The Common Core State Standards (hereafter CCSS) use Three Text Types:
1. Informational/Explanatory Writing (Expository)
2. Narrative Writing
3. Argument
Did you know that writers can blend together these three text types to create original and effective writing? The CCSS’s “Definitions of the Standards’ Three Text Types” states the following: “Skilled writers many times use a blend of these three text types to accomplish their purposes.”
Why must students understand this? There are two reasons: 1) Students read! and 2) Students write! Since blended text is commonplace in what students read, it cannot be ignored. Clearly, what we teach students about writing should match what they see when they read. Looked at another way, real writers blend text, and our goal is to develop real writers.
Please note that the CCSS uses the term blended text, but the concept also goes by the term mixed form, and both are quite similar in theory to multi-genre or mixed-genre. I will be using the term blended text. Additionally, although I am primarily interested in blended text as relates to teaching writing, I address this topic with students when reading with them across the curriculum. Across the curriculum, we analyze texts and discover how writer really write. It’s not difficult to find examples of blended text.
Blended Text vs. Overlapping Classification Systems
When the CCSS talks about blended text, they are talking about blending modes of discourse or blending genres. They are not talking about the fact that a narrative can be informational, as with a newspaper article, as opposed to how a narrative can be a fictional narrative story intended to entertain, as with a novel. That issue has more to do with the many classification systems found in the world of writing. Making this matter even more confusing is the fact that many writing classification systems overlap with other classification systems, and most classification systems are composed of other classification systems.
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In writing, the classification systems are endless and imperfect. It’s exhausting to sort through and evaluate the multitude of writing classification systems that theorists have developed over the millennia. It’s even more exhausting to figure out how they all connect and what “important truth” is found inside each of these classification systems. These conceptual, abstract systems are a far cry from the objective, verifiable classification systems found in science and math.
The 4×4 Model for Understanding Blended Text ™ by Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay
Although academics and theorists have touched on blended text for hundreds of years, this 4×4 Model for Understanding Blended Text ™ is the first model that addresses the topic concretely in a way that makes sense to students.
Students need to understand blended text as both readers and writers. To understand blended text, students must understand two models:
1. The Four Main Genres: 1) Expository, 2) Narrative, 3) Descriptive, and 4) Argument
2. The Four Levels of Text: 1) Whole Composition, 2) Paragraph, 3) Chunk, and 4) Sentence
Of course, we could make this model more complicated by adding more genres and more levels of text. But let’s not. Let’s keep things simple.
The Four Main Genres
In his 1866 book, English Composition and Rhetoric, Alexander Bain introduced the Four Modes of Discourse model, which has remained the foundation of writing instruction ever since. The CCSS Three Text Types are the same Four Modes of Discourse, but with descriptive writing playing a smaller role.
Please Note: I call Bain’s Four Modes of Discourse the Four Main Genres. It just makes more sense to people.
Understanding blended text requires that we understand each of the Four Main Genres, along with how they contribute to creating a whole composition. To be clear, most whole compositions are primarily one main genre. However, the longer the piece of writing is, the more likely that the writer will blend in other main genres.
Let’s take a closer look at our Four Main Genres:
1. Expository: We inform and explain to help others understand things in the same way that we do. We teach them. (Teach)
2. Narrative: We tell what happened. (Tell)
3. Descriptive: We use words to create mental images of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and feelings in the minds of our readers. We use words to make places, things, activities, and people seem real and vivid in the minds of our readers. (Describe)
4. Argument: We make claims, give reasons, and provide evidence to prove our claims. (Prove)
In its simplest form, writing comes down to just four verbs or goals: 1) Teach, 2) Tell What Happened, 3) Describe, and 4) Prove. Every sentence we write achieves one of these four goals. Truthfully, many sentences will contribute to achieving several of these goals or possibly all of these goals. But let’s keep things simple. In short, one Main Genre should jump out as being the primary Main Genre.
The Four Levels of Text
Have you taught your students how to create an outline? If you have, then you have probably used the term LEVELS. We speak of outlines as having levels, and we teach students that outlines have levels: e.g., a one-level outline, a two-level outline, a three-level outline, etc.
Outlines represent the levels of text or ideas in a piece of writing. For this reason, every piece of writing has a hidden outline inside of it, and that outline is composed of levels. When teachers teach students about levels, they are teaching students about outlines. That’s win-win!
Once again, let’s keep things simple. Although we could add in more levels of text, we will use just four. In teaching students to write, these are The Four Important Levels of Text:
Level 1: Whole Composition
Level 2: Paragraph
Level 3: Chunk
Level 4: Sentence
If you wish to learn more about hierarchical levels in writing, you may want to read The Four Levels of Text.
