Recommended Reading Skills Focus Plan
January Focus: Author’s Purpose
Grades 3-5
Refer to LFS Curriculum Map: Analyzing and Interpreting Fiction, Analyzing and Interpreting Non-Fiction
Standards: 1.1.3.A, 1.1.3.G, 1.2.3.A, 1.3.3.E, 1.1.5.A, 1.1.5.G, 1.2.5.A, 1.3.5.E
Author’s Purpose (also known as Text Purpose) – the reason for communicating with someone
Tone – the attitude of the author toward the audience and characters
Point of View - the way in which an author reveals characters, events and ideas in telling a story; the vantage
point from which the story is told.
Gr. 3-5: Most texts are written to persuade, to inform, or to entertain.
Introducing the Skill:
 Introduce the main purposes of texts: to Persuade, to Inform, to Entertain (PIE). Students need to be
aware of other terms that relate to these purposes such as to instruct, to teach, to express, to educate,
to explain, to alert, to show, to give facts, to clarify or clear something up, to demonstrate, to convince,
to amuse, etc.
 Guide students to think about the source of the writing and the intended audience. To identify the
author’s purpose, begin with a consideration of the topic sentences of the paragraphs. Teach students
to ask these questions about a text:
o What does the author want to accomplish?
o What is the reader supposed to do next?
o What does the author want to happen as a result of the reading?
 The author's purpose, or reason for writing, affects the content of what he/she writes. Readers need
to be aware of that purpose in order to evaluate the content of what the author is writing. In other
words--you can't believe everything you read. Think about why the author is writing while reading.
 Author’s purpose is closely related to point-of-view and tone. Notice the language that is used. If the
purpose is to explain a serious issue, the passage will be restricted to Standard English. If the purpose is
to entertain informal English may be used to produce the desired effect. (www.hhpublishing.com/)
 Identifying persuasive writing requires students to notice opinions and bias in writing. The following
words are often used in opinion statements: all, many, most, everyone, no one, least, most, best, all,
every, never, always
 Sometimes one part of a passage may have a different purpose than the passage as a whole. For
example, information about a home that is up for sale may be informative, but the whole purpose of
the ad is to persuade you to buy the home.
Examples of Author’s Purpose Lessons:
1. The teacher places students into cooperative groups of four. Give each group a copy of the daily
newspaper. Have students search through and cut out articles, advertisements, etc., and identify the
author's purpose. Follow-up with a class discussion to share articles and give justification as an author's
purpose is explained.
2. The students brainstorm programs that can be found on the television. The teacher introduces or reviews
the terms; persuade, inform, and entertain. The teacher makes a table or chart using these terms as
headings on the board or chart paper. As a class, categorize the TV programs brainstormed earlier under
these headings. Students should be able to justify and explain their answers. This also works with movies,
although most titles that kids are familiar with are for entertainment purposes.
3. Work with students to identify tone or mood. Ask a student to use speaking and acting to demonstrate an
emotion (anger, excitement, confusion, humor, playfulness, sadness, curiosity, wonder, etc.) Ask students
to guess the emotion being displayed and tell what clues led them to this choice. It will be important for
students to notice how the tone of voice gives clues to emotions. Ask students to write a sentence that
gives clues but does not actually state an emotion.
Example: Standing tall, a smile circling her face, she watched, misty-eyed, as her youngest son
received his diploma. (proud)
Explain that authors also want to express emotions and they use words that show emotions, or tone, in
their writing. (Be careful to separate mood from tone. The tone shows you an author's opinion, while
mood is the feeling and atmosphere of the text.) Authors use words that have a positive or negative
undertone to express emotion. A useful technique for determining an author's tone is to envision the
sound of the author's voice as if he/she were reading the passage aloud.
Prompts:
 Based on the title, why do think the author wrote this selection?
 Which words do you think best describe the main reason the author wrote this selection?
 Why did the author write the article from a particular point of view?
 How did the author influence your response to the selection?
 Was the author’s purpose specifically stated?
 Do you think that the author achieved his/her intended purposes?
 Did the article effectively give information? Entertain readers? Express the author’s thoughts and
feelings? Persuade readers to think about an issue and/or take action?
 What examples from the text support your conclusions about author’s purpose?
 What was the author’s main purpose in writing this selection?
 Who is the author’s intended audience?
 How did the author’s tone support the purpose?
 To accomplish the purpose, the author uses a tone that . . .
 How does the tone of the passage give you clues to the author’s purpose?
 The author probably planned this article to be read by . . .
 Which statement best summarizes the author’s point of view?
 What is the main purpose of paragraph 2?
 The author wants you to know . . .