Type Text

Type Text

1. Narrative

   • Adventure
     • Purpose: To entertain.
       • Typically a recount or retelling of a series of exciting events leading to a high impact resolution. The most common structure is a chronological narrative.
   • Mystery
     • Purpose:To intrigue and entertain.
       • Structure is often chronological, even in a longer narrative, but complex structural techniques are sometimes used for effect.
   • Science Fiction
     • Purpose: To entertain and, sometimes, to speculate about the future.
       • Can use any of the varied structures typical of narrative. The setting is often a time in the future so may use structures that play with the time sequence, such as flashbacks and time travel.
   • Historical fiction
     • Purpose: To entertain and, sometimes, to inform.
       • The narrative is about something that has already happened in the past so a series of events is usually the underlying structure
   • Fairy tales
     • Purpose: Fairy tales were originally intended for adults and children. They were passed down orally to amuse and to convey cultural information that influences behaviour, such as where it is safe to travel and where it is dangerous to go. Fairy tales are found in most cultures and many derive from the oldest stories ever told. Some modern fairy tales could be included in the more recently categorised genre of ‘fantasy’.
       • Often the hero or heroine is searching for something (a home, love, acceptance, wealth, wisdom) and in many tales dreams are fulfilled with a little help from magic. ‘Fairy tale endings’ (where everything turns out for the best) are common but many fairy tales are darker and have a sad ending.
   • Fables
     • Purpose: A fable sets out to teach the reader or listener a lesson they should learn about life. The narrative drives towards the closing moral statement, the fable’s theme: the early bird gets the worm, where there’s a will there’s a way, work hard and always plan ahead for lean times, charity is a virtue. The clear presence of a moral distinguishes fables from other folk tales.
       • There is a shared understanding between storyteller and audience that the events told did not actually happen so fables do not need to convince and their structure is usually simple.
   • Traditional tales guidance
   • Contemporary fiction
     • Purpose: To entertain and, sometimes, to create empathy with familiar characters
       • This type of narrative includes school stories, things that happen in the home or in local settings that children either know themselves or recognise.
   • Fantasy
     • Purpose: To entertain and to fuel the imagination.
       • May simply be a basic chronological narrative set in a fantasy world but some fantasy narratives extend the ‘fantastic’ element to the structure as well.
   • Legends
     • Purpose: To provide information about the way particular people lived, and what they believed. Legends also help us to reflect on our own lives because they often deal with issues that are cross-cultural and relevant today.
       • Structure is usually chronological, with one episode told after another, for example as the phases of a journey or the stages of an ongoing battle.
   • Myths
     • Purpose: To provide a fictional explanation for natural phenomena. Many cultures use myths to explain the world and its mysteries by handing them down from one generation to the next. Myths can also pass on cultural, religious or spiritual beliefs and traditions.
       • Myths are often much longer texts than other traditional stories (apart from some legends) especially in their original form. They provide a very useful contrast with shorter forms of traditional narrative such as fables.
   • Dialogue, Play scripts, film narratives
     • Purpose: Although these forms of storytelling differ from narrative in that they are not necessarily ‘narrated’, they usually share the same purposes: to tell a story and to have a deliberate effect on the viewer/listener/reader. They include scripts for film/digital viewing or audio (e.g. digital audio recording or radio plays) and stories told using images and speech bubbles (such as comic strips) sometimes supplemented with an additional narrative element.
       • Structural conventions for scripting vary, particularly in their layout on the page or screen
   • Dilemma Stories
     • Purpose: To entertain and to explore issues or dilemmas.
       • The strength of the story often depends on a character facing a difficult (or seemingly impossible) dilemma, with a limited choice of actions.
   • Narrative is central to children’s learning. They use it as a tool to help them organise their ideas and to explore new ideas and experiences.
     • Purpose: The essential purpose of narrative is to tell a story, but the detailed purpose may vary according to genre.

2. Poetry

   • free verse
     • Structures: Free verse is not restricted by conventions of form or pattern and does not have to rhyme or maintain a consistent structure (such as line-length) throughout.
       • Free verse is so-called because it does not have to follow particular forms
   • visual poems
     • Visual poems are based (often exclusively) on visual appearance and/or sound. The words are presented to create a particular shape, to create an image or to convey a visual message. Letter shapes may be exaggerated in the design. Meaning may be literal or rely on metaphor.
       • calligrams and shape poems ,concrete poetry
   • structure poems
     • Structured poems follow a consistent framework based on features such as line length, syllable count, rhyme pattern, rhythm, metre or a combination of these. A poem’s structure (particularly rhythm and rhyme) generally influences the way it sounds when read aloud and helps to make it memorable. Poems with a clear, simple structure are often used as models or writing frames for children’s own writing. The structure of a poem sometimes helps to organise the content. For example, a longer narrative poem (such as a ballad) may be organised chronologically into verses or parts. An important line may be repeated as a chorus or refrain. The range of poetry structures presented as ICT texts is even wider and includes multimodal and/or interactive poems that contain hypertext, live links, moving images and sounds.
   • Poetry is a very wide-ranging type of text and has many purposes and forms. Often written or spoken for an intended reader, it may also be composed for a personal outcome because the concise and powerful nature of poetry conveys emotion particularly well. Like oral storytelling, poetry has strong social and historical links with cultures and communities.

3. Non-fiction

   • Discussion texts
     • Purpose: To present a reasoned and balanced overview of an issue or controversial topic. Usually aims to provide two or more different views on an issue, each with elaborations, evidence and/ or examples.
       • Discussion texts usually end with a summary and a statement of recommendation or conclusion. The summary may develop one particular viewpoint using reasoned judgements based on the evidence provided.
   • Explanatory text
     • Discussion texts usually end with a summary and a statement of recommendation or conclusion. The summary may develop one particular viewpoint using reasoned judgements based on the evidence provided.
       • The steps or phases in a process are explained logically, in order. (When the nights get longer ... because the temperature begins to drop ... so the hedgehog looks for a safe place to hide.)
   • Instructional
     • Purpose: To ensure something is done effectively and/or correctly with a successful outcome for the participant(s
       • Provide simple, clear instructions. If a process is to be undertaken, keep to the order in which the steps need to be followed to achieve the stated goal.
   • Persuation textx
     • Purpose: To argue a case from a particular point of view and to encourage the reader/listener towards the same way of seeing things.
       • Strategically organised information presents and then elaborates on the desired viewpoint. (Vote for me because I am very experienced. I have been a school councillor three times and I have ...)
   • Non-Chronological reports
     • Purpose: To provide detailed information about the way things are or were. To help readers/listeners understand what is being described by organising or categorising information.
       • In the absence of a temporal (chronological) structure where events happen in a particular order, non-chronological reports usually have a logical structure. They tend to group information, often moving from general to more specific detail and examples or elaborations.
   • Recounts
     • Purpose: The primary purpose of recounts is to retell events. Their most common intentions are to inform and/or entertain.
       • Structure sometimes reorganises the chronology of events using techniques such as flashbacks, moving the focus backwards and forwards in time, but these strategies are more often used in fiction recounts.
   • wide ranging and occur in many forms in everyday life. The following tables and supporting guidance select the most common forms of non-fiction. Many non-fiction texts in real life blur the boundaries between text types and their features

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