Form and Function in Introducing Narrative and Expository Texts: A Developmental Perspective

Abstract This article considers how children and young people conceptualize and construct different types of texts. The initial parts of narrative and expository texts written by grade-schoolers, adolescents, and adults were analyzed, on the assumption that the opening to a piece of discourse serves as a window on the text as a whole. Analysis was conducted on 3 dimensions: discourse functions—providing background in narratives and introducing the topic in expository texts; organizational pivot—temporality in narratives and generality in expository texts; and linguistic forms—verb tense and semantics in narratives and nominal structure and content in expository texts. The openings to narrative texts emerge as better constructed at an earlier age than in expository texts, but fully proficient openings are a late development in both cases. We attribute this to the fact that, for younger children, the spoken modality and narrative mode of discourse predominate; however, with age and greater literacy, expository discussion increasingly shapes the way people think and give written expression to their thoughts.