Text Features
Lesson Summary
- Students will identify text features and use them to aid in reading comprehension.
Students will create a poster using the elements and principles of art and text features.
Lesson Key Facts
- Grade(s): 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade
- Subject(s): English Language Arts, Visual Arts
- Duration of lesson: Two sessions, 90 minutes each
- Author(s): Elizabeth Sampson
Lesson Plan and Procedure
Background for Teachers
English Language Arts concepts: This lesson reviews basic text features and helps children apply their use. Additional text features may be added to the lesson according to the needs of the teacher.
Visual art concepts: As part of this lesson, we will explore how designers arrange a page in a textbook to make it more pleasing to look at and convey clearer meaning. Discussions will include how to arrange a poster and how different “fonts" can provide emphasis. Other elements and principles of design will be introduced in order to present information more effectively.
Student prior knowledge needed: Basic familiarity with text and an ability to read. It helps if students can look at non-fiction books and/or magazines to find examples of basic text features.
Day 1: Understanding Text Features
Pretest
Give a simple matching pre-test to assess student understanding of the vocabulary terms related to text features.
Pre-learning Discussion Activity
Play the "Find a Text Feature Game." This is a hide and seek game with a variety of informational books. As you ask the students to find a picture, illustration, heading or other text feature, also ask them a thought question.
Teacher: Why do you think the graphic designer who designed this book used _________ (a table of contents, a diagram, a caption, etc.)?
Fill in the blank and change the questions until you have discussed the artistic purpose of each text feature and how the text features help us learn.
Note to Teachers: be careful not to use the term “graphic artist” in place of “graphic designer.” A graphic artist, or cartoonist, uses illustrations to tell a story. A graphic designer organizes the typography (words on a page), images, and all other text features to be readable, understandable, and engaging.
The “Find a Text Feature Game” can be done during the lesson as well if each student is given 1-3 non-fiction books or magazines to look through to find each example. If one student has a text feature that other students don’t, they can share their example with the class.
Slide 1: Title
Slide 2-3: Verbal Pre-test
Teacher: This is an Aquila magazine article. Without reading the main text, (click to slide 3) what do you think it is about? (Give students time to respond). How do you know that without reading it? What in the article is giving you that information?
Slide 4: What is a Text Feature Anyway?
Teacher: Text features are most often used in non-fiction texts to help readers find and process information quickly to give them greater understanding of what they are reading. It is the job of the graphic designer to put multiple text features together to make a text fun, engaging, and informative. We are going to learn about 11 different text features and their purposes.
Feel free to skip over any text features that are not applicable for your class.
Slide 5: Titles & Headings/Subtitles & Subheadings (01)
Teacher: A title is usually at the top of the text in big letters. It gives us an idea of what the whole text will be about—like the title of a book (use a class text book like the one pictured below as an example). Who can tell me what this book is about? That’s right! This book is all about science (can replace subject with whatever text book you use as an example; choose one with a clear title like “reading, math, language arts, American history”, etc.) so we know that we are not going to be reading about theater or art history, but about science!
Large text books are split up in a lot of ways. Larger sections, like units, would also have titles. Some titles, like a magazine title, do not always give a clear idea of what that magazine is about (Illustoria: For Creative Kids and Their Grownups, for example) and is often open ended enough so that issue themes can vary and change, making each article a separate section, and therefore needing a title as well.
Teacher: A heading, like a title, also describes what you read about in the text underneath, but instead of describing the whole text, it just describes a small section, like chapters.
Show students an example with your book and have them look through their own samples (if available). They can show their neighbor the titles and headings they find.
Teacher: Take a look at the newspaper and magazine article on the slide. Do you see any titles or headings? Where are they?
The article’s title is in red (Home Sweet Home with Melissa Sweet), and the newspaper title is at the very top (The World News) with the heading below in even bigger letters (America Needs Jobs). It might look like the article doesn’t have a heading at first, but it has multiple headings in the smaller read (difficult to read) so that we know what each tiny section is about—remind students that titles cover the information of the whole text and that a heading covers the information of a smaller section in a text.
Teacher: To help us understand what we will read even further in a text, graphic designers can use subtitles and subheadings. A subtitle expands on the information in the title like on the newspaper here (indicate the newspaper on the slide) says “Your Number One Source for Headlines” to help readers know that they are not just reading world news, but the most accurate and best world news! You’ll find subtitles directly below the titles. My text has “the Diamond Edition” as a subtitle so I know exactly which science book I have. Does your text have a subtitle?
