author's purpose strand teks talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Author's purpose and craft: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies author's craft purposefully in order to develop his or her own products and performances.

Share several examples of texts from authors that appeal to fourth-grade students. Select excerpts from texts that have an easily recognizable voice. Have students work in small groups to choose one of the provided texts and share examples of language in the text that contributes to voice.
 

Further Explanation

This example requires students to understand that voice refers to the distinctive way in which a writer expresses ideas with respect to style, form, content, and purpose. Students should be able to examine the ways an author uses language to help create the voice of a written work.
 

Voice refers to the distinctive way in which a writer expresses ideas with respect to style, form, content, and purpose. Students are expected to be able to examine (in writing or orally) how an author uses language to help create the voice of a written work. For example, an author’s use of literary devices such as hyperbole or rhyme determines the voice conveyed in a piece of writing. The rhythmic and whimsical voice of Dr. Seuss’s books provides an example of this.

Research

Fisk, C., & Hurst, B. (2003). Paraphrasing for comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 57(2),  182+. Retrieved from  https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A109218181/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=5259f22e. 

Summary: This article on paraphrasing identifies the author's voice as the starting point for students when learning how to paraphrase. The authors provide a step-by-step process for paraphrasing, including how to identify the author's voice.