Try It
In this activity, you will read about how the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain. You will determine if events described have a causal (cause-and-effect) relationship, or if the earlier events simply preceded the later events and have no relationship with one another. Remember to use your knowledge of cause-and-effect text structure and sequence text structure to assist you in determining relationships between events. You may download the Text Structures and Signal Words PDF to use as you read the text.
Download and read the following description of how the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain. As you read, underline or highlight the text structure signal words to help you determine the relationship between the series of events in the passage. Next, you will be asked to answer questions about the signal words in the passage, the chronological order of the events, and the relationship between the events.
Highlighter Tool Tip
Use the highlighter tool to highlight the text structure signal words. To use the tool, drag your mouse over the word or words you want to select. Once the highlighter appears, click a color and your selected words are now highlighted.
You can download a PDF version of the excerpt, The Industrial Revolution in Great Britain to highlight on paper.
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain for several reasons. It had the necessary resources of a large population of workers; an abundance of natural resources, such as large iron ore deposits, to build the new machines; and water and coal to fuel the new machines. Rivers and harbors provided transportation for the goods manufactured. Additionally, Great Britain’s economy was stable and expanding, and capital was available for investment in new inventions and the expansion of business.
However, new inventions were the cause of the Industrial Revolution. Great Britain already had a cloth industry that provided cloth to much of the world. Cloth merchants boosted their profits by speeding up the production process with new inventions such as the flying shuttle, which could weave cloth faster, and the spinning jenny, which sped up the process of spinning thread. Later, waterpower was applied to these machines, which further sped up the manufacturing process. The water-powered machines, spinning mule and power loom could more quickly produce cloth with a consistent quality. Wealthy textile merchants began to set up these machines in large buildings called factories. Because of the need for water to power the machines, they built them near rivers and streams. Within a few years, Eli Whitney in the United States invented the cotton gin, which resulted in a faster way of cleaning cotton, which in turn provided an increased supply of raw cotton needed for the textile factories.
What cause-and-effect text structure signal words did you see in the passage?
What sequence text structure signal words did you see in the passage?
Next, complete the following drag-and-drop activity, or a multiple choice alternative activity, to place the following events from the passage into chronological order. This will help you analyze the relationship between events. (This alternative activity is provided for students using keyboard only or screen readers.)
Based on the passage’s description of events and the chronological order of the events, did the earlier events cause later events, or merely precede them?
