The Importance of Author's Purpose

I always thought author's purpose was easy and kind of a waste of teaching time. We would just quickly skim over the purpose and never got into "why's" or "how's" of the purpose. My kids were able to get those answers right on the benchmarks and other comprehension tests, so why spend any more time on it than I did? But then I realized that my kids didn't really understand "how" the author was able to entertain, inform or persuade us, which in turn was making their writing - to put it nicely - not so good. So we started looking more closely at the "how", we examined words, phrases, illustrations, genre and theme to help us see how the author entertained us, informed us, and persuaded us. It was a breakthrough for not only me, but the students as well.

Author's purpose is simply the reason why the author wrote the story/book/article/blog post, etc. Four of the most common reasons for writing are:

1. to persuade, text type persuasive

2. to inform, text type expository

3. to entertain, text type narrative

4. to teach a moral or lesson, text type fables

Other reasons would be:

5. to show {effects, similarities & differences}

6. to explain {how to do something}

7. to give an account {as in biographies}

8. to share {an experience}

9. to encourage {giving support}

Actually, when you think about it there are a ton of reasons why someone may write a piece of text and as teacher's it is our job to help our students figure out that reason. We will just focus on the first three (and let's face it, on tests, there are usually only 3 choices, to persuade, to inform, to entertain).

Why does author's purpose matter? It matter's because understanding not only the "why" the author wrote the story but the "how" the author wrote the story tunes us in to what we should know by the end of the text. Essentially, understanding the reason behind the writing will help with the understanding of the writing. It gets your mind focused on what you will be reading. For example if you are thinking you are going to hear an entertaining story and it is informational, you may be distracted by the use of words or disappointed with the content, and this will make you miss the message or story completely.

"Distracted by the use of words", what do I mean by that? Well, specific purposes require precise vocabulary, for example, something that is written to inform will include words such as: explain, teach, state, tell, update, and many others. These words tell your brain that you are getting information and you may need to recall some of the facts to make an informed statement or decision.

If a piece of writing was written to persuade, then the author is going to use words that will convince you to do something or change your mind, such words and phrases are persuade, convince, a fact {did you know that...}, a statistic {4 out of 5 students said...}, reasons {3 reasons why...}, I believe that..., and many others. These words help you to focus in on what the author is trying to make you believe.

When writing to entertain there are really no specific words but the way sentences are written. The use of punctuation, onomatopoeia, likeable characters, intriguing story lines, visually obtainable setting descriptions, relatable lessons and attractive illustrations all lead to a very entertaining piece.

When teaching author's purpose it is important that your students know the linguistic patterns that would be used when asking and answering specific author's purpose questions. Some of the questions might be:

What was the author's purpose in writing this?
The reason for the author writing this piece was...
The author probably wrote this because...
Why did the author write this?

Before you can answer the above questions, you need to ask YOURSELF the following questions to help guide you to the right conclusion.

Did the author try to make me laugh? (Entertain)
Did the author want to tell me a story? (Entertain)
Did the author try to amuse me? (Entertain)
Did the author give me facts? (Inform)
Did the author try to teach me something? (Inform)
Did the author try to convince me? (Persuade)
Did the author want to change my opinion? (Persuade)

When it is time to answer these questions here are the linguistic patterns you should be using to write a complete author's purpose answer:

The author's purpose was _________
The author wants the reader to _________
The author wants the reader to learn _________
I thing the author's purpose was _________ because the text said ___________

Here are 3 posters with the above questions to help guide students to the correct purpose.There is a link at the bottom of the post that will take you to my TpT store to download.

I always loved to use graphic organizers with my students and for author's purpose the circle map is the best. It helps focus in their thinking and learning. I like to have my students find 3 examples from the story to confirm their purpose. For example:

to entertain - the students might find silly words, talk about the illustrations, find sentences or phrases that are entertaining.
to persuade - the students might find facts, a statistic, the "thing" the author is trying to convince you of, a sentence with the word persuade or convince. There might be a question to the reader about their thoughts on the topic.
to inform - the students might find a sentence that has the word tell, explain, or inform. The student should also be able to tell you what they learned from reading that text.

Here is an author's purpose graphic organizer for you to use. Link below.

If you are going to keep track of a group of books using a chart like the one below would be good.

Now for the importance of teaching/learning author's purpose. Once you know how to identify the purpose and recognize the words and phrases that are essential to that purpose it will help students then become better writers. We are always asking our students to write a personal narrative, or a how to, or a persuasive essay and if they don't understand that ALL author's have a purpose, they may have trouble with writing for a particular purpose. Being able to find evidence from the text that supports their conclusion on the author's purpose will help them focus in on their writing and what they need to do to convince, inform or entertain their readers. Recognizing what vocabulary they should use and how sentences and punctuation are used in books will help students incorporate that into their writing.

The following links are some resources on line that I found with bookmarks, charts, lessons and projects.

http://www.literacyleader.com/?q=node/460

http://page.reallygoodstuff.com/pdfs/154906.pdf

http://thekennedykorralblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/authors-purpose.html

If you haven't dug deep into the "how" of author's purpose, I hope you give it a try. I think you will find that when it comes to your student's writing and you ask them to find the evidence or how their piece is entertaining, informative or persuasive, they will be able to see if that evidence is there.

Click HERE to grab this from my TpT store.

A proud contributor to Manic Monday at Classroom Freebies!