Metacognition in Literacy
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Author's Purpose
What is Author's Purpose?
The author has both a purpose for writing and a message to share in their text. The author's message, which is usually found in fiction, is the big idea that the author wants to share with his audience. With younger children, it is important that they understand that they are the audience. The author writes the text for them to learn a lesson. When the author includes a lesson in their story, it is something for the children to think about as they are reading. In other words, the author's message is the underlying moral/lesson of the story the author wants their audience to understand.
Author's purpose can be found in both fiction and non fiction text. It is the reason why the author has written in the story. There are three main reasons why authors write for an audience: to entertain, inform or persuade. Just like with the message, it is up to the audience to interpret the author's purpose is for each text. Crafty teachers have thought of the acronym PIE to remember the reasons; the P standing for persuade, the I for inform, and the E for entertain.
Going into our website's creation of metacognitive thinking, author's message and purpose are a great way for students to think about what they are reading while they are reading it. More on this below.
Author's purpose can be found in both fiction and non fiction text. It is the reason why the author has written in the story. There are three main reasons why authors write for an audience: to entertain, inform or persuade. Just like with the message, it is up to the audience to interpret the author's purpose is for each text. Crafty teachers have thought of the acronym PIE to remember the reasons; the P standing for persuade, the I for inform, and the E for entertain.
Going into our website's creation of metacognitive thinking, author's message and purpose are a great way for students to think about what they are reading while they are reading it. More on this below.
Author's Purpose and Metacognition
Most teachers use author's purpose in their time in Reader's Workshop. You start in a whole group setting, using a mentor text to find the author's purpose. Usually after that they go off and find the author's purpose in their own just right texts. The metacognition comes in when we tell students to think about the author's purpose while also listening to the text being read aloud, or reading to themselves. In a study done by Mary Ann Wham, it was found that using metacognitive thinking while reading, greatly increases comprehension skills. Author's purpose is a way to test if students have comprehended what they have read. Using both the metacognitive strategy to find the element of author's purpose gives children an overall better understanding of what they are reading.
How to Teach Author's Purpose
Samantha Cleaver gives five easy and comprehensible ways to teach author's purpose:
1. Start With Why: get students familiar with asking the questions "why did the author write this?" You can keep an anchor chart up like the PIE one above, or make them create a class list themselves.
2. Talk About Structure: what kind of structure does the text have? Does it go in a sequential order, is it a personal narrative? The structure of the text helps students to better understand the purpose.
3. Get to the Heart: what is the author trying to make the reader feel? Is there an emotion the author wants to convey? Why did he write with this emotion?
4. Connect to the Student's Writing: students should practice writing for different purposes. It makes it easier for them to recognize these different purposes, and also practices their writing and reading skills.
5. How does Purpose Change: within a reading, the purpose might change. It's important for students to be able to recognize the different purposes for writing throughout parts of the text. This can be done by breaking it apart piece by piece and having students analyze that certain part.
1. Start With Why: get students familiar with asking the questions "why did the author write this?" You can keep an anchor chart up like the PIE one above, or make them create a class list themselves.
2. Talk About Structure: what kind of structure does the text have? Does it go in a sequential order, is it a personal narrative? The structure of the text helps students to better understand the purpose.
3. Get to the Heart: what is the author trying to make the reader feel? Is there an emotion the author wants to convey? Why did he write with this emotion?
4. Connect to the Student's Writing: students should practice writing for different purposes. It makes it easier for them to recognize these different purposes, and also practices their writing and reading skills.
5. How does Purpose Change: within a reading, the purpose might change. It's important for students to be able to recognize the different purposes for writing throughout parts of the text. This can be done by breaking it apart piece by piece and having students analyze that certain part.