The End of Author's Purpose

Well if you've been reading, you know we've been working on Author's Purpose in my classroom this week.  I don't know what it was about this year, or who sprinkled the magic fairy dust, but my class just GOT it!  They absolutely ROCKED this unit-- they understood each purpose, they had great discussion, they gave great examples, and they asked great questions!  What more could a teacher ask for?!?!

So, to wrap it all up, I thought I'd share how the rest of the week went, with a few pictures, too!

(To quickly recap, Monday we learned "to inform", Tuesday we learned "to explain", and Wednesday we learned "to entertain".  The materials and posters below are from my Investigating Intent Pack on TpT!)

Thursday, we explored the world of persuasion!  My little investigators learned all about text written "to persuade"!  They came up with LOTS of great examples-- ads for toys, pictures and mailings from Sea World, posters to tell you to eat healthy.....AND they even mentioned the flyers in their "Tuesday Folders" (these are the folders that go home once a week with flyers for after school or weekend activities, order form for yearbooks, shirts, etc., as well as their graded papers from the week).  Didn't they do great with all the connections?!  At the end of this discussion, I read a Joy Berry Help Me Be Good book about disobeying.  The kiddos sat and listened to what Joy Berry was convincing us to do, and how (and why!) she was persuading us to do it!  Afterwards, they filled out a little notecard (then glued it on our poster) like this:

Some of them are quite funny, and others are VERY accurate!!!

On Friday, we discussed text written "to describe".  These are books or poems or basically anything that is well described and has a lot of sensory details!  Again, my class was awesome at making the connection that really anything could be written to describe, as long as the author included enough details.  So, to piggy-back off their thoughts, we "brainstormed" at our tables things that could be described in text.  Look how great they did:

Throughout the week, we also cut out our "Investigating Lenses" to use as a little mini-formative assessment....they cut them out as we learned each one, then paperclipped them in their Reading Notebooks.  Then, we'd spend about 3 minutes holding up different books or giving different examples, and the class would have to hold up the "lens" with the correct intent!  Super fun, super easy, AND a super reliable way to quickly see comprehension!

Let me just tell you, the lenses as eyeballs definitely did not start out as my idea....

So that, my friends, was my remarkable week!  Thinking back, I don't think I had this much fun with this unit last year...BUT I may have even more fun with it next year!  Who knows!  If you have any questions about my unit, or want to add any tips or tricks for everyone, please feel free to leave a comment!  I'd love to hear from you.