Question

Back in the spring of 1955 a teenage girl named Claudette Colvin and an elderly woman refused to give up their seats in the middle section of a bus to white people. When the driver went to get the police, the elderly woman got off the bus, but Claudette refused to leave, saying she had already paid her dime and had no reason to move. When the police came, they dragged her from the bus and arrested her. Now, her name was familiar to me.

–My Story,
Rosa Parks

What text structure is being used?



Which words are a clue to this type of structure?



What does this type of structure help the author communicate?

Answer 1

1) Text structure: Chronological (sequence/narrative) order.

2) Clue words/phrases: "Back in the spring of 1955," "When the driver went to get the police," "When the police came," and the past-tense verbs (e.g., "refused," "got off," "dragged," "arrested") — these time markers and sequence words signal events happening in order.

3) What this structure helps the author communicate: It lays out events step by step so the reader can follow what happened, understand the cause-and-effect progression (driver calls police → Claudette resists → police arrest her), and situate the incident in time as background that explains why the name was familiar to the narrator.