Determining Author's Purpose

Author’s Purpose Lesson

Ask students to think of a book they are reading. Go around the group to see what everyone is reading. Ask, why do you think the author wrote the book? See what they answer with.

Discuss what Author’s Purpose is: Reason author is writing the text, usually to inform, persuade or entertain.

Go through the examples of each kind of writing as shown below.

Pass out and discuss the handout which the students can use during the activity. For the activity, use this worksheet.

For the activity, have each student in group do one question on their own and aloud after the initial model. Make sure students understand that their can be more than one purpose and that they should know that depending on the kind of writing, we can better understand the author’s intention in writing.

After the activity, have students once again think about the books they are reading and use the hand out to figure out based on the content of the book, what the author’s purpose of their book is. Go around the group for a discussion. They should be able to explain why they picked that particular purpose.