Is a college education necessary for success in today's world? The class investigates the question, along with others at the end of the sixth workshop in a 15-part series. The instructional activity has four parts with multiple...

How can opinions slant facts? Workshop participants learn how to examine primary and secondary sources and identify the author's point of view. They also examine how visual art impacts the meaning and rhetoric of sources. Full of...

What do a cheetah, Audi commercial, and air have in common? They're all topics of an engaging inquiry-based, hands-on workshop for educators about background knowledge, reading strategies, the CER model, and argumentative writing. The...

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson focuses on being able to identify the author's purpose in a specific text. Specifically, it's about looking at several authors' works on the same topic and...

What is autism? How does it affect behavior? Students will find evidence of the author's tone or purpose for writing the article, as well as hints that show evidence of opinion. Includes a video clip from the movie "Rainman", and an...

In this learning module, students will learn about authors' purposes for writing. PowerPoint lessons, worksheets, and quizzes are provided to reinforce the understanding of why authors write assorted pieces. This module is designed to...

[Free Registration/Login Required] With this lesson plan, students can learn how several authors can write about the same topic, but for different purposes.

Site provides extensive assistance in preparing 4th grade students for Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. This section focuses on identifying the author's purpose.

REACH for more! Be an author! Write and illustrate your very own story by mixing up a simple recipe of WHO, WHERE, WHAT, and ENDING.

[Accessible by TX Educators. Free Registration/Login Required] This lesson is about being able to identify the author's purpose in a specific text. Specifically, it's about looking at several authors' works on the same topic and...

[Free Registration/Login Required] A three-lesson unit on author's purpose. In the first lesson, young scholars practice identifying the author's purpose as to entertain, to persuade, or to inform. In the second lesson, students use...

A slideshow with twenty slides with information and examples of four different purposes an author can have for writing a text: to entertain, to persuade, to express, or to inform/explain.

"Prairie Changes" is a one page, nonfiction passage about the changes in the prairie over time and the effect it has on plants, animals, and habitats. It is followed by an open-ended question which requires students to provide evidence...

A game of battleship where each time the player hits the enemy's ship, he or she reads a short passage and then chooses the author's purpose for writing it. Answer enough questions correctly, and sink the enemy's battleship.

This lesson will help you evaluate changes in formality and tone within printed texts written for specific audiences and purposes. It focuses on writing produced during the Great Depression.

This slideshow lesson focuses on purpose; it defines purpose and lists the two main purposes of all writing: to educate (didactic text meaning to inform and instruct) or to entertain (imaginative text). The purpose could also be art for...

This resource offers 11 exercises with variety of everyday reading passages such as letters, recipes, classified ads, etc. Students read the passage and answer multiple choice questions about its purpose.

"Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." is a one page, biographical passage about Martin Luther King, Jr. It is followed by an open-ended question which requires students to provide evidence from the story; it includes determining the author's...

First graders write many times a day to express their interests - they are writing with a purpose through stories, letters, and lists. In this section, you'll find writing assessment resources, writing strategies, and additional tip...

Contains plans for two lessons that teach students how to recognize an author's use of style in literature. These plans use "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston as an example, but the basic ideas can be adapted to other...

[Free Registration/Login Required] Students will analyze tourism brochures to determine features related to nonfiction writing in this unit. Tourism websites may be used in lieu of the brochures. Cotswold and the North Leigh Roman Villa...

A printable pyramid for use with nonfiction texts while students identify the main ideas and supporting details within a text. Students also determine author's purpose and key vocabulary words. Directions on how to use this type of...

A module where students analyze how the author uses text structure to emphasize key points or explanations in order to achieve the purpose for writing or point of view.

This lesson focuses on Annotation, a "writing-to-learn" strategy. It consists of writing explanatory notes and critical (analytical) commentary to yourself. Annotating text consists of two steps: (1) underlining, highlighting, circling,...