Blended Text: See It and Believe It
Once again, I introduce my students to blended text because it exists in real writing. And we learn about it while we are reading real writing. It’s not difficult to find. At the sentence level, blended text exists in almost every single piece of writing. We just need to take a moment to show our students this blended text. In the end, this saves us time, as we don’t have to teach so many inauthentic writing lessons.
Here are a few examples that illustrate what teachers should look for in their texts:
1. The class is reading an expository chapter on the Plains Indians, and we come across a nice description of what they wore.
2. The class is reading a narrative story, and two characters disagree. Each character presents a compelling argument full of claims, reasons, support, and evidence.
3. The class is reading a descriptive essay about Niagara Falls. We see that the writer provides background information (expository text) about the falls at the beginning of the text. Later, the writer narrates (narrative) the journey of an old log traveling downstream and going over the falls. The writer ends with a two-sentence argument in favor of cherishing nature.
Hopefully, Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay’s 4×4 Model ™ (Four Genres x Four Levels) will remind you to take a closer look at the text you are reading and see the truth. Let’s teach our students the truth about writing while we are reading.
Read Like a Writer and Write Like a Reader and a Writer
Students must read and write to become effective writers. This is no secret. You may want to read my entire Nine-Sentence Blueprint for Teaching Writing. Here are the first two sentences I added to my blueprint:
Nobody but a reader ever became a writer.
– Richard Peck – 2001 Newberry Award Winner
You can only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.
– Doris Lessing – 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature Winner
Without a doubt, a reading-writing connection exists. Teachers and theorists have created many words over the years to help us connect reading and writing: e.g., The Reading-Writing Connection, Read Like a Writer, Close Reading, and Writing from Sources. Recently, a new saying has entered the reading-writing lexicon. David Coleman, president of the College Board and one of the lead architects of the CCSS has put it this way: “Read like a detective. Write like an investigative reporter.”
Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay’s 4×4 Model ™ (Four Genres x Four Levels) provides a fantastic foundation for seeing what is going on in a piece of writing. The 4×4 Model is simple, universal, and comprehensive in scope. If one is willing to Read Closely and analyze a piece of writing down at the sentence level, it becomes clear that most writing is blended text.
Opening Our Eyes to Genre and Blended Text
There is nothing new in the CCSS Three Text Types or what the CCSS says about blended text. As the following quotes demonstrate, the CCSS simply reflects what people have been saying for centuries:
» Brooks (1905): Such a description is in effect an enlarged definition, and is exposition…
» Brooks (1905): Such general narration is really exposition.
» Scott and Denny (1909): Both description and narrative may be used for expository purposes.
» Scott and Denny (1909): Between exposition and argument it is often hard to distinguish…
» Tanner (1917): Narration and description, frequently argument, contribute a considerable share to the essay.
My goal here is not to make things complicated for students, but instead, to open up teachers’ eyes so that they see what is right in front of them. Once again, most whole compositions are PRIMARILY one main genre. In other words, if we step back and look at a whole composition, we should be able to classify the whole thing as being PRIMARILY expository, narrative, descriptive, or argument.
But after we do that, we may want to take a closer look and see what that whole composition is composed of. How does the writer make points? Explain things? Prove things? Entertain the reader? Create interest? Make confusing concepts clear?
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Understanding the 4×4 Model (Four Genres x Four Levels) will help readers examine and understand what is going on in a piece of writing. This lets readers analyze exemplars and mentor texts, and in the process, learn from them.
Blended Text and Complicated Genres: Years 1905 to the CCSS
Genre is one of the most interesting and important topics in writing. The truth about genre is that writers do whatever they need to do to create effective writing. As writing teachers, we have two approaches for teaching writing: 1) concrete strategies, and 2) natural strategies. I use both—because I want to teach my students the truth about writing in a way that makes sense to my students.
Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is a concrete writing curriculum that makes sense to students. It gets results fast and leaves students saying, “I finally get it! I can even read what I was writing before!” But equally important, it creates a foundation and framework that teachers can build on all year long. It creates the foundation and framework that lets teachers teach natural strategies such as blended text by analyzing the texts that are right in front of them. Truthfully, teaching writing is relatively easy once you get your students writing in a way that makes sense to them.
Now let’s see what composition scholars have been saying about genre from 1905 right up until the Common Core. Please keep this mind: A writer’s goal is never to blend text or to avoid blending text. A writer’s goal is always to communicate effectively. We want our student writers to be able to answer questions like these: How do writers make points? Explain things? Prove things? Entertain their readers? Make confusing concepts clear?
