As we continue to learn about writing genres, our most recent focus was explanation writing. The purpose of explanation writing is to explain the processes involved in something, or to explain how something works. Explanations answer questions that usually start with “how” or “why”. The structure of an explanation is very important. It has a logical sequence, uses a cause/effect relationship and is written in order. Explanations are written in the present tense and verbs are usually in the third person. An explanation is structured with an introduction, series of explanatory statements and conclusion to sum up.
Having read lots of explanations and written some explanations together, everyone then chose their own “how” or “why” questions to answer. We had a great selection of questions… This is just a selection:
- Why do assassins assassinate?
- Why do children have to go to school?
- Why do we borrow books from the library?
- Why are fizzy drinks bad for your health?
- Why do houses have windows?
- How do we think and remember?
- Why do we wash our hands?
- Why have some animals become extinct?