I got to thinking about Author’s Purpose a while back while I was planning to teach it to my 2nd and 3rd graders.
I’ve seen a lot of posts and resources that include the acronym PIE: persuade, inform, entertain. While I think pie is yummy, I thought maybe a more suitable acronym might be better for primary learners. It would not only make more sense in terms of the classroom but also maybe it would be easier to understand. I wanted to use the concept of Author’s Purpose both for reading comprehension but also to teach students how to write with a purpose in mind. That’s how S.I.T. was created!
Authors may write for the purpose of SWAYING (persuading) the reader towards their way of thinking or their opinion about a certain topic. I like to use this component of Author’s Purpose when I teach OPINION writing or speech writing.
Authors may write to INTEREST (entertain) the reader. Robert Munsch is a great example of this! Using author studies to teach this aspect of author’s purpose is a great way to showcase entertaining NARRATIVES that spark our interest in different ways through different genres: humor, mystery, fantasy etc.
Author’s may write to TELL (inform) the reader some information. Using your collection of non-fiction books, students will see that some books are meant to give them information. Students can then practice writing to tell others facts and definitions about the topic they are writing about.
In order for my students to practice the concepts of SIT, I created a task card set for them to use to determine if the author is trying to sway, interest or tell us something. I chose topics that would interest students and/or are part of our curriculum and I created task cards that sway, interest and tell for each of these topics. That way, students can see that authors can have the same topic but write in such a way that their purpose is different!
These are the topics I used:
Dogs
Water
Toys
School
Tropical Rainforest
and 2 blanks for students or the teacher to create their own based on a topic they might be interested in or are studying about.
If you would like to check out this set yourself, click on the picture below. This set has also been bundled with my Main Idea set if you need both.
( Thanks to KG fonts, Keith Geswein frames, Graphics from the Pond Letters)
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