analysis is a paraphrase.)

Hybrid forms

Many important non-fiction books are hybrids. Seven Fallen Feathers combines investigative journalism (documents, inquest evidence, interviews) with narrative (the students' stories) and history. Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass (2013) braids memoir, botany and Potawatomi teachings, and its title names its own form. When you meet a hybrid, ask: What can this combination do that a single form could not?

Just for fun

In journalism, a nut graf is the paragraph that tells you why the story matters. Editors have been known to reject a beautiful 2,000-word opening scene with one note in the margin: Nuts?

Hands-on activity

One issue, three forms

You need: a notebook, internet or library access, and about 40 minutes.

Choose one issue (for example housing costs in your community, a local environmental question, or a sports facility).
Find three different forms on it: for example a news report, a feature or investigation, and either an opinion piece, an open letter, a speech transcript or a report.
For each, list three characteristics of its form.
For each, write one sentence explaining how the form shapes what you learn and feel.
Decide which form would most persuade (a) a city councillor and (b) a classmate, and explain why.

What to look for: accurate form names; features cited from the texts; explanations of effect, not only lists of features.

Your turn

What is a nut graf, and where does it usually appear?

Name two characteristics of a lyric essay.

How is a memoir different from an autobiography?

Which kind of speech is a eulogy?

Which kind of speech asks what should we do?

What makes an open letter different from a private letter?

Why is Seven Fallen Feathers called a hybrid?

More practice: warm-up

Which form uses numbered findings and recommendations?

In what year did Frederick Douglass give his Fourth of July speech in Rochester?

Which kind of speech faces the past?

Name one feature of writing for the ear in a speech.

What three strands does Braiding Sweetgrass braid?

More practice: on your own

Explain why an investigative feature often opens with a scene rather than a statistic.

A school board publishes Annual Report on Student Achievement. Predict three of its form features and explain one effect.

Classify a graduation valedictory speech and explain how it might also be deliberative.

Why might a writer choose a lyric essay to write about grief?

Compare how a formal report and an open letter might handle the same recommendation.

Challenge

Explain how the form of a public apology (an epideictic speech) creates its own expectations, and what makes an apology fail or succeed as a form.

Choose a form for each audience and justify: (a) a federal minister, (b) Grade 9 students, (c) readers of a national magazine, all on the same issue of northern school access.

Argue whether hybrid forms are more or less trustworthy than single forms.

Check your understanding

Quiz

A text with a salutation to the premier, published in a newspaper for all readers, is...

A speech that asks what should we do next? is...

The nut graf of a feature article...

How did Frederick Douglass use the occasion of his 1852 Fourth of July speech?

Which form most often uses fragments, white space and repeated images?

A memoir differs from an autobiography because it usually...

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: ENG4U Reading and Literature Studies 2.1: identifying characteristics of complex informational text forms (essays, investigative features, memoir, reports, open letters, speeches) and explaining how they help communicate meaning.

How to help at home:

When you read or watch something together (a speech, a feature, an apology from a company), ask: What form is it, and what does that form expect?
Look at the weekend edition of a newspaper together and find a long feature's nut graf.
Discuss a speech you remember: what was the occasion, and what did the speaker do with it?

Common difficulties:

Listing features without effects. Always ask so what does that do?
Treating forms as boxes. Many texts are hybrids; that is something to analyse, not a problem.
Mixing up the three kinds of speech. Tie each to a time: past, present, future.

Facts used: Frederick Douglass spoke in Rochester, New York, in July 1852; the question quoted is from that speech. Aristotle's Rhetoric classifies speeches as forensic, epideictic and deliberative. Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2013). The water excerpts and their names and numbers are invented.