Why do we read informational texts and nonfiction? Why do we write informational texts? These questions are at the core of the English Language Arts classroom, and these questions give us–teachers and students–purpose.
We read to be informed, to be entertained, to be persuaded.
We commit to informational text writing to (as writers ourselves) inform, entertain, persuade. If we view the world through the lens that “everything’s an argument,” we see that most of what we encounter is there to achieve one (or more) of those purposes.
The advertisement that spams our computer screen? To persuade.
The informational text passages we read about decorating for the holidays? To inform.
The Onion article we read about teenage video game players? To entertain.
Of course, what’s above is simplified. An advertisement, for instance, can both entertain and persuade, as it might use humor to create appeals to pathos, which in turn, give the potential customer good feelings about a product, which in turn, perhaps gets them to click over to Amazon to buy the product (and, they hope, the feeling associated with it).
Regardless, across any of these texts, with whatever the purpose, there are common informational text elements at work, which we can use frameworks like SOAPSTone to help with informational text comprehension and informational text analysis.
SOAPSTone
SOAPSTone is an acronym that stands for Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and (get this) Tone.
This framework–one of the powerful informational text reading strategies–can help readers understand the rhetorical situation of informational text passages which will, in turn, lead to improved informational text comprehension and informational text analysis.
For instance, let’s say we give the students a famous informational text nonfiction like “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Without a framework to understand the who, the what, the where, the when, and the why of the text–students will have trouble with the why, like why does this writer make this rhetorical move?
If students don’t understand the relationship between the speaker and his/her/their audience, if they don’t understand the broader context of a text, if they don’t understand what the text’s about–then they can’t articulate how the writer’s choices inform, persuade, or entertain.
This is where SOAPSTone comes into play with informational texts.
Let’s apply this informational text reading strategy to “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:
- Subject (S):
- The subject of the letter is the Civil Rights Movement and the nonviolent protests led by Martin Luther King Jr.
- King responds to the criticism from fellow clergymen who questioned the timing and method of the protests.
- Occasion (O):
- The letter was written in April 1963 while King was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama.
- It was a response to a public statement by eight white clergymen who criticized the Birmingham protests as “unwise and untimely.”
- Audience (A):
- King’s primary audience is the group of clergymen who criticized the Civil Rights demonstrations.
- He also addresses a broader audience, including the American public, sympathetic individuals, and those who may be indifferent to the struggle for Civil Rights.
- Purpose (P):
- King aims to defend the strategy of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience used in the Birmingham protests.
- He seeks to address the concerns of the clergymen, explain the urgency of the civil rights movement, and inspire a moral response from the broader society.
- Speaker (S):
- The speaker is Martin Luther King Jr., a prominent leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
- King writes with authority and conviction, drawing on his role as a clergyman and a key figure in the fight against racial injustice.
- Tone:
- The tone is assertive, yet respectful. King acknowledges the concerns of the clergymen but is firm in defending the need for direct action.
- There’s a passionate and emotional tone as King appeals to justice, morality, and the shared humanity of all individuals.
Imagine using SOAPSTone as part of your classroom’s informational text activities and part of your informational text unit plan. Rather than asking students to read and analyze the text, you are, instead, having them engage in informational text analysis using informational text reading strategies, setting them up for greater informational text comprehension.
This informational text activity doesn’t just work with letters. It can work, too, with letters and essays, visual texts and written texts–really any kind of text that involves a speaker, an audience, and a message.
Below, then, are 31 informational texts, nonfiction you can draw from to use in the classroom. (The list is geared toward high school students, but you can always use excerpts rather than full texts with younger students or provide more scaffolding and pre-reading to make the informational texts more accessible to younger students in your informational texts unit plan.)
31 Informational Texts (with Some Commentary on Selected Titles)
- The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
This is a good text to pair with the study of Transcendentalism and the nonfiction texts of Thoreau and Emerson.
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
- Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell has also written short essays that have appeared in various publications, so you can pair texts easily here.
- Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
This is a true-crime classic. With the explosion of true crime documentaries on platforms like Netflix, this would be a good book to visit with your students as they could, for instance, compare the style and written and visual true-crime tales.
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
- Columbine by Dave Cullen
School shootings have become, unacceptably and tragically, the norm in the United States today. This book could pair with current events to help students process and reflect on the world now vs. the world then when the Columbine tragedy occurred.
- Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
- Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My sophomore students read this text and LOVE it. The narrative voice is humorous and engaging, so it’s not hard to motivate students to read and discuss. I suggest having students to listen to the audiobook while reading, too!
- War by Sebastian Junger
This and some other books on the list are Illinois Lincoln Books, which means they were voted on by high school students as some of the best books of the year.
- The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor by Ken Silverstein
- Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
- Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
This was also turned into a documentary film and a podcast series, so students, if they like what they see here, can continue to explore the subjects, themes, and arguments in other contexts.
- Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
- Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
- The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Many of the books on this list have been adapted to film, so you could pair the text with its film version to help with informational text comprehension and analysis.
- The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
- Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale and Stan Redding
- Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson
- The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Oftentimes a good window into informational nonfiction texts for students is asking them what they want to be when they grow up. If they have an answer or an idea, you can recommend a title based on their answer. For instance, this book would be a powerful read for a future healthcare hero.
- The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston
As you can see in the list of 31 informational texts above, there is no shortage of available nonfiction texts to engage your students in informational text analysis. The trick, as always, though, in any informational text unit plan, literature circle line-up, or independent reading list is finding the right book at the right time for the right students.
I hope that by sharing with you the list above and informational text reading strategies like SOAPSTone you have what you need to inform your students of the entertaining books out there, which might persuade them to put down their phones and crack open their books!
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