Going Deeper with Author's Purpose

This week has been a little crazy at school because we're starting MAPS testing. Computer problems, anyone?

What was supposed to be an hour long test turned into much longer, and we're only on day 2. I haven't had a day yet that I've been able to pull all of my groups, and today was worse than most. Hopefully they will all be finished by Friday so I can start a normal schedule next week.

I have been able to push in to my 4th grade classes for an author's purpose lesson, though, and I thought I could at least share it!

A few years back, I wanted to create something to help my students get past "PIE" for author's purpose. I knew they weren't really understanding enough, so I made this little pack.

I first ask students what they think an author would really say if they were being interviewed about why they wrote their book. I want them to realize it would be silly for them to simply respond, "To inform". Then we brainstorm a few things they might say (I usually go with J.K. Rowling since I have older readers).

After that, I explain to them how they can find different pieces of evidence to help them determine the author's purpose: characters/topic, setting, choice of language, details, and genre. We talk about each of those pieces and then practice with a book.

The only section that really takes a lot of explaining at this level is language. They all want to write "English" and move on with it. I have to give lots of examples for each part. Here are my examples:

• Persuasive books will have words such as "should", "the best", "don't", etc.
• Informational books will always include facts. You only need to choose one or two to write.
• Entertaining books will have story elements ("Once upon a time"), characters, and events that are not necessary for the story line. I explain that if there are any funny or scary lines, these would be good to include.

If I had more time, I would show how to fill out the sheet on an informational or persuasive book as well as a fictional story, but I could only do one. This year I chose to read a chapter from Sideways Stories from Wayside School (Chapter 10: Paul) because it's one of my favorite. Plus I know it will hold the students' attention even without pictures. You could do this activity with any book, though.

I also included a few practice paragraphs for students to try writing the author's purpose a little more. They need a lot of guidance at the beginning, so I usually ask them to work with a partner or even a table to come up with the purpose (as I walk around to each group and help) until they're a little more comfortable with it.

Going Deeper with Author's Purpose

I mentioned last week that we have been working on Author's Purpose with my fourth grade students. This is a subject that I don't think we teach properly the majority of the time. There seems to be way too much focus on PIE (Persuade, Inform, and Entertain), and not enough focus on how the author is thinking. Trust me, I've looked all over TPT, and most of the higher level Author's Purpose is either pretty expensive or geared toward older students (middle/high school).

So as I've been teaching this unit, I've been creating new resources to go along with it. I posted a picture last week of the graphic organizer I created to prove the author's purpose

We practiced this with various short books, and I feel like the kids started to understand it a little more. I also had an "Ask the Author" sheet where students buddy read and then interviewed each other (one pretending to be the author) to get them thinking like an author.

However, I noticed that our standards focus more on author's message. So this week, we are reading selections and talking about why an author might have included particular pages or even paragraphs. Today was the first day I set them off to do some practice on their own, and it didn't go very well. BUT, at least they tried and we can talk about why they are not correct. Many of them wanted to just restate the paragraphs.

I plan on creating more practice sections to add to this packet, but you can get it now for $2! After I finish, the price may go up some more.

TN or TPT

I hope it helps your students "Dig Deeper" and start thinking more like authors! We will be working on this in 3rd and 5th in the next few weeks, so I'm hoping to gather as much as I can to help them understand author's purpose on a higher level.

Oh, my newest literacy centers are in the proofreading stage as we speak!

I'm going to do a flash freebie when I post them tomorrow afternoon (Hint: I leave school at 4), so pay close attention! This will be a long overdue celebration of my surpassing 500 followers, and you won't want to miss it!

Five for Fraturday again

Whew! I am officially back to teaching now, and it was tiring! I feel like I came home every night and just crashed. Eventually, I'll get back into the swing of things.

First, I FINALLY got a new phone!! My old one was terrible and had this HUGE crack in it. I seriously was a walking T-Mobile commercial.

As much as I would LOVE to join the iPhone club, we didn't want to upgrade our contract because we currently get unlimited everything for $99, which you can't beat. So I checked Ntelos's stock of refurbished phones. I'm VERY happy with my HTC One V, and after browsing Etsy, I also found a store that does personalized cases for it. So that's already on my Christmas list :-). Now I'm just impatiently stalking A Beautiful Mess for their Android app that's supposed to come out next month sometime!

My fourth graders were working on Author's Purpose this week, so I created a little evidence sheet (Don't you love the Melonheadz clipart in the corner? My score from Educents last week!) to record information from the text. I think we've focused too much on just Persuade, Inform, and Entertain in the past, but that's RARELY how it's tested. Next week, I'm going to focus on the purpose of individual sections/paragraphs.

With third and fifth grade, we have been working on character traits. We read a few different books with big characters (Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon, Alice the Fairy, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Ferdinand), and I had students use my Duck Dynasty sheets I shared about last week to choose some traits and prove it with evidence from the text. 

TN or TPT

They had a lot of fun, but I noticed how limited their vocabulary is. I gave my fifth graders a list of traits and had them put stars by any they hadn't heard before. It was enlightening. Humble is going to be one of my focus words. Not a single student knew it, and they were all very interested to learn it!

On Thursday, my new linky started! I'm going to host Teacher Fitness Thursday on the third Thursday of each month, and we'll have a different topic every time. For the first month, we are sharing about healthy eating - tips, recipes, struggles, what's in your lunchbox...you choose! I would love to see a lot of you join in.

This weekend is Mommy and Keagan time, and we're really enjoying it! The weather has been great here (although it's starting to rain), so we have spent a lot of time outside. This morning, we went to a local produce stand with some friends to play in their hay maze!

Next week, we might even go apple picking! It would be nice to go when it's not so crowded. Of course, the state fair starts next Thursday, so we have to work that in at some point, too!

Okay, my goal for next week is to blog more frequently. I know it most likely won't be every day, especially because we only have one laptop for the house and Steven is teaching an online college class this semester. However, I need to take the computer anyway so I can work on finishing my Halloween Literacy Pack. We finally installed the new Microsoft Office, so I have a lot of work to do!