Search Printable Common Core Identifying the Author's Purpose Worksheets

Students read an excerpt adapted from L. Frank Baum’s short story “The Girl Who Owned a Bear” and answer reading comprehension questions about the text.

Learners will practice identifying the author's purpose in eight sample paragraphs, using text evidence to support their choice.

Authors persuade, inform, and entertain through various types of writing! Students set out to identify the author’s purpose.

This worksheet will help your child understand what similes are, and she'll even get to use her imagination to write some of her own!

All authors write for a reason, be it to explain, entertain, or persuade their readers. In this activity, your students will consider the author’s purpose of a book of their choosing, then justify their answer.

This four-page worksheet gives students a chance to engage deeply with a rigorous nonfiction text about government funding for space exploration.

Learn about what makes certain elements cooler than others in this chemistry-based informational reading passage! 

How is a train like a bird? Find out in this sixth-grade informational reading comprehension worksheet all about biomimicry!

Use this high-interest text with your students to practice recognizing the author’s point of view. Students will determine the author’s viewpoint on the subject of the Titanic as they establish their own points of view.

This discussion guide helps readers reflect on chapters 1–38 of The One and Only Ivan.

Identifying the author’s purpose is as easy as P-I-E with the right mnemonic device!

This sample nonfiction text about basketball helps students to explore author's point of view.

This short nonfiction text will teach students about the ocean, and includes questions to help students identify the author’s point of view and purpose for writing the text by focusing on important vocabulary words that support the main idea.

Learners will categorize 12 different types of text according to why the author would write them, using the acronym PIE as a mnemonic device.

Learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, the groundbreaking first lady known for her humanitarian work and for being the first U.S.delegate to the United Nations in 1942.

Use this graphic organizer to give students an opportunity to practice identifying the central idea of a text using key details.

Use these questions to encourage critical thinking and support literacy development as students read the first few diary entries of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

Students are asked to distinguish between first and third person narration as well as fiction or nonfiction writing.

Help your second grade students identify the author’s purpose as they answer questions about a nonfiction text.

Use this science-themed resource with your students to practice recognizing the author’s point of view in a text about life cycles. Students will determine the author’s viewpoint on the subject as they establish their own points of view.

Students read and analyze an excerpt from E. Nesbit’s 1906 novel, The Railway Children, in this four-page reading comprehension worksheet.

BOOM! This worksheet is full of all kinds of sound-based words, from creaks to squeaks.

Use this worksheet to encourage critical thinking and support students’ literacy development by asking questions before, during, and after reading.

This graphic organizer helps students work through a nonfiction text to help organize information about the author’s point, and the reasons and evidence used to support it.