Author's Purpose

Here's a handout that I have used with my students. It explains how you first have to understand the Author's Intent, then add the Main Idea, and that's how you get the Author's Purpose. The Author's Intent depends on whether the text is a Story/Poem or an Article. I hope it helps!

Mariely :)
www.sanchezclass.com

WE JUST FINISHED A GREAT LESSON ON WRITER'S PURPOSE. IN ORDER TO ILLUSTRATE TO INFORM, PERUADE, OR ENTERTAIN, I GAVE EACH STUDENT A PACKAGE OF CANDY CLOSE TO VALENTINE'S DAY. USING A TREE MAP, LABELED "TO INFORM", "PERSUADE, OR "ENTERTAIN", WE BRAINSTORMED USING THE CANDY. I GAVE EACH STUDENT A TREE MAP. WE WROTE DOWN ALL THE NUTRITIONAL INFORMATIONAL REGARDING THE CANDY AND ITS DESCRIPTION UNDER INFORM. WE THEN WROTE AN ADVERTISEMENT TO PERSUADE THE PUBLIC TO BUY THE CANDY USING DESCRIPTIVE LANGUAGE. NEXT, THE KIDS WROTE A SHORT, ENTERTAINING STORY ABOUT THE CANDY TO ENTERTAIN. THEN EACH STUDENT PICKED ONE OF THE THREE TO REPRESENT ON A PIECE OF CONSTRUCTION PAPER. I MADE A LARGE TREE MAP OUTSIDE OF MY CLASS, AND DISPLAYED THEIR WORK, WITH THEIR CANDY WRAPPER ATTACHED. MY STUDENTS NOW HAVE THIS CONCEPT DOWN PAT AND IT WORKS FOR VARIED ABILITY LEVELS!

I teach 6th grade and tried something new this year. I had my students use a newspaper to find all the different types of author's purpose (inform, persuade, entertain). They had to cut out the aritfact, identify what type it was, and explain what makes it that way. I then made a bulletin board with their examples. The students had a lot of fun.

Brainstorm a list of reasons an author may write a book.

Explain that there are three main reasons: PIE can help us remember them (persuade, inform, entertain). Describe what each of these terms mean and share an example of a book/ part of a book that would fall under each.

Look back at the brainstorm list and see if you can fit their ideas under the PIE ideas.

Have students look in the classroom library/ school library for an example of each type.

Have students share examples.

I'm surprised this is your minilesson for the 4th day of school.

In my building we all (elementary and intermediate) teach the author's purpose as "Everybody wants a piece of the PIE." The PIE meaning P=persuade, I=inform and E=entertain. We have a picture of a pie to go along with the saying as well. This helps give them a visual while thinking of the author's purpose.

Hi! Once students have had adequate practice identifying the three main purposes (PIE), I bring donuts and pair students up for a writing assignment. Each pair must write a paragraph about their donuts using one of the purposes mentioned above. I let them choose their purpose but have to be careful that they aren't all doing the same purpose. Once they complete their paragraph and I have checked it they may choose another purpose and write another paragraph. At the end of the lesson they get to eat their donuts. I usually display their work in the hall and then bind them into a class book. Here's one of the responses I received for persuading:

Buy King Donuts today! They're the best doughnuts I've ever had. They're soft and chewy. If you call now you will get another donut free! If you don't like it you can get your money back guaranteed. Did I mention it only costs 40 cents? King Donuts today!

I "borrowed" this next idea from a coworker. At my school we are constantly passing out brochures for day cares, sports activities, newsletters, and such. Each time I must pass out a brochure I read over it with students and we decide what the author's purpose is. Sometimes, such as with newsletters, the purpose is to inform. At other times, such as with notes about daycares and sports, the purpose is to persuade. Sometimes there is more than one purpose.

One more...this past year I had my students complete a poster project. The poster had to be divided into three sections, each labeled with persuade, inform, entertain. The students had to find examples to glue under each heading. I encouraged them to use the newspaper, magazines, Internet, mail flyers, and anything else they could think of. The posters were great! They were very creative in finding examples of each of the author's purposes.

Hope you get some great ideas!
Betsy

Kids love games! They can practice identifying author's purpose using this simple game.

Make a set of cards with a short paragraph on each to play this game. Make sure your paragraphs are varied. Some should be to persuade, entertain, and inform.

Shuffle the cards and place them on a stack. Have students take turn drawing a card from the top of the deck. He/she reads the Paragraph aloud and then says what the author's purpose is. If he gets the it right he keeps the card. If he gets it wrong it gets returned to the bottom of the pile. And it is the next players turn. The person with the most cards at the end of the game win.

I would have the students play this with a partner so they get more individual practice.

Play a game of Author's Purpose SWAT. You will need two fly swatters to play.

On the board or overhead projector make three boxes. One with the word Persuade and another with the word Entertain and the last one with Inform.

Divide your class into two teams and have two players go up to the board with the fly swatters.

Read aloud a paragraph that is either written to persuade, entertain, or inform. The students then have to swat the correct answer. The first team to do so gets a point. Continue until everyone has had at least one turn.

Do you want to get your students' attention when teaching author's purpose? Try this activity.

First have a mini lesson about author's purpose. Show different examples of writing meant to persuade, inform, and entertain. Once you feel they have a fairly good understanding of the different purposes it is time for them to apply the concept.

In a hat (or whatever you want to use for this) have strips cut up that say either persuade, inform, or entertain. Make sure you have one strip for each child. Then go around an have each student pull one of the strips.

Here is where the food comes in. Pull out a box of Goldfish Crackers (or what ever snack you want to use). Tell the students that they are going to have to put on their creative writing thinking caps for this activity. They will need to write a paragraph to persuade, inform, or entertain their audience using the goldfish crackers as the topic. The strip that they drew out earlier is the purpose they must use.

Let them snack on the goldfish as they write. When they are finished have them share their paragraphs with the class. See if the students can guess what the purpose of each one is.

Set up a bulletin board that you can use all year.

Label the bulletin board with three sections: Persuade, Inform, and Entertain.

As you read stories in class have the students decide what the author's purpose is of the story or book read. On a sentence strip, write the title of the story and post it on the bulletin board. Please remember that some stories or books may fall into more than one category.

You will have an ongoing interactive bulletin board for the year. You may want to title it "What's The Purpose?"

There are two ways you can do this. You can have students use the computer with a pre made set of links that they click on and read articles. Then they have to decide The Purpose of the articles.

Or

You could have them use resources in your classroom or school. They will have to search and find a predetermined number of each purpose.

Have them record the purpose and evidence on the attached sheet.

1st - Choose a topic - for example: Snow - and have students write a paragraph about snow for each of the 3 main author's purposes.
-inform about snow: fact based paragraph (I allow made up facts)
-persuade readers that snow is the best precipitation
-entertain - a fictionalized account of something that involves snow

2nd- Have kids share their writing, and rest of class decides at the end which purpose was used. **The best discussions come up here - when students don't stick to one purpose, or get the purposes confused.

Finally, we come up with similiarities and differences between the different writing styles.