Summary
Are you trying to tell a story, share facts, or persuade? You’ll be picking among the three main types of writing: narrative, informational, and opinion. Narrative writing tells a story or shares an experience. It includes novels, plays, and memoirs, and features story elements such as characters, setting, plot, and conflict. Vivid details help bring the story to life. Explanatory, or informational, writing delivers information. Recipes, instruction manuals, and encyclopedia articles all qualify. Opinion writing, or argumentation, tries to convince readers of a certain point of view. The stronger its reasoning and evidence, the more persuasive the writing. This description is an example of informational writing, but remember, not all writing falls neatly into one of these categories!
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
A few questions to talk through after watching Types of Writing:
- What is one new thing you learned about types of writing?
- Can you explain it to a partner in your own words?
- Where might you see this in the real world?
- What is one question you still have?
Quick work-a-long
Try it:
- Write one sentence explaining types of writing.
- Draw or give one example of your own.