Informative & Explanatory Writing · Grade 6 English

Informative & Explanatory Writing

Learning goals

• I can introduce a topic clearly and keep my whole piece focused on it.
• I can develop a topic with facts, definitions, and examples organized into paragraphs.
• I can use transitions and a concluding statement to tie an informative piece together.

Readings for this unit

• How a Claim Earns Support
• The Shared Shelf
• Should Lunch Include a Reading Corner?
• Following the Water — Complete Explanatory Model
• Seed-Swap Trial — Complete Transfer Source Packet

Not every piece of writing is trying to win you over to a side. Informative/explanatory writing has a calmer goal: to take a topic and make it clear. Think of a how-to guide, a museum sign, or a science article about how thunderstorms form — the writer isn't trying to change your mind, just to hand you real understanding. Because you're explaining rather than arguing, your job is to be accurate, organized, and fair, and to let solid information do the work. A reader should finish your piece thinking 'now I get it,' not 'now I agree with you.'

Every strong informative piece starts by introducing the topic clearly, so the reader knows from the very first lines what the whole thing is about. 'This article explains the three main jobs the heart does' tells your reader exactly where you're headed, like a sign at the start of a trail. That opening also keeps *you* focused: once you've promised to explain those three jobs, every paragraph has a clear reason to exist. A fuzzy opening — 'The heart is a thing in your body' — leaves both you and your reader wandering, unsure what the piece is really trying to teach.

Inside the piece, information needs a shape. Depending on your topic, you might sort it into categories, walk through steps in sequence, or explain causes and effects — the same structures you learned to spot when reading nonfiction now become tools you use when writing it. Each paragraph should open with a topic sentence naming its own little focus, then deliver elaboration: the facts, definitions, and examples that develop the point. Elaboration is where the real teaching happens. A paragraph that says 'rainforests are important' and stops has handed the reader a label; adding that a single rainforest can shelter more kinds of trees than an entire continent is what makes the point actually land.

Two smaller tools hold the whole thing together. Transitions — words like 'for example,' 'in addition,' 'however,' and 'as a result' — act like road signs, guiding the reader from one idea to the next so the piece feels connected instead of like a heap of separate facts. And at the end, a concluding statement ties the main points together and leaves the reader with a clear takeaway, rather than stopping cold the second you run out of facts. A good ending doesn't add brand-new information; it reminds the reader what all those paragraphs added up to.

The trap to watch for is letting your own opinion slip in. The moment you write that volcanoes are 'the coolest thing on Earth,' you've stopped informing and started arguing. Keep the focus on explaining clearly and completely, and trust your reader to react on their own. Master this, and you own the backbone of almost every explaining task there is — the report, the how-to, the study guide, the clear set of directions. It's the kind of writing people rely on precisely *because* it isn't trying to twist their arm, just to help them understand.

Worked examples

Avoid these mistakes

• Treating an illustrative teaching case as an authentic measured or historical record.
• Giving a conclusion without explaining its evidence.
• Widening a claim beyond the place, period or text actually examined.

Words to know

informative/explanatory writing

Writing whose purpose is to explain a topic clearly and fairly, not to argue a side or tell a story.

topic sentence

The sentence, usually at the start of a paragraph, that tells the reader what that paragraph will explain.

elaboration

The facts, definitions, and examples a writer adds to develop a point so the reader truly understands it.

transition

A word or phrase such as 'for example,' 'in addition,' or 'as a result' that connects one idea to the next.

concluding statement

A closing sentence or two that wraps up an informative piece by pulling its main points together.

The 'so what' test: does your topic sentence earn a whole paragraph?

A topic sentence can be accurate and still be too weak to build a paragraph on, if it doesn't clear the 'so what' bar. 'This paragraph is about dolphins' isn't a topic sentence — it's a label. 'Dolphins use a kind of sound called echolocation to "see" their surroundings in dark or murky water' clears the bar, because it names a specific, developable idea the rest of the paragraph can explain. Before committing to a topic sentence, ask: if a reader only read this one sentence, would they know exactly what the paragraph is about to teach them? If the answer is 'sort of,' the sentence usually needs to get more specific before you start piling on details, because a vague topic sentence tends to produce a vague, wandering paragraph.

Worked mini-analysis: elaboration that develops versus elaboration that just repeats

Compare two versions of the same paragraph. Version 1: 'Owls are excellent night hunters. They are really good at hunting at night and can catch prey in the dark very well.' Version 2: 'Owls are excellent night hunters. Their enormous eyes gather far more light than a human's, and their ears are set at slightly different heights, letting them pinpoint the exact spot of a rustling mouse in total darkness from the tiny difference in when each ear hears it.' Version 1's second sentence just restates the topic sentence with new adjectives — zero new information. Version 2 adds specific mechanisms (light-gathering eyes, offset ears) that genuinely deepen understanding. Real elaboration always adds information the topic sentence didn't already contain; if you can delete a 'detail' sentence without losing any actual facts, it was repetition, not elaboration.

Common mistake: organizing by the order you found things

A frequent first-draft problem is arranging an informative piece in the order you happened to discover the facts while researching, rather than in a deliberate structure that serves the reader. This often produces paragraphs that lurch between unrelated ideas simply because that's the order they turned up in your notes. The fix is to sort your notes into groups before drafting and ask which nonfiction structure actually fits your topic: a piece about how a law gets passed probably wants sequence; a piece about why coral reefs are dying probably wants cause-and-effect; a piece about two kinds of telescopes probably wants compare-and-contrast. Choosing the structure on purpose, instead of letting your research notes choose it for you, is one of the biggest jumps in quality between a first and second draft.

Precision beats fancy: choosing the clearest word

Informative writing rewards precise words over merely impressive-sounding ones. A student trying to sound smart might write 'the aquatic organisms utilize their respiratory structures to extract dissolved oxygen,' when 'fish use their gills to take oxygen out of the water' is clearer, just as accurate, and far easier to actually learn from. The goal of informative writing is transferring understanding, not showing off vocabulary — so every long or technical word should earn its place by adding real precision (a term with no simpler equivalent), not just formality. A good habit is to reread your draft and ask, for each fancy word, 'is there a plainer word that means exactly this?' If there is, the plainer word almost always serves the reader better.

In the real world

Clear informative writing is exactly what you need for a science report, a how-to guide, a set of directions for a group project, or even a helpful review that explains — not just rates — why something is worth knowing about.

Exit check

Write a topic sentence and one elaborating detail for a body paragraph about how honeybees make honey, in a report whose topic is introduced as 'Honeybees turn flower nectar into honey through a series of steps.' Give one detail and one limit, without looking at the model.