LESSON FOUR: Author’s Purpose
LESSON DESCRIPTION
This lesson focuses on the four purposes for which authors usually write: to inform, to describe, to entertain, and to persuade. Students will be asked to identify the author’s purpose in a provided passage and use details from the passage to explain how they determined that was the purpose.
GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS
R3C Use details from text to identify and interpret author’s ideas and purpose
§ Sources of literature
o None
§ Supplies
o Posterboard or chart paper (optional)
o Several picture books about famous American women with a variety of author’s purposes (to inform, to describe, to entertain, and to persuade)
o Several passages with various author’s purposes, preferably about famous U.S. women (these may be a variety of types, from a variety of sources, etc.)
o Lesson Four formative assessment scoring guide
§ Handouts provided
o Lesson Four Formative Assessment
§ Words to know
o author’s purpose
For the formative assessment the student will read a provided passage about a famous American woman, determine the author’s purpose for writing the passage, and explain why he/she believes that is the purpose. Scoring guide provided.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
1. Introduce the concept of author’s purpose with several picture books about famous American women. Ask students what the books have in common and how they are different. Use that information to determine categories of information the passages have in common, such as main character, setting, author’s word choice, etc.. Record those categories on chart paper, the black/white board, an overhead, Smart Board, NotePad, etc. in the form of a graphic organizer (chart, web/cluster, etc.) and then lead students in completing the graphic organizer with information for each of the picture books read.
|
Strategy
|
Be certain to lead students to identify characteristics that play a role in determining author’s purpose, such as passage length, highlighted qualities of the main character, author’s word choice, tone (fifth-grade students may not yet be ready for this terminology but should be able to understand the concept of how the author seems to feel about the subject), text features used, etc. |
|
Questions for Students
|
In what ways are these passages alike? Different? What common characteristics do the passages have? What kind of graphic organizer might we use to record information about the characteristics of each of the passages? |
2. Review with students the four purposes for which authors generally write: to inform, to describe, to entertain, and to persuade. Ask students what each of these means. (This should be review of a fourth-grade skill that is simply applied in fifth-grade to a higher-level text.)
|
Questions for Students |
What are the four purposes for writing? What does it mean to inform? To describe? To entertain? To persuade?
|
|
Ideas
|
Reference for author’s purpose: Communication Arts Grade-Level Expectations Glossary of Terms, 2004. |
3. Return to the previously read and studied picture books and their recorded characteristics. Use the think-aloud strategy to model considering information about one of those picture books to determine for which purpose the author was writing.
|
Idea |
For information on the think-aloud strategy, see Marzano, 2001. |
4. Have students work in pairs or groups of three to consider the remaining picture books, returning to the recorded characteristics of each, and determine the author’s purpose for writing each. When all groups have finished their work, lead the class in discussing their conclusions as to author’s purpose; correct any fallacies by leading students in re-examining the passages as necessary.
|
Strategy |
An alternative strategy, especially if the students aren’t yet ready to work independently to identify author’s purpose, is for the teacher to guide the students in studying each of the remaining picture books and determining the author’s purpose in writing each. On the other hand, if students seem to be doing well at identifying author’s purpose, the teacher may choose to shorten or even skip this activity and proceed to the next (posting actual passages in the correct author’s purpose category). |
|
Questions for Students
|
What is the author’s purpose in writing each of the passages? What about the passage helps you determine the author’s purpose? Can an author ever write a single passage with more than one purpose in mind? How does an author’s purpose for writing a passage influence his story line, word choice, sentence structure, etc.? |
(Day 2?)
5. For additional practice, divide the black/white board, a classroom wall, a tabletop, etc. into four sections, one labeled with each of the four purposes for writing. Distribute a separate passage to each pair of students (a separate copy of the passage for each student). Utilize the think-pair-share strategy to have each student in the pair independently consider the passage and the criteria previously discussed to determine the best explanation of the author’s purpose. After students have silently read and studied the passage and each has recorded his or her response, the students in each pair should compare their thinking and come to a conclusion together. One student from each pair should then go to the black/white board and paste/tape/etc. the passage in the correct section according to the author’s purpose. When all students have completed the activity, lead the class in discussing the responses and correct any errors as necessary.
|
Ideas |
For information on the think-pair-share strategy, see Zwiers, 2004. |
|
Strategy
|
The passages used for this activity don’t necessarily have to be about famous American women; in fact, it may be difficult to demonstrate a variety of author’s purposes if the passages are all about famous American women.
To check students’ posted responses, an appropriate strategy would be to divide the students in the class into four groups, one assigned to each of the four purposes. Have each group read all of the passages posted in its assigned section/purpose and check for correctness. If the group believes any have been improperly placed, the group should determine what it believes is the correct purpose and check with the teacher regarding that before placing the passage in a different section of the board.
An alternative activity would be to put students in small groups, distributing a different passage to each student but the same passages to each group of students. Have students complete the activity in the same way in their small groups, each putting his/her passage in the appropriate section on a piece of chart paper, posterboard, etc. All group members could then discuss and adjust the responses as deemed appropriate before comparing each small group’s responses as a whole class.
For the purpose of this activity, students must determine the BEST purpose if they believe the author may have had more than one for writing the passage. They should be prepared to justify their choice. |
6. Distribute the Lesson Four Formative Assessment Prompt and Scoring Guide, including a passage about a famous American woman to be used to determine the author’s purpose. Students should then complete the formative assessment independently.
|
Assessment
|
For the formative assessment, students will read a passage about a famous U.S. woman then answer a constructed response question identifying the author’s purpose for writing the passage and using details from the passage to explain why he/she believes that is the purpose. |
|
Strategy |
The passage used for the formative assessment in this lesson may have been used in a previous lesson for another purpose.
The teacher may choose to modify the formative assessment by including at least one additional appropriate passage (preferably with a different author’s purpose than the original passage) for students to determine author’s purpose. The same constructed response question and scoring guide could be used with each additional passage. |