Curated OER
Why Do Authors Write?
Sixth graders use short reading passages to identify, explain, and discuss the author's purpose for writing. After a lecture/demo, they utilize a graphic organizer embedded in this plan to organize their writing ideas.
Teach-nology
Writing with More Than One Purpose
It's not very hard to find the author's purpose in narrative, informative, or persuasive writing, but what happens when an author's purpose includes all three types of writing? Determine which sentences in three paragraphs are meant to...
Curated OER
Author’s Purpose Activity
In this author's purpose worksheet, students read a few sentences about a book and then answer short answer questions about the author's purpose. Students complete 12 questions.
Curated OER
Lesson 4: Author's Purpose
Learners identify the author's purpose in various poems from the book Words with Wings: A Treasury of African-American Poetry and Art. In order to determine the purpose, pupils first observe as the teacher completes a PIES char...
Curated OER
Writing Author's Purpose
Write in all three authorial purposes (persuasive, informational, entertaining) with this instructional activity. Young writers consider a time when a friend of theirs helped them out and gave them advice on something. They write a short...
Teach-nology
The Purpose of Summaries
How can you tell the author's purpose from just a short summary? Kids read three different summaries of books to determine whether the author meant to entertain, persuade, or inform.
Curated OER
What's My Point: Persuasive Writing
Why do readers need to know an author’s purpose? How do you figure out what that purpose is? Guide your pupils through a series of activities that show them how to identify various techniques and structures used in persuasive writing....
Newseum
Persuasion Portfolios
After class members brainstorm a list of current social and political issues, groups each select a different topic from the list to research. Teams create a portfolio of at least 10 examples of stories about their issue, stories that...
Curated OER
Expressing Your Views to the Letter
Analyze the motivation, purpose, and value of letters to the editor by examining letters written in response to the violence at Columbine High School. For homework, middle and high schoolers write their own letters to the editor about an...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
In this assessing the author's purpose worksheet, young scholars determine whether the author wrote to entertain, persuade, or inform by checking yes and no boxes, identifying the purpose, and listing clues that helped determine the...
Curated OER
Categorizing Texts According To Author's Purpose
Young scholars categorize books into the 3 different kinds of author's purpose. In this author's purpose lesson plan, students categorize them into the categories of entertain, inform, and persuade.
Curated OER
Lesson 1: Identifying an Author's Purpose
Different types of text are written for very different reasons. Learners discuss the differences in writing to entertain, to inform, and to persuade their audiences. They work on identifying the author's purpose by reading and charting...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
Fifth graders determine the meaning of author's purpose. In this author's purpose lesson, 5th graders apply the PIE (persuade, inform, entertain) strategy to determine why an author wrote a piece of writing. They examine passages and...
Curated OER
Where Are You Coming From?
Pupils examine and discuss author's purpose and the influence of an author's perspective in his or her writing. In groups, they read scenarios and respond to them from the perspective of a designated character. Materials are attached.
Curated OER
My Name is___________.
Read to gain an understanding of the author's intent or purpose. Learners analyze a persuasive text, identify the author's purpose, and evaluate the claims used as support. They then compose a persuasive essay of their own.
Curated OER
Persuaded or Informed?
Give each learner a newspaper for this instructional activity! As a group, read select editorials and discuss them with your class. Are these articles informational or persuasive? Cut out select editorials and have learners identify the...
Curated OER
How Advertisers Persuade
This plan centers around the article "How Advertisers Persuade," although it is not included in the lesson plan itself. Get your class thinking about advertising, appeals, and techniques that companies use to get their products from the...
Curated OER
Marketing to Teens: Parody Ads
High schoolers deconstruct advertising messages by analyzing parody ads and exploring the purpose of satire. Then they create their own parodies based on real ads discussed in class. A creative activity to extend any study of media,...
Curated OER
Introduction to Ludwig van Beethoven
"Ode to la Tortilla" and "Ode to Joy"? Sure! Use Gary Soto's poem to introduce learners to the ode format. After examining the descriptive words Soto uses, class members study a poster of Ludwig van Beethoven, suggest words that describe...
Curated OER
Non-Fiction Texts
Third graders examine different types of non-fiction texts. In this non fiction instructional activity, 3rd graders use different types of texts to gather information. Students work in groups to analyze the texts for author's purpose,...
Museum of Tolerance
Developing Media Literacy
To protect young people from questionable content, many schools limit access. This resource suggests that because learners can so readily avail themselves to unrestricted Internet access, it is vital for 21st century learners to develop...
Curated OER
Identify Author's Purpose
In this author's purpose worksheet, students complete a graphic organizer, writing clues that help determine author's purpose in an essay: explain, express feelings, persuade or entertain.
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
In this worksheet on determining the purpose of writing, students read 3 short paragraphs and choose whether they were written to persuade, inform or entertain.
Curated OER
Author's Purpose
Determining an author's purpose can help readers understand a text more deeply. Using a PIES chart (persuade, inform, entertain, share) and poems from Leaf by Leaf: Autumn Poems by Barbara Rogasky, class members organize lines that show...