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.

Use a checklist or anecdotal notes during small-group discussion, one-on-one conferences, or learning-center time to keep track of whether students discuss how the use of text structure contributes to the author’s purpose. While reading a text, listen for student’s ability to converse about how the use of the structure of the text contributes to the author’s purpose. Consider using prompts to assist students.

Examples of adult prompts:

  • I see a lot of words and phrases like however and on the other hand. Why do you think he or she is using those words?
  • Do you think this book is using a description text structure or a sequencing text structure? How do you know? Why do you think the author chose to do that?

An observational rubric can be used.

Sample rubric:
1) The student does not discuss how the use of text structure contributes to the author’s purpose, even with adult assistance.
2) The student inconsistently discusses how the use of text structure contributes to the author’s purpose, with adult assistance.
3) The student consistently discusses how the use of text structure contributes to the author’s purpose, with adult assistance.

Adult assistance means that discussion about the text structure will be significantly guided, with the teacher modeling and asking for student interaction during the discussion. Graphic organizers can support student understanding because they allow them to visualize the text structure.
the author’s primary goal in a piece of writing, such as to narrate, to argue, to review, to explain, or to examine.
Text structure is the pattern or structure an author uses to construct and organize the author's ideas for the audience (e.g., main idea/details, cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, sequencing, and description); it is also referred to as organizational pattern.