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Determining Author’s Purpose

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Subject: ESL/ELL (English Language Learning)

Lesson Length: 30 - 45 mins

Topic: Author’s Purpose

Grade Level: 2, 6, 7

Standards / Framework:

Brief Description: In this lesson students will be able to determine the author’s purpose of a text.

Know Before You Start: You will need a variety of texts for students to read. This lesson can be used to reinforce the language to explain the author's purpose. Teachers can utilize comics to assess student understanding and ability to determine author’s purpose.

Hook:

  • Read and discuss the sample comic. Share examples of different author’s purposes, e.g., to entertain, to inform, or persuade.

Activity:

  • Have students choose a text on their independent reading level.

  • Have students create a comic that introduces the text and explains the author’s purpose. 

  • Encourage students to explain how they determined the author’s purpose.

  • Have students find three texts with different purposes and create a panel for each purpose, e.g., to entertain, persuade, and inform.

Closure:

  • Have students share their comics with the class or with a partner.
  • Display the comics on a bulletin board as a reference.

Differentiation:

  • Allow students to use the speech-to-text feature.
  • Allow students to work in pairs or groups as needed.

Resources:

  • Comic to print or display: Comic.

Suggested Content Packs:

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