Text Patterns and Features: Cause and Effect, Prefaces and Glossaries

Remember from Grade 4

In Grade 4 you found spatial order (describing where things are) and used type styles (bold, italics, headings) and hyperlinks.

In Grade 5 you will see how a persuasive writer uses a cause-and-effect chain to convince you, review other patterns, and use features at the front and back of a book: the preface, glossary and index.

Hook: Why should we turn off the lights?

Read this persuasive text, written for this website. Notice how the writer links ideas with words like because and so.

Lights Out for Birds

Every spring and fall, many songbirds migrate at night. They use the stars and other clues to find their way. Because big city buildings stay lit all night, some birds are drawn toward the bright lights and become confused. They circle the buildings until they are worn out. As a result, many of them fly into windows. Millions of birds in Canada are hurt or killed by window collisions every year.

The good news is that the solution is simple. If office towers and homes turn off unneeded lights at night during migration, then fewer birds will be drawn off course. So fewer birds will hit windows. Turning off lights also saves electricity.

Please turn off your lights at night, and ask the businesses in your community to do the same!

Cause and effect in a persuasive text

A persuasive writer wants you to do or believe something. A cause-and-effect chain is a strong tool because it shows that one thing leads to another:

1. Cause: bright lights at night
2. Effect (and next cause): birds are drawn in and confused
3. Effect: birds fly into windows
4. Final effect: many birds are hurt

Then the writer shows that changing the first cause (turning off lights) changes everything after it. That makes the call to action feel logical: if you do this, then that will happen.

Signal words for cause and effect: because, since, so, as a result, therefore, due to, if... then, this leads to, consequently.

Be a critical reader: a chain is only convincing if each link is true. Ask: Does the evidence really show that this cause leads to this effect?

Features at the front and back of a book

Imagine a nonfiction book called Night Flyers: Birds That Migrate in the Dark. It might have these features:

Preface (at the front, written by the author):

I started writing this book after I found a small warbler on the sidewalk outside my office, stunned after hitting a window. I wanted to learn why this happens and what we can do. I hope this book helps you see the night sky the way birds do.

A preface tells why or how the author wrote the book. It can show the author's purpose and perspective. Some books have a foreword instead, written by someone else who introduces the book.

Glossary (at the back, alphabetical):

• collision: a crash between two things
• migrate: to move from one region to another with the seasons
• warbler: a small songbird that often eats insects

Index (at the back, alphabetical, with page numbers):

• lights, at night, 12–15, 30
• migration, 4–9
• windows, 16–19

Sidebar (a box beside the main text):

Did you know? Some birds sing a short call while flying at night. Scientists record these calls to count the birds passing over.

Patterns and features in cultural texts

Cultural texts use patterns and features too. A book of traditional stories may have a preface explaining whose stories they are and that the storytellers gave permission to share them. Many traditional stories are told in chronological order, and some use repetition (the same event happening three or four times) to help listeners remember. Some books by First Nations, Métis and Inuit creators include a glossary of words in an Indigenous language, such as Anishinaabemowin, Cree or Inuktitut, with a pronunciation guide.