✅ Practical Text Analysis Tool: Academic Language Features in Informational Text
Adapted from WIDA 2020 Standards Framework
This tool helps teachers analyze the academic language demands of informational texts. It is organized by WIDA’s Dimensions of Academic Language—Discourse, Sentence, and Word/Phrase.
| Criteria | Details/Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| What is the overall structure of the text? | Description? Sequence? Cause & Effect? Comparison? Problem/Solution? Question/Answer? Are tables, diagrams, or timelines used? Are mixed structures present? |
|
| Headers and subheaders? | Do they reflect and support idea organization? | |
| Signal words or transitions? | (e.g., in contrast, for example, as a result) | |
| Consistent language? | (e.g., synonyms, pronouns) | |
| Paragraphs and section breaks? | Help organize meaning? | |
| Dense language? | e.g., The rapid erosion of coastal dunes by wind and water created a new shoreline. |
| Criteria | Details/Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sentence types? | Simple, Compound, Complex, Compound-complex | |
| Clauses to show relationships? | Although she knew the truth, she stayed silent. | |
| Conjunctions? | and, but, or, so; because, although, if, when | |
| Punctuation? | Ellipses, dashes, colons, quotation marks, semicolons | |
| Sentence variation? | Overly complex or overly simple? |
| Criteria | Details/Examples | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Technical/content-specific words? | (e.g., erosion, hypothesis, habitat) | |
| Repeated or emphasized terms? | e.g., "innovation" (repeated for emphasis) | |
| Cross-disciplinary terms? | (e.g., cycle, model, volume) | |
| Multiple meanings? | (e.g., field, light, crust) | |
| Morphologically complex? | displacement → dis- + place + -ment | |
| Cognates? | information → información, informacja, نيشَن | |
| Abstract nouns or academic verbs? | freedom, equality, justice analyze, explain, transform |
|
| Gradated terms? | cool, cold, chilly, frozen | |
| Phrasal verbs? | break down, take in, carry out |
