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.

Concepts

author's purpose, summaries, Persuasive Writing, informative writing, Narrative Writing

Show More Show Less

Additional Tags

english language arts

Show More Show Less

Instructional Ideas

• Have kids write their own summaries for book reviews, and see if they can write one summary for each purpose
• See which book kids would want to read based on the reviews
• Provide additional summaries from the backs of books or from online synopses, and have kids determine what the author's purpose may have been

Classroom Considerations

• Only three simplistic questions; augment the activity with additional questions or by requiring textual evidence

Pros

• Comes with an answer key for easy assessment

Cons

• None

Common Core

W.3.1.a W.3.2.a W.3.3.a