Authors Purpose Worksheets

About this resource

Why did the author write this? That one question is the whole skill, and children need to answer it with proof, not a lucky circle. This kit gives 18 short original passages and asks for the clue words every time. A child reads a passage, circles whether the author wants to persuade, inform or entertain, and then writes the words in the text that showed it. Every passage has one main job, so there is one defensible answer, and the clue box is the evidence.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (27 pages)

• 14 student pages in 7 page types: Meet the Three Purposes, Read and Decide (four pages), Find the Clue Words (two pages), Where Would You Find It?, Fill It In (two pages), Cut and Paste (three pages) and Write Your Own
• 18 short passages written for this file: 6 persuade, 6 inform and 6 entertain (12 to decide on the Read and Decide pages, 6 to find clues in)
• 63 scored items on 12 pages, every answer read from the data that draws the page, never typed by hand
• 25 cut-and-paste pieces on 3 sort mats (8, 8 and 9 pieces), each a sentence with one clear purpose
• 2 answer keys, generated from the same data as the student pages, with the accepted clue words for every passage
• 1 tracker (page, page type, items right, date) and 1 whole-class progress grid
• 1 home page and 1 filled example (an invented student)
• Binder cover and 7 divider tabs (one per page type, plus a spine label)
• Start Here and a how-to-read-a-page page

The Page Types

1. Meet the Three Purposes (1 dot): persuade, inform and entertain on three cards, with what the author wants, clue words and what each looks like, plus three lines to write on.

2. Read and Decide, 4 pages (2 dots): three passages a page. Circle Persuade, Inform or Entertain, then write the words that told you. No page holds one of each purpose, so a child cannot finish a page by elimination.

3. Find the Clue Words, 2 pages (1 dot): three passages a page. The purpose is printed, and the child writes two clue words from the passage.

4. Where Would You Find It? (1 dot): eight kinds of writing with a title (a poster, a science book, a story, a commercial, a magazine article, a joke book, a letter, a weather report). Circle why each was written.

5. Fill It In, 2 pages (2 or 3 dots): Set A finishes six definitions (author, reader, purpose, fact, opinion, clue); Set B finishes six sentences about the three purposes. Each box holds nine words and only six are used, so the child has to read.

6. Cut and Paste, 3 pages (1, 2 or 3 dots): a big mat and a block of 8 or 9 sentences that touch edge to edge, so cutting is a few straight lines. Paste 1 sorts persuade and inform; Paste 2 sorts inform and entertain; Paste 3 sorts all three.

7. Write Your Own (3 dots): pick a topic, then write to persuade, to inform and to entertain on ruled lines, and draw the funniest part.

One Clear Purpose Per Passage

Persuade passages state an opinion and ask the reader to act ("should," "best," "please"). Inform passages state only checkable facts, with no opinion words. Entertain passages tell a story with a named character and talking. The data for the file is checked for this before it prints, so a passage cannot quietly drift into a second purpose. No real book is quoted; every passage and every sentence is original.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction, large rounded type, big answer boxes, and dots (not words or colors) to show which level a page is. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. Every passage has its own clue box, and the last page has a drawing box, so there is room to work.

No Guessing The Answer

Wherever a child picks among printed spots (the purpose of each passage, the kind of writing, where a word sits in the box, the order of the pieces on the cut strip), the position of the right answer is checked so it does not sit in the same spot three times in a row. The fill-in boxes carry three spare words each.

Type In, Or Print

The name line, every answer box and every writing line are type-in fields in any PDF reader: click one, type, then save. The same goes for the tracker, the class grid and the home page. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Third through fifth grade classrooms, resource rooms and small groups, and any teacher who needs a reading center, a morning work page or sub-plan reading that checks for evidence. The sentences are short and the teacher can read each passage aloud.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

An author's purpose worksheet set with the record-keeping around it. It is not a timed test, a screener, a clinical tool, or a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. It uses the three purposes persuade, inform and entertain only. There is no IEP goal language or eligibility wording anywhere in the file.