Let students know that not every title has a subtitle. The article’s example on the slide doesn’t have a subtitle, but instead has a description or summary of what you are about to read: “Writer and artist Melissa Sweet’s storytelling is like a beloved heirloom quilt—completely original, lovingly conceived, and full of small but essential details.” Emphasize that subtitles expand on the title and maybe give some examples for certain subjects like for Math: “Exploring Numbers and Patterns”, “From Counting to Calculating”, “Making Numbers Fun!”; or for Reading: “Unlocking the World of Words”, “From Letters to Literature”, “Discover the Magic of Making Stories Come Alive”.
Teacher: So, if a subtitle expands on the title, what does a subheading do? (It expands on the heading). Are there any subheadings on the slide examples?
The newspaper subheadings are clear to see and right under the heading, “America Needs Jobs.” However, the article doesn’t have any subheadings. While subtitles and subheadings can be a useful tool, not every text will use them. In the textbook example pictured it has the unit title (“Physical Science”), the chapter heading (“Properties of Matter”), and the lesson subheading (“What is Matter?”) that break the text down into more accessible chunks.
Slide 6: Table of Contents (02)
Teacher: What is the Table of Contents? Take a look at this photo at this table of contents from an issue of Illustoria. What can you tell me about this magazine?
Point out that it is split into sections and has page numbers so you know exactly where to go. You could ask some of the following:
What page has a story something really small?
Page 44, The Teeny Tiny Guest
What can I do on page 49?
Draw This: Patterns
Which story sounds like the most fun to read? What page is it on?
Slide 7: Glossary (03)
Teacher: The glossary is like a personal dictionary for the text. It defines important words and is found at the end of the text. Does your text have a glossary?
Slide 8: Index (04)
Teacher: The index can also be found at the end of a text and has a list of words like the glossary—but what do you notice that is different from the glossary?
If students are confused by the difference between the glossary and the index, have students work in groups of two, and have one find the glossary in their text and the other find the index in their text. (If they can’t find the glossary or the index, have them check the table of contents!) Have them compare the two side by side. If they read a little, they should discover that while the glossary defines, the index finds.
Teacher: How could the index be useful in a text?
This question can be especially useful if you are preparing students to write a report. If they want to do a report on frogs, they can look for words that have to do with frogs in the index, such as frog, amphibian, tadpole, etc.
Slide 9: Sidebars & Text Boxes (05)
Teacher: Sidebars and text boxes are used to give information beyond the main text. It is usually differentiated from the rest of the text by use of a colored shape or frame with a heading—why isn’t it a title? Take a look at the three magazine article examples from Quatro, Aquila, and Brainspace. Which ones have sidebars and which ones have text boxes? Do your texts have these anywhere?
Please note that the “Vital Statistics” text box on the Quatro example (“Bitis Gabonica: Gaboon Viper”) could be considered just a map with data points, which is another text feature (and appears again on slide 12), but could also be a text box with data information and a map.
Slide 10: Visual Information: Charts & Graphs (06)
Teacher: Sometimes a graphic designer will use different types of visual information to help readers see the information they are reading about. Graphs and charts are a great way to show data and how it relates together, like how pollution is increasing or decreasing in a specific area, or how many monarchs are migrating each year. Can you find a graph or chart in your text?
Slide 11: Diagrams (07)
Teacher: Sometimes the best way to show information quickly is with a diagram. A diagram is often a picture or illustration of something that is labeled. This slide shows a funny pool-bus with all its parts, like a bird watching roof or crabby windshield wipers—so a diagram can be of almost anything with all the parts labeled! Do any of you have a diagram in your text? What is it of?
Slide 12: Captions & Images (08)
Teacher: They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so why not use them? This article (indicate article pictured on slide) from Muse uses photos and old paintings to talk about a famous art forger! Captions are the words on the photos or images that help us understand what is going on in the image. Do your texts have images and captions?
Slide 13: Maps (09)
Teacher: How many of you have used a map before? Maps can be a great tool to help readers know a traveled path, where something is located, or the distance between places. Like most of the text features we’ve talked about, this is an option that a graphic designer can use to get readers more involved with what they are reading. How many of you have maps in your texts?
Slide 14: Timeline (10)
Teacher: How many of you have seen a timeline before? How is this different from a diagram? Like a map, it can show you distance, but instead of miles between places it is distance of time between events. How many of you have a timeline in your text?
Slide 15: Key Words (11)
Teacher: Think back to titles and subtitles again: what makes a title stand out? (Answers like size, color, font, and bold are all great) Graphic designers often use these tricks to help certain words, or keywords, stand out: (feel free to draw examples on the board to show examples of these font variations) bold, italics, and/or color. Can you find the keywords in this Aquila Magazine article?
