Writing Prompts for Analyzing Nonfiction

Below, we provide a number of writing prompts that teachers can use to help students analyze nonfiction texts in remote classrooms. Although these writing prompts were written with a few common nonfiction genres in mind, they can be easily adapted to work for other nonfiction genres (or even, with a little more work, fiction genres).

General Analysis Prompts for Nonfiction Writing

• Purpose
  • What is the purpose of the text?
  • What kind of text is this? Is this appropriate for the writer’s purpose?
• Organization
  • What structure does the text broadly follow?
  • How is the text laid out/organized?
  • Is the overall structural organization appropriate to the text type?
  • In your opinion, are any sections that might improve the text missing?
• Connectives/Transitions
  
  • Does the "flow" or progression of ideas in this text seem smooth and logical?
  • Can you identify any clear instances of transitional or connective elements in the text?
  • Is there an appropriate variety of these transtitional/connective elements?
• Language
  • What other interesting or unusual language features do you see in the text?
  • In your opinion, does the text demonstrate a varied vocabulary, or is it too dry and repetitive?
• What is your overall impression of the text? Why?

Narrative Nonfiction Writing

• What is the story about? What is the main topic of the text?
• Who is the main character? Who are the other important characters in the story?
• Where does this story take place? How does the place influence the storyline or sequence of events?
• Are there any conflicts/problems in the story?
• How does the conflict progress? Do things get worse or better?
• How does the conflict get resolved?
• What are the most emotionally-charged parts of the story?
• How would you have reacted differently if you were the main character?
• Do you remember any similar series of events you experienced?
• What was the most memorable part of your own experience?

Informational Reports

• What is the main topic of this report?
• Is the overall purpose of the report clear? What would the author like us to do with this information?
• How does the author start and end this report?
• How efficiently did this report convey information to the reader?
• What makes this report interesting/uninteresting?
• What might the author have done differently to convey information more clearly/interestingly?
• What were you surprised to learn about the topic?
• What other topics would this type of informational report be good for describing?
• What makes this type of writing different from narrative writing?

Argumentative Writing

• What is the author's main argument?
• What would the author like us to do, if anything?
• How effective was the argument, from your point of view?
• Do you have any prior beliefs or opinions that might affect how persuasive you perceived the argument to be? What about other readers who are likely to read this piece?
• What would be some other good topics for this type of argumentative writing?
• What were the primary sources to support the author’s argument?
• What makes this type of writing different from an informational report or a narrative?

The table below provides a summary of the features common to a few important nonfiction genres. You may want to consult it as you draft your own writing prompts.

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