Author's Purpose Teaching Resources
Help students understand the concept of author's purpose with printable worksheets, comprehension activities, and more teaching resources created by our teacher team just for elementary teachers.
This teaching resource collection includes curriculum-aligned activities and worksheets designed to help students when learning to identify if the author is trying to persuade, inform or entertain the reader. Editable resources are available so you can easily differentiate instruction for individual learners and your state standards.
Has it been a while since you taught ELA, or at least this particular part of the curriculum? We know a quarter of American teachers switch grades every year, and sometimes you could use a quick refresher.
What Is an Author's Purpose? A Kid-Friendly Definition
The author's purpose definition our ELA teachers use with students is simple: This is the writer's reason for writing the text. Understanding that reasoning will help students develop their reading comprehension skills and later help them better shape their own writing.
Here are five of the common author's purposes that we teach elementary students:
- To inform
- To persuade
- To explain
- To describe
- To entertain
How Do You Teach Author's Purpose?
Teaching author's purpose can involve a host of different strategies and activities, depending on your students' grade level and abilities. But here are a few tips from our tacher team to get you started!
- Modeling — Show students how to identify the author's purpose by analyzing a text together. Display a text and ask students to identify the author's purpose.
- Graphic Organizers — Use graphic organizers to help students identify and organize information about the author's purpose. For example, students can use a T-chart to list the main points of the text and then identify whether the purpose is to inform, persuade, or entertain.
- Class Discussion — Something as simple as leading a class discussion about different texts and their author's purpose can be an effective way to teach this core reading concept. Ask kids to share their opinions and understanding about the text.
- Writing Activities — Author's purpose may be core to reading instruction, but there's no reason you can't bring writing into the equation as a teacher! Prompt your class to write a text with a specific author's purpose in mind. For example, students can write an informative article with the purpose of informing!
- Role-Playing — Have students act out a scene or a skit where they take on the role of the author and present their text to the class. This will help them to understand better the purpose of their writing.
Helpful Examples of Author's Purpose to Share With Your Students
Looking for some good examples of author's purpose to present to your students? Try these!
One example of an author's purpose could be a news article that is written to inform the readers about a current event or a scientific study that is written to educate the readers about a specific topic. The author's purpose, in this case, is to inform.
Another example would be a novel written to entertain readers with a story or a poem written to express the author's feelings or personal experiences. In that case, the author's purpose would be to entertain or express themselves.
Another example would be a political speech that is given to persuade the audience to vote for a certain candidate. The author's purpose in this case is to persuade.
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Free Author's Purpose Worksheets
Assess reading comprehension by reviewing 3 short passages and answering questions about the author's purpose.
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Author's Purpose Teaching Presentation
Teach your students to identify the author’s purpose in a text with a teaching presentation.
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Author's Purpose - Sorting Worksheet
A teaching resource to help teach your students about author's purpose.
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Author's Purpose Anchor Chart
A poster highlighting the three main reasons an author writes a piece of text - to persuade, to inform, to entertain.
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Author's Purpose Graphic Organizer
Organize ideas and context clues that support the author's purpose from your assigned texts.
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Author's Purpose SORT IT!
Analyze 24 text examples and determine which of the 5 purposes of writing each of the sorting cards belongs to.
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Author's Purpose - Response Template
A teaching resource to help teach your students about the author's purpose for a piece of text.
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Author's Purpose - Sentence Writing Activity
A teaching resource to help teach your students about author's purpose.
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The Christmas Pickle Reading Comprehension Worksheet
Learn about the Christmas Pickle Tradition and practice reading comprehension skills with a printable reading passage worksheet pack.
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Author's Purpose - Puzzle Activity
A teaching resource to help teach your students about author’s purpose.
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Author's Purpose Sorting Activity
In this author's purpose activity, students will sort 20 phrase cards into groups by identifying whether the text is meant to inform, persuade, or entertain.
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Comprehension Task Cards - Identifying Author's Purpose
Help students identify the author's purpose when reading with this set of comprehension task cards.
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Point of View Task Cards - Beginner Set
Use these colorful, fun task cards to help your beginning reader identify first, and third-person point of view (POV)
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Digital Warriors: Social Footprints – Comprehension Worksheet
A comprehension worksheet paired with a comic about being safe when sharing photos on digital platforms.
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What's the Author's Purpose? - Sorting Activity
A sorting activity to help students identify the author’s purpose for a piece of text.
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Identify Author's Purpose Poster
A poster highlighting how to identify the author's purpose when reading a piece of text.
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Exploring Poetry Worksheet - Context, Purpose and Audience
A worksheet to help students understand context, purpose and audience in poetry.