Activities

1. Recall the definitions of first person point-of-view, third person point-of-view (both limited and omniscient), and persona in nonfiction writing.
   
   
2. Identify the point-of-view or persona in a nonfiction text.
   
   
3. Compare two different nonfiction texts employing first person point-of-view.
   
   
4. Explain how the meaning of a text that uses limited third person point-of-view would be different if it used omniscient third person point-of-view instead.
   
   
5. Analyze how the use of point-of-view or persona advances, supports or contributes to the meaning of the text as a whole.
   
   
6. Draw a conclusion about why an author choice a specific point-of-view given the author’s purpose for the text as a whole.

Answer Key/Rubric

1. Students accurately define, in speech or in writing, first person point-of-view, third person point-of-view and persona in nonfiction writing.
   
   
2. Students are able to identify the use of a variety of points-of-view in different nonfiction texts. Student does not confuse point-of-view with a main character or narrator. To extend the objective, student is able to detect when an author employs a persona through point-of-view.
   
   
3. When reading two texts of first person point-of-view, students are able to identify ways in which this point-of-view contributes to the text’s meaning, diction, style, tone and narrative structure. Student also identifies and explains how the use of different styles of first-person shapes the writer’s voice.
   
   
4. Students are able to explain the differences in third person limited and third person omniscient. They can explain how each type contributes to and shapes the meaning of the text as a whole. Students can also then extend and demonstrate their understanding of these points-of-view by explaining how a text’s meaning would be different if it used one as opposed to the other.
   
   
5. Students appropriately and artfully make connections between the use of point-of-view in a text to the meaning of the text as a whole. By filtering what the reader comes in contact with, learns about the narrative through, receives information from—students demonstrate understanding that point-of-view is the entry point to reading and understanding the text as a whole.
   
   
6. Students appropriately and artfully formulate hypotheses and draw conclusions about why an author choice to organize a text through a specific point-of-view. Students can organize their thinking by what the text gains in terms of meaning, style and tone through this specific point-of-view.

Suggested Rubric:  This rubric may be used to assess a student’s overall mastery of the standard or eligible content.