Author’s Purpose: Author’s Write to Inform

I am so excited to continue talking to you about teaching students to find the author’s purpose! If you missed my introduction to author’s purpose lesson, I shared in my last blog post, be sure to check that out here: Author’s Purpose: A Guide for Teachers

Let's Review! Why Teach Author's Purpose?

Students must find the author’s purpose for writing so they can better understand and comprehend the texts that they read, no matter the genre. They should evaluate why author’s make their writing and text feature choices and what the author’s intentions were when writing. Students must learn how to assess all types of writing to understand it fully.

Students must practice this skill time and time again. Many times, figuring out why authors wrote the text takes some serious detective work! As you will see in my lesson today, we are always looking for clues the author left us! The objective of this lesson is for students to be able to look closely at a text to determine the author’s purpose.

Before teaching this lesson, I made sure to gather several plastic bags, a copy of the book What a Waste by Jess French, and made sure I had the anchor chart ready to use again after my introduction lesson to finding the author’s purpose. I read the book beforehand and made notes of the sections I wanted to read aloud to students. There were so many examples and clues to choose from so you could choose your own examples too!

I had so much fun teaching this skill! Check out my video lesson below!

This video can be shared with your students as a whole group mini-lesson or you can even share this video with your students during their independent or asynchronous work time. Do you use socially distance centers in your classroom? Show your students my video!

I begin this lesson by telling students that I just returned from the grocery store where I was standing behind a man in the checkout line that used 10 plastic bags for his items! I could not believe that he used so many bags in one visit to the store! I model making connections by telling students that what I saw at the store reminded me of a book I read called What a Waste by Jess French.

Next, I share several examples of facts or information that I learned while reading this book. I tell students that authors sometimes teach us through their writing. This is informational writing where the author’s purpose is to inform. When reading these types of texts, it’s the reader’s job to think about what they are learning and what the author is trying to teach them as they read.

After sharing some facts that stood out to me from the text, I ask students to pause, reflect, and write down some things they learned as I read. Give students time to tell a stuffed animal friend or an in-person buddy depending on where they are learning at the time. You could have students rotate to different buddies to share with more than one buddy depending on time.

After students have talked to their buddies about what they learned from the book, I say: Boys and girls, today we learned in this one book how authors sometimes write to teach us facts and share with us important information. It’s important to circle back and reinforce this concept because this will be the core question they ask themselves to decide if the author is trying to inform them of something.

To wrap up our lesson, I ask students to use sticky notes to reflect on their thinking and what the author could be teaching them as they read! They can continue to do this as part of their daily reading practice throughout the year.

Looking for More?

I have put together a Google Classroom compatible bundle of 60 nonfiction passages and comprehension activities from levels D through I. These are perfect for end-of-the-year kindergarteners to second graders and are set up in an engaging book format!

Students will be sure to love these done-for-you, fascinating nonfiction reading passages! Not only will they learn about all kinds of things, but they will also get to see many examples of informative writing and have a better understanding of why authors write to inform!

Looking for something to use all year, for ALL readers, and ALL grade levels?

Are you tired of searching online for engaging, leveled passages to use for guided reading? Do you have a wide range of readers in your classroom, and need one resource that meets the needs of all of them?

This resource gives you LIFETIME access to HUNDREDS of online reading passages, for grade levels K-4! Every time I add new reading passages, you will have access to them for FREE!

I have two formats from you to choose from, a printable PDF format and an online, digital format which was created in Google Slides.