YEAR: 1905 – Composition-Rhetoric by Stratton D. Brooks
General Description: If an object is described more for the purpose of giving a clear conception of the class of which it is a type than for the purpose of picturing the object described, we have a general description. Such a description is in effect an enlarged definition, and is exposition rather than description. It is sometimes called scientific description because it is so commonly employed by writers of scientific books.
General Narration: Explanations of a process of manufacture, methods of playing a game, and the like, often take the form of generalized narration. Just as we gain a notion of the appearance of a sod house from a general description, so may we gain a notion of a series of events from a general narration. Such a narration will not tell what someone actually did, but will relate the things that are characteristic of the process or action under discussion whenever it happens. Such general narration is really exposition.
YEAR: 1909 – Paragraph Writing: A Rhetoric for Colleges by Fred Newton Scott and Joseph Villiers Denny
The four main types occur sometimes in the pure form, sometimes commingled. A composition which as a whole is narrative, may contain, and generally does contain, especially if it is long, a great deal of description, more or less exposition, and not infrequently passages of argument. Both description and narrative may be used for expository purposes, and argument, as in a lawyer’s plea for the conviction of a criminal, may be thrown into the form of a story. Between exposition and argument it is often hard to distinguish, for we may not be able to determine until the end of the composition is reached, whether the writer’s purpose was to bring about a change of opinion or merely to expound a principle, or set of facts, the truth of which is taken for granted. It may even happen that what is exposition for one reader is argument for another; Bryce’s American Commonwealth, for example, is for Americans an exposition of self-evident truths, but for many Englishmen it is a more or less convincing argument.
YEAR: 1917 – Essays and Essay-Writing by William M. Turner, M.A.
The essay, though essentially expository in nature, is rarely pure exposition. It usually includes a combination of exposition with one or more of the other forms of discourse. In such familiar essays… the narrative element may seem to predominate; but in essays of this kind it will usually be found that narration really contributes by way of illustration to the essay that is impliedly, at least, expository. Narration and description, frequently argument, contribute a considerable share to the essay.
YEAR: 2010 – The CCSS’s “Definitions of the Standards’ Three Text Types”
Skilled writers many times use a blend of these three text types to accomplish their purposes.
YEAR: 2010 – CCSS English Language Arts Standards » Writing » Grade 9-10
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.WHST.9-10.2 : Write informative/explanatory texts, including the narration of historical events, scientific procedures/ experiments, or technical processes.
YEAR: 2010 – CCSS Grades 6-12
Students’ narrative skills continue to grow in these grades. The Standards require that students be able to incorporate narrative elements effectively into arguments and informative/explanatory texts. In history/social studies, students must be able to incorporate narrative accounts into their analyses of individuals or events of historical import. In science and technical subjects, students must be able to write precise enough descriptions of the step-by-step procedures they use in their investigations or technical work that others can replicate them and (possibly) reach the same results.
YEAR: 2012 – CCSS Revised Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy, Grades 3–12
Informational/Explanatory Writing, Narrative Writing, Argument: These forms of writing are not strictly independent; for example, arguments and explanations often include narrative elements, and both informing and arguing rely on using information or evidence drawn from texts.
Let’s Take a Look at a Blended Text Outline
Writing begins with having something to say. We don’t plan to blend text, but we do plan our writing. We prewrite, we plan, and we organize. We also think about what we are trying to communicate and we make choices. Writers answer this question: What is the best way to communicate my message to my audience? Here is one possible answer to that question in outline form. This is just one possible way to communicate an emotionally powerful argument. This essay would most certainly be an example of blended text!
Ten Paragraph Argument-Persuasive Essay Outline
¶ P1 – Introduction
¶ P2 – Narrate a tear-jerking situation and events
¶ P3 – Inform using facts and statistics 1
¶ P4 – Inform using facts and statistics 2
¶ P5 – Narrate possible future 1 – a bad future
¶ P6 – Narrate possible future 2 – a good future if changes are made
¶ P7 – Compare and contrast the two possible futures
¶ P8 – Explain necessary steps to take 1 (How-to)
¶ P9 – Explain necessary steps to take 2 (How-to)
¶ P10 – Conclusion
Once again, such an essay can only be created when one fully understands the topic and the audience, along with truly having something to say.
You may also want to check out some blended text in action. The CCSS provide two examples of blended text. You can find them here:
- CCSS Appendix B – p. 132 – Author and Title: Dash, Joan. The Longitude Prize.
- CCSS Appendix C – p. 60 – Title: Fact vs. Fiction and All the Grey Space in Between.
But please keep in mind, if you open up a book of fiction or non-fiction literature and read closely, you will soon find your own examples of blended text. Oh, and by the way, if you teach elementary school writing or teach struggling middle school writers, be sure to check out Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay on the homepage!
