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Author's Purpose Anchor Chart – Reading Reference

Persuade, Inform and Entertain are laid out as the three sides of P-I-E on a reading reference chart, each with a student-friendly gloss, and a second copy strips the definitions out and adds the sentence frame "The author wrote this text to ______. I know this because ______."
Grades
Grades 1–3
File type
PDF
Preparation
Print ready

Updated Apr 01, 2022

Subject
Reading, ELA
Topic
Anchor Chart, Reading Chart
Resource types
Anchor Charts, Teacher Tools
Preparation
Print ready

From the author

About this resource

This resource is a set of 2 charts">anchor charts for author's purpose. The first chart is complete. The second chart is a fill in the blank. These charts work well displayed on a bulletin board or inserted into students' reading notebooks.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

  • Name the three purposes an author writes for — to persuade, to inform, to entertain — using the P-I-E device as the memory hook

  • Match a purpose to its description: opinion and persuasion, facts and details, or making a reader laugh or cry

  • State the purpose of a text read in class and back the judgement with evidence, using the printed sentence frame

  • Ask "Why did the author write the text?" as a routine question when meeting a new text

Teaching tips

  • Display the completed page as the classroom reference and hand out the blank one, so students build the same chart themselves rather than copying a finished poster

  • The sentence frame carries the reasoning step — "I know this because" — so it is worth insisting on the second half of the sentence whenever the chart is used

  • Reduce the blank page to notebook size for a reading journal; the layout has no fine detail that suffers from shrinking

  • Both pages carry an RI6 mark in the corner, which is a strand reference the contributor has added to the design rather than a heading students need to read

Skills covered

  • Identifying author's purpose — students decide whether a text was written to persuade, inform or entertain, using the three glosses printed on the completed chart.

  • Evidence-based reasoning — the blank version's sentence frame requires "I know this because ______", so a purpose judgement has to be justified from the text.

  • Distinguishing opinion from fact — the persuade description centres on the author's opinion and talking a reader into something, while the inform description centres on facts and details.

  • Building a reference chart — teachers post the completed version and have students complete the blank one for a reading notebook, giving classroom display and personal copy the same wording.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

In Author's Purpose Anchor Chart – Reading Reference, how do the two pages work together?

The first is finished and the second is not. Page one carries the three purpose descriptions ready to display; page two keeps the title, the question "Why did the author write the text?" and the P-I-E strapline but leaves the purpose boxes empty and adds a sentence frame for students to complete.

What does the P-I-E strapline stand for?

Persuade, Inform and Entertain — the three purposes the chart describes. The chart spells out each one in student language: giving an opinion to talk us into something, giving facts and details, and making us laugh or cry.

What is the RI6 mark in the corner of each page?

A strand reference the designer printed into the chart, pointing at the informational-reading standard that covers author's purpose. It is part of the artwork rather than something students read, and it sits in the lower corner of both the completed and the blank page.

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Resource details

Concepts & topics

Core concepts

  • Author's purpose

  • Persuade, inform, entertain

  • Reading comprehension

  • Anchor chart

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