Curated OER
Hermeneutics: Teaching Students Author's Purpose
Your developing literary critics discuss 'perspective' and discuss how the same occurence can be interpreted by two different people in two different ways. They read Ryszard Kapuscinski's untitled poem, infer meaning of the poem, and...
Curated OER
6th Grade: Express Yourself, Lesson 2: Close Read
The second instructional activity of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the...
K20 LEARN
Bear Tale: Author's Purpose - Informing Or Entertaining
After reading The Mitten by Jan Brett, scholars discuss the author's purpose. Small groups compare and contrast a book written to entertain and a book to inform, then create a T-Chart detailing the characteristics of each. Learners...
EngageNY
Reading for Gist, Answering Text-Dependent Questions, and Determining Author’s Purpose: Industrial Organic Food Chain
After re-reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma using a Reading Closely: Guiding Questions handout, class members use sticky notes to annotate and determine the gist of the text. Finally, they use an Author’s Purpose graphic organizer to...
Curated OER
Identifying Author’s Purpose and Viewpoint in Nonfiction Text
Why do people write books? Pupils discover how to identify the author's viewpoint. They read non-fiction passages their instructor selects (the plan has the class look at nonfiction children's picture books), and then identify the...
Curated OER
Using Details from Text to Identify Author's Purpose
Explore writing techniques by analyzing newspapers and magazines with middle schoolers. They will collaborate in small groups to read local news stories and identify the main ideas and author's intent. They also utilize an information...
Curated OER
Protest Letter
What a fantastic resource to guide youngsters in persuasive letter writing. They read a brief letter to the editor and answer question about the author's purpose, word choice, and structure. Next, scholars draft their own letter by...
Prestwick House
Author’s Purpose in Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” Speech
President Ronald Reagan's "Tear Down This Wall" speech, delivered on June 12, 1987 before the Berlin Wall, provides class members with an opportunity to examine three key aspects of informational text: author bias, the use of facts and...
Curated OER
Author's Purpose and Point of View Pretest
In this author's purpose and point of view worksheet, learners answer 10 multiple choice questions.
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.
Curated OER
What's the Purpose Anyway?
Examine author's purpose in newspaper articles, comic books, cookbooks, encyclopedias and other forms of written materials. Working in groups, middle and high schoolers read teacher-selected articles and write an explanation of the...
Curated OER
The Purpose and Power of Persuasion
Examine the power of persuasion and have learners consider how it influences events in their own lives. After reading and analyzing informational texts to understand the author's purpose, class members take a written test and craft a...
Teach-nology
Author’s Purpose: Persuade
Explore author's purpose with an activity about persuasive arguments. After reading a short passage about Spain, learners identify three main passages that the author uses to persuade the reader.
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
Author's Purpose
Fourth graders read the book Talkin' About Bessie and write a paragraph about the author's purpose. In this author's purpose lesson plan, 4th graders include examples from the story.
Curated OER
Frederick Douglass Expository Reading Guide
Help your high schoolers navigate the cross-curricular text Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass with this reading guide. The questions guide learners through composing a summary of any given chapter in the text. In addition,...
Curated OER
Understanding Cause and Effect
Identify the author's organizational pattern for expressing ideas. After reading an article on the California Gold Rush, middle schoolers determine the author's purpose for writing a passage of informational text. A full list of...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 5: Level 10
Whether used as a reading comprehension assessment, as the basis of a mini-lesson on reading strategies, or as extra practice, this exercise will prove to be valuable because of the answers and explanation key that accompanies the...
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
Close Reading in the Classroom
Close reading is key to the analysis and interpretation of literature. A close reading of the title and the epigraph of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” offers readers an opportunity to examine how even single words or names can...
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....
Curated OER
Letter of Complaint
Learners analyze this letter of complaint to the city council by answering nine short-answer questions. They examine author's purpose, word choice, claims, rhetorical questions, and general observations. There is a focus on constructive...
EngageNY
Reading for Gist, Answering Text-Dependent Questions, and Determining Author’s Purpose: Industrial Food Chain
A Reading Closely: Guiding Questions handout leads readers to discover the gist of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. While reading, pupils look closely at the words in the text and discuss their meaning. They use dictionaries when needed to answer...
Curated OER
Reading Comprehension 4
Ever needed a reason to stop eating meat? Read this interesting (and slightly disgusting) passage with your class to assess reading comprehension.