Author ’ s Purpose

1. Author’s Purpose Reading Street Unit 1 Week 2 Created by Kristi Waltke

2. Let’s Review

3. Good readers summarize. As they read, they pause to sum up the important ideas or events. This helps them remember the information. As you read a story, note the main events. After you read, ask yourself what the main events were and in what order they occurred.

4. Author’s Purpose An author may have more than one purpose within a story. You will often be asked question about why an author includes what he or she does in a story. The author’s purpose is the reason or reasons the author has for writing. An author may write to persuade, to inform, to entertain, or to express ideas and feelings.

5. Why do you think Kate DiCamillo includes in the description how the bear smelled and how big he was in her story Because of Winn-Dixie? She wanted to give her readers vivid details so that they could understand how frightened Miss Franny must have been. She wanted to persuade her readers to become afraid of close encounters with bears. This gives us more information and a better understanding of her characters.

6. Why do you think Kate DiCamillo wrote the part of Because of Winn-Dixie that is in our reading book? She wanted to compare dogs and bears. She wanted to entertain her readers with a funny story.

7. Why does Laurie Myers tell us the information about the paws of Newfoundland dogs? She wanted to inform the readers of how the Newfoundland dog’s paws had a good design for swimming. She shows us how tempted Lewis was to choose a different type of dog.

8. Why does the author include part of Captain Lewis’s journal in the story on p. 48? The author wanted the genre of the story to be fantasy. The journal shows that the story was based on an actual event.

9. Why does the author write “Lewis’s face was better than all the men’s praise added together?” She wants to show Seamen’s feelings of love and respect towards Lewis. She wants to show that Seamen would like to leave Lewis now and live with another explorer.

10. What is the author’s purpose in telling this story from a dog’s point of view? Telling the story from a dog’s point of view is entertaining. She wants to persuade kids to write stories from their dog’s point of view.

11. Remember that an author’s purpose is the reason an author has for writing.