Part 3: Text Structure in an Informational Text

Which excerpt from the text signals the sequence of events?

"At the start of the reign the majority of productions are miracle plays . . ."

Which sentence most effectively helps readers envision a scene?

"If you are sitting in the gallery you will have a clear view of the stage as it projects out from the far side of the round enclosure."

What should a reader consider when tracing chronological text structure? Check all that apply.

1. The causal relationships between events 2. The responses and reactions to events 3. The factors that influence events

Which event happened second? These [the miracle plays] go out of favor when the privy council decrees that they are too close to Catholicism and should stop. Those at York cease in 1569. In Chester the citizens defy the privy council and continue performing their play about Noah's Flood well into the 1570s.

The plays being performed in York ceased.

Which sentence accurately describes the progression of events? In 1574 the city authorities are given powers to restrict playhouses, forcing the actors to find new premises in the suburbs. This becomes a golden opportunity for John Brayne and his brother-in-law, James Burbage, who in 1576 build a new theater, simply called The Theatre, at Shoreditch, just half a mile north of Bishopsgate.

Because city authorities restricted playhouses, new theaters were built outside city limits and grew to be successful.

How does the author effectively show the establishment of Elizabethan theaters? Eight years later Francis Langley erects the Swan on a site nearby; and in 1596 Richard Burbage builds the Blackfriars Theatre, an indoor venue, although it does not open its doors until 1599. Most important of all, Shakespeare, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, and their partners dismantle The Theatre and remove its beams to a new site at Southwark, where it is rebuilt in 1599 as the Globe. When Edward Alleyn builds the Fortune on the northern edge of the city in 1600, the array of Elizabethan theaters is complete.

By listing in chronological order when several important theaters were built.

Which event happened first? The Elizabethan theater as we know it develops slowly. In 1562 the play Gorboduc, the first English play to include blank verse, is performed in front of the queen at the Inner Temple in London. This is written by two gentlemen, Thomas Sackville (the future earl of Dorset) and Thomas Norton, and leaves a lasting impression.

Gorboduc was performed in front of the queen.

Which event most directly caused the council to order the closure of all theaters in London? By the end of the reign he [Jonson] has married, had two children and lost one, tried to become an actor and failed, become a playwright, been arrested for a scurrilous play and released, killed another actor in a duel, been arrested again and put on trial for murder, and escaped hanging by pleading benefit of the clergy. The play for which he is arrested, The Isle of Dogs, coauthored with Thomas Nashe, is so slanderous and offensive that the privy council orders the closure not just of the play but of every theater in London.

Jonson and Nashe writing The Isle of Dogs

The purpose of the second-person point of view in the excerpt is to As you approach the theaters you will notice that they all seem to be round; in fact, they are polygonal—the Globe is twenty-sided, the Rose fourteen-sided. Whichever one you choose, you can expect to queue with two thousand other people to get in. You will see people standing in hats with pipes in hand, and women in their headdresses, all chatting, with an eye open for people they know. Entrance costs a penny: this allows you to stand in the yard in front of the stage, an uncovered area (hence the need for a hat).

Make the readers feel like part of the exciting theater experience.

What does a chronological text structure use to signal the sequence of time?

Words or dates