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Lesson Plan

What's the Point?

Give your students practice explaining how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text. With these sports-themed texts, students will make inferences about the author and use text evidence to prove it.
Need extra help for EL students? Try the Match Author's Point with Evidence pre-lesson.
Grade
Fifth Grade
Subject
Reading & Writing
English Learner
English Learner Content
View aligned standards
RI.5.8
Need extra help for EL students? Try the Match Author's Point with Evidence pre-lesson.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to determine author's purpose and point of view in informational texts.

The adjustment to the whole group lesson is a modification to differentiate for children who are English learners.
EL adjustments

Introduction

(5 minutes)
Tennis: Nonfiction TextSoccer: Nonfiction TextBasketball: Nonfiction TextGraphic Organizer: Author's Purpose & Point of View
  • Tell students that when we read a text, we know that the author presents the reader with information that they want the reader to believe or know.
  • Define the key terms for today's lesson and encourage students to use these terms as they explain their answers.
    • Purpose is a reason for doing something. An author has a reason they chose to write about a certain topic.
    • Evidence consists of the facts and details found in the text that support or give proof of something.
    • Reasons are explanations and provide support and proof of something.
  • Explain that the author supports the information with reasons and evidence. These parts of the text give readers more information about the topic and why they believe what the text says.
  • As we read, we have to ask ourselves questions to help us focus on finding out the author's purpose for writing.
  • We have to ask:
    • What is the author’s purpose? Why did the author write this—to inform, to persuade, or to entertain?
    • What does the author want me to know after I read this passage?
    • What point is the author making?
    • What reasons or evidence are being used in the passage to support the point the author is trying to make?

Beginning

  • Pre-teach the words "define," "evidence," and "author's purpose" (i.e., to persuade, to inform, to entertain) to ELs using visuals and definitions in their home language (L1) or their new language (L2).
  • Allow them to restate why it's important to understand the author's purpose in a passage in their L1 or L2.

Intermediate

  • Provide examples of an author's reasons, evidence, and purpose with a familiar text.
  • Allow students to speak in partners in their L1 or L2 to retell information they heard from the teacher.