Non-Literary Texts: Reading and Writing

• The presentation is about specialized reading and writing of non-literary texts.
• The teacher for this presentation is Ayline Lara Sepúlveda.
• The objective is to understand types of text and develop information processing skills.
• The presentation will cover the objective, activation of prior knowledge, text types concepts, and metacognition.

Non-Literary Texts

• Non-literary texts aim to inform, explain, instruct, or persuade about a topic.
• Key aspects include clear, precise, and objective language.
• They usually follow a logical structure to aid understanding.

Elements Characterizing Non-Literary Texts

• Coherence refers to the logical and structural relationship between ideas.
• A text is coherent when ideas are logically organized and make global sense.
• Maintaining a central idea is crucial for coherence.
• Using adequate connectors is key.
• Cohesion involves linguistic mechanisms connecting words, sentences, and paragraphs.
• Textual connectors include "for example", "however", "therefore", and "also".
• Pronoun references involve using "he", "she", "this", "that", etc.
• Ellipsis is the omission of words understood from context.
• Lexical substitution involves using synonyms or related terms to avoid repetition.
• The social character of a text relates to its function in communication and interaction.
• This occurs within a specific context.
• Texts are social as they emerge from a community, meet specific needs, and follow shared conventions.
• Key aspects of social character include communicative purpose, seeking to inform, persuade, entertain, or instruct in a given social context.
• Interaction between sender and receiver influences interpretation based on context and shared knowledge.
• Linguistic and cultural conventions involve each type of text following established norms.
• These norms are dependent on the community in which it circulates.
• Legal contracts use technical and formal language.
• Circulation and context mean a text's meaning depends on where and how it is used.
• News has a place in journalism, and recipes in the culinary field.

Perspectives on Texts

• Texts can be analyzed through diverse viewpoints.
• The points rely on their relationship to the reading process, method of presentation, and communicative purpose.
• The process view concerns how a reader understands a text, drawing on experiences, knowledge, and the reader's intention.
• Modality concerns the form texts take, such as oral, written, or multimodal.
• Point of view of purpose is how a text is intended to affect the reader.
• The purpose can be informative, argumentative, instructive, recreational, expository, multimodal, persuasive, aesthetic, normative, or prescriptive.

Text Types

• There are continuous, discontinuous, and mixed texts.
• They are classified to understand how information is organized in each type.
• This aids deeper analysis and comprehension.

Continuous Texts

• Continuous texts include opinions, stories, essays, news, and novels.
• These texts are arranged in sentences and paragraphs.
• The structure of these texts is linear and fluid.

Discontinuous Texts

• Discontinuous texts use graphic and visual elements to convey information structurally, like charts, forms, maps, and diagrams.
• This means it is read in a non-linear way.

Mixed Texts

• Mixed texts integrate paragraphs with graphics, tables, or images.
• Examples include illustrated encyclopedias, image-rich reports, and technical manuals with diagrams.

Types of Non-Literary Texts

Informative Texts

• These texts aim to convey specific factual information with objectivity.
• Their purpose is to inform, explain, or describe facts, etc.
• This is done without persuasion or emotional response.
• Examples in this text type; news, articles, reports, manuals.
• Use objective language for clarity and precision.
• Use resources like definitions, data, examples, graphs, comparisons, and illustrations.

Argumentative (Persuasive) Texts

• Argumentative or Persuasive texts defend a position on a controversial topic.
• These seek to persuade the reader through reasoning, evidence, and arguments.
• They interpret facts and justify their thesis from the provided information.
• These texts include a clear thesis or position, as well as; arguments, evidence, refutation and logical structure.
• Examples of this include; academic texts and political speech.

Expository Texts

• The main intention is to explain, clarify, or inform about a subject in a detailed manner.
• Expository texts offer concise and understandable information without influencing reader’s opinion.
• The language should be objective with precise words but include examples, definitions, and other references.
• Information is clearly organized in a formal tone; manuals and journal articles are an example of this type of text.

Digital Texts

• Digital texts are created, shared, and used on digital devices, like computers.
• They have interactivity, hypertext, and capabilities to integrate diverse formats.
• Hypertextuality offers external/hyper links to other sources.
• An example of digital texts are; blogs, websites, e-books and online forums.

Multimodal Texts

• Multimodal use multiple communication formats to convey a singular message.
• These include text, graphics, and sound, though not purely digital.
• Some examples may include; info-graphics, comic and graphic novels and audio-visual advertisements.

Normative Texts

• Normative texts establish laws, regulations or safety guidelines to regulate specific behaviors and situations.
• These often use legal language and can be mandatory or advisory.
• Examples of these include penal codes and safety procedures.

Prescriptive Texts

• Prescriptive texts give detailed instruction on how to complete a task and process.
• They are structured by sequential steps to produce the best understanding.
• This can include helpful visuals or instructions, recipes are an example.

Iconic Messages

• This is the representation of conveying ideas through imagery.
• Elements of this include images, shapes, and colors.
• Digital text utilizes hyperlinks and interactive buttons.
• Informative and expository use graphs and diagrams.
• Persuasive and argumentative use caricatures linked to data.
• Normative texts use flowcharts to illustrate progression.

Note Taking and Synthesis

• Important to consider what the main argument of a passage is.
• What steps are needed to build a synopsis.
• It is important to be able to read actively and comprehend any type of information.
• Note taking is an important function for developing a level of text awareness.

Format for Completing a Summary

• You should contextualize to understand what you are summarizing
• Note what source the content came from for reference
• List out the main points of the summary
• What were the most important and relevant quotes and words
• List our questions about the source
• Synthesize the most important points
• Note what the most common or important words were.
• Value judgements on the context.