Teaching Author's Purpose & Viewpoint


Hey everyone! It's Anna from Hanging with Mrs. Hulsey! Today I'm going to give a few suggestions for teaching author's purpose and viewpoint!

First, I like to lump these 2 topics together-- I teach them separately-- but when I check for understanding I question students over both topics.

I usually start with author's purpose because it's something they (hopefully) have heard before. We discuss the idea that author's purpose is "as easy as PIE". Then we work to create a basic definition for an anchor chart. Some fun activities for author's purpose include an actual book sort (bring lots from the library or have them help you sort your classroom library) OR a scholastic book order sort.
This one is really easy and quick-- you just need construction paper, book order catalogs, and scissors/glue. Students cut and paste book titles onto their papers.

After we spend a day or 2 on author's purpose we switch over to author's viewpoint. This can be a little more tricky-- but students tend to enjoy it because they can share their own opinions over topics. I begin by teaching about 3 possible viewpoints: positive, negative, and neutral.

Sometimes I read short passages and quickly ask-- what was the author's viewpoint? How do you know? Can you compare and contrast your own viewpoint over the topic?

This is a great topic to lump in with opinion writing! Give each student a controversial topic and let them write a paragraph. Then, have them switch with someone else and write about the viewpoints.

One quick activity I came up with this week involved our Scholastic News magazine! I gave the students a copy-- had them read the articles-- and then gave them this paper:
They chose an article and filled out the news review! It was quick, easy, and a great way for me to judge who was understanding the topic and who was struggling.

You can grab the news review HERE in my TPT store!

Do you have any suggestions I can add to my bag of tricks for next year? If so, I'd love to hear it! Thanks for reading!

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