Slide 16: Review First Article
Teacher: Remember this article? Now we are going to find all the text features that the graphic designer used to help readers better understand the information: what text features can you find?
Students should mention:
Title (Sign of the Times)
Heading (The Mona Lisa; The Last Supper)
Text box (But the real genius of this picture is...; There’s no two ways about it...)
Side bar (Does Leonardo da Vinci’s work include...)
Illustrations/images
Slide 17: Review New Article
This can be done as a class or in partnerships. Have students look at this new article and find all the text features:
Title (Tardigrades)
Subtitle (The Ultimate Survivors)
Headings (Micro Animals; Suspended Animation; Microscopic Marvels
Diagrams
Illustrations/photo
Day 2: Informational Poster
Choose a topic that the students are currently learning about. Talk to the students about how they are going to make a poster using text features to teach other people about that topic. This topic can be from any part of the curriculum. The students will be "graphic designers" that use text features and art principles to teach and share information about the topic.
For more information about art elements and principles, see the BYU ARTS Partnership advancing arts leadership website.
Help the students write a title or heading at the top of their poster. Have them decorate the heading and teach them what a heading is for.
Teacher: How do we want our title to look? Why is that important? What size should our title be? How can we decorate our title?
Have them glue a little "heading” label next to their heading explaining the importance of a heading and why it has bold print, large letters, or is underlined. Teach students how color and shading can make different parts of the poster stand out and grab the viewer’s attention. This is also a good time to introduce the use of fonts and size of letters to create emphasis.
Continue working through the poster step by step with the students. Lead the students through; drawing the necessary diagrams, labeling the pictures and titles, and adding bubbles as appropriate. Emphasize how subheadings, captions, bold print, diagrams, indexes and a glossary help the reader access information in the text.
Decorate the poster with watercolor pencil, markers and/or gel pens to make it fun and give the children a chance to have artistic expression. Anything can be added to the poster to make it more fun for the children. Students could make little props from cardboard or clay and glue them on the poster. Allow students to express themselves.
Sharing and Review
Have each student share their poster with a partner. Instruct them to share with each other the different text features they illustrated. Gather the students and lead a review discussion.
Teacher: How do text features help us learn? How do graphic designs teach us things and help us remember them? Do you think creating pages like this can help you learn about things that are interesting to you?
Extensions
Children can complete one poster as a class and then continue with an independent research project creating additional posters focusing on different topics.
Practice identifying text features in textbooks as children read.
Replay the "Find the Text Feature Game" by having students find different text features within a textbook.
Assessment
Give children a post-test to determine basic vocabulary progress. The level of application of text features can be measured by standardized testing.
Learning Objectives
Use text features such as headings, subheadings, captions, diagrams and a glossary to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently.
Generate artistic work by conceptualizing, organizing, and completing artistic ideas.
Relate artistic skills, ideas, and work with personal meaning and external context.
Utah State Board of Education Standards
Grade 2 English Language Arts
Standard 2.R.12: Demonstrate understanding of story elements and/or topics by applying information gained from illustrations or text features.
Grade 2 Visual Arts
CREATE (2.V.CR.): Students will generate artistic work by conceptualizing, organizing, and completing their artistic ideas. They will refine original work through persistence, reflection and evaluation (Standards 2.V.CR.1–5).
CONNECT (2.V.CO.): Students will relate artistic skills, ideas, and work with personal meaning and external context (Standards 2.V.CO.1–2).
Library Media
Strand 2: Meaning of text through format and text features
Standard 2: Read, view and listen for information presented in a variety of formats (e.g., textual, visual, media).
Strand 8: Organizing, synthesizing, and presenting information
Standard 1: Organize information from multiple sources.
Organize, evaluate, and synthesize selected information to support conclusions.
Select format of the learning product for the designated audience and use technology or other tools to integrate, organize, and present information from multiple sources.
Follow ethical and legal guidelines in using and citing information to avoid plagiarism and copyright violations.
Apply evaluation criteria to create, revise, and finalize the learning product.
Collaborate with others to exchange ideas, make decisions, create products, and peer edit as appropriate.
Standard 2: Present a learning product using a variety of presentation techniques (e.g., writing, speaking, media) to communicate new understandings.
Equipment and Materials Needed
Additional Resources
East Elementary Art Blog
This is a short video illustrating how we used this lesson in teaching text features.
Image References
Images 2-6: Science: Diamond Edition for Second Grade by Scott Foresman