Deepen students’ understanding of author’s purpose beyond PIE using these seven effective strategies.
Books, newspapers, TV, signs, and the internet bombard us with loads of information.
Some of that information is purposeful, but much of it is meant to negatively impact our behavior or mindset.
That’s why it’s essential to equip students with the right tools so that they can easily identify the purpose of a writer’s message and its impact on the reader.
Make these author’s purpose beyond pie strategies part of your author’s purpose activities so that students soar with this learning objective.
How to Move Author’s Purpose Beyond PIE
1. Expand Author’s Purpose Vocabulary.
When asked about the author’s purpose of a text, students will most likely use “persuade”, “inform”, and/or “entertain”.
They are simply repeating what they have been taught.
But instead of persuade, they could use “convince”, or “encourage”.
For inform, they could use “tell” or “enlighten”.
For entertain, what about “engage” or “amuse”?
Teaching a variety of words expands students’ thinking.
With all of the book genres and texts students read, not all of those books have an author’s message that fits neatly into one of the categories of “persuade”, “inform”, or “entertain”.
So it’s essential that students have a wide vocabulary as it relates to the reason why an author writes a particular message.
Help students expand their vocabulary using these author’s purpose bookmarks.
2. Analyze a Variety of Genres.
Though there are many fiction and picture books that do more than just entertain, nonfiction texts are ideal resources to use when it comes to analyzing an author’s message.
Think biographies, science/social studies-themed books, billboards, slogans, menus, newspapers, campaign signs, advertisements, etc.
These types of real word print are all around us and have clever messaging.
Encourage students to engage with these types of texts.
Assign projects where they have to bring in samples to class for discussion, create their own real-world print samples, or participate in a book scavenger hunt looking for evidence/clues to support their opinions about an author’s message.
3. Use Video.
When teaching author’s purpose beyond pie, videos are always a hit.
Child-appropriate commercials, infomercials, and campaigns are amazing for teaching author’s purpose beyond pie.
Example…
A toy commercial uses flashy objects, colorful pictures, laughing children, and upbeat music.
Why is that?
Do students realize that they’re being targeted and encouraged to want those products?
Another example…
A commercial with lonesome cats and dogs isolated in cages plays sad, slow music… the camera shows close-ups of the animals’ sad faces, and you can’t help but feel heartbroken, right?
Do students see what that commercial did?
When we teach students the motives behind the commercials and the tactics used to change mindset and behavior, they are better equipped to make informed opinions about an author’s purpose.
4. Incorporate Project-Based Learning.
Assign students tasks where they need to create and then analyze various texts for author’s purpose.
Ideas to consider…
- Draft a news story about an event that happened recently in the community.
- Brainstorm a few jokes.
- Write a speech persuading classmates to consider a special cause.
- Outline the steps of a favorite recipe.
- Write a description of a favorite animal.
- Review, in written form, a book or movie recently read/seen.
- Draft a letter sharing after school routine.
- Compose a simple reader’s theater script.
- Write a persuasive essay.
- Share a hilarious event that happened with family or friends.
After students create their projects, they will exchange their work with a classmate.
Each child will analyze the other’s creation and determine the author’s purpose beyond pie.
5. Teach Author Bias.
It’s important to teach students that authors usually have a bias when writing.
Authors try to get us to think or behave in a certain way. This fits a personal agenda of theirs whether it’s obvious or not to the reader.
This is very evident in billboards, advertisements, and political literature.
These types of texts LOVE to appeal to our emotions, fears, desires, etc.
These guided questions help students decipher an author’s purpose beyond pie:
- Why is the author writing this?
- What behavior is he trying to get me to do?
- Is the author trying to change my mindset?
- What action is the author wanting me to take?
- How much evidence does the author use to support this opinion?
- Is there any information that the author doesn’t want me to know?
These are questions that students should ask themselves as they analyze an author’s purpose beyond pie.
These questions help students think critically.
6. Study Text Features.
Authors use a variety of text features to support their message. This is especially true in nonfiction books.
- Italics and bold type words show importance and emphasize an important idea.
- Charts and graphs support an author’s message using visual appeal and numbers.
- Interesting and attention-grabbing headlines or subtitles are sometimes used to entice the reader.
- Photos and illustrations use imagery to support an author’s message.
In regards to a nonfiction book about recycling, if the author shows a photo of a landfill that expands for miles and miles, the reader is more likely to agree with the author that recycling is important because it reduces waste.
And if the reader thinks recycling is important, he or she will probably be convinced to do so.
Authors also organize their texts in a way to reinforce their message.
They may…
- put the most important ideas at the beginning or end of the book (inform technique)
- strategically give several examples to support an opinion directly after stating that opinion (persuasion technique)
- put information in an easy-to-read format (such as bullets or steps) so that the reader can understand it better (inform technique)
- use lots of pictures and very few words (entertain technique)
Helping students understand how text features support an author’s message will surely help them develop into clever consumers of information.
7. Examine Types of Author’s Purpose In Books.
Authors may write for more than one reason. One book or text doesn’t necessarily have one purpose.
For example, a book about recycling may inform the reader about the amount of trash that is thrown out every year per household.
Somewhere else within that book (or maybe even on the same page), the author may try to encourage the reader to recycle.
Not all texts have more than one purpose, but many do.
Guide students in analyzing how and why an author writes for various reasons within one text.
Final Thoughts: Author’s Purpose Beyond PIE
That popular cutesy P.I.E visual provides a good foundation for author’s purpose.
But when students are ready, these 7 helpful strategies will definitely help them move beyond P.I.E.
They will grow into mature readers and critical thinkers.
And when they finally go out into the real world and get exposed to a sea of information 24/7, we can be sure that they have the tools needed to be smart content consumers.