Author's Purpose | Project Based Learning
Students will explore author’s purpose at a kindergarten level by listening to, talking about, drawing, and dictating/write-making about books that are written to entertain, teach, or share information. In a project-based task, students will create a simple class book page showing one type of author’s purpose and explain their thinking using pictures, words, and oral language.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| author | The person who writes a book or text. |
| purpose | The reason an author wrote something. |
| entertain | To make readers enjoy, laugh, or feel interested. |
| teach | To help readers learn how to do something. |
| inform | To give facts or information. |
Show a book cover and ask, 'Why do you think the author wrote this?' Record student ideas with pictures and simple words. Introduce author and purpose.
Turn and talk, share ideas, and help build the class anchor chart.
Read or show short examples of a story, an information book, and a how-to text. Model thinking aloud to sort each one as entertain, teach, or inform using simple language and pictures.
Listen, point to matching icons, and repeat the sentence frame: 'The author wrote this to ___.’
Place picture cards on the board or floor. Guide students to work together to sort each card into one of three purpose categories. Ask why they chose each one.
Help sort cards, justify choices with drawings, gestures, or oral language, and move cards into correct groups.
Explain the project: each student will create one page for a class book showing one type of author’s purpose. Model a simple example with a drawing and caption.
Choose one purpose, then plan a page with a picture and a dictated or emergent-writing sentence.
Conference with students, prompting them to explain their choice. Support writing with sentence frames, word banks, invented spelling, and drawing prompts.
Draw their example, add labels or a sentence, and explain their page to a partner or teacher.
Invite a few students to present their pages. Help classmates name the purpose and give simple feedback.
Share their work, listen to peers, and make one small revision if needed.
Collect pages, show the completed class book cover, and review the three purposes one more time.
Celebrate the project and say one thing they learned about author’s purpose.
Revisit the anchor chart and ask students to name the three reasons authors write. End with a brief class chant: 'Authors write to entertain, teach, and inform!'
Students will be assessed with a teacher checklist and project page rubric for identifying author’s purpose, participating in sorting, and communicating understanding through drawing, labels, oral explanation, or emergent writing.
Send home a simple family task: find one book, magazine, or sign at home and tell a grown-up whether it was written to entertain, teach, or inform. Students may draw the item and bring it back to share.