Activities

1. Recall events in an informational text.
   
   
2. Identify the intended audience of an informational text.
   
   
3. Identify the author’s purpose.

4. Recall events in an informational text.
   
   
5. Identify the intended audience of an informational text.
   
   
6. Identify the author’s purpose.

7. Explain the relationship between how an event or topic is presented (its organizational structures, author's purpose, etc.) across multiple texts and what can be inferred about the authors' points of view.
   
   
8. Describe how choices made by the author shape the content.
   
   
9. Analyze the texts to better understand the author’s viewpoint, attitude, and purpose.
   
   
10. Draw conclusions about the effect or effectiveness of different types of accounts on the same topic.

Answer Key/Rubric

1. Student is able to recall the events in an informational text. These are the main ideas or main points made in the text. From memory or with some support from the text, the student recalls the events.
   
   
2. Student identifies the audience of an informational piece of writing. Being able to recognize the intended audience contributes to the understanding of the text. Identifying the audience might include recognizing such things as:

• if the audience has the same perspective or attitude as the author.
• what the audience’s prior knowledge about the topic is.
• how much the audience needs to know about the topic.

3. Student identifies the author’s purpose in writing. Possible purposes include: inform, persuade, explain or entertain. Being able to understand the author’s purpose contributes to the understanding of the text.

4. Using two or more accounts of the same event or topic, the student compares and contrasts the information about the topic.  The student uses evidence from the texts, both explicit as well as inferred and generalized, to find the similarities and differences. 
   
   
5. Student recognizes that authors have personal viewpoints, focuses, and biases.  Using evidence from the text, the student determines what the author’s viewpoint, focus, or bias is within the presented text. 
   
   
6. After identifying the audience and the audience’s needs, the student describes how well the author has met the needs of the audience.  For example, if the audience needs to have background information provided, has the author adequately done so? 

7. The student considers how the event or topic is presented by the author in multiple texts.  Elements such as the organizational structure and the author’s purpose are considered.  After looking at several texts, the student begins to consider how the authors’ points of view might be expressed by how the text is constructed. 
   
   
8. The student considers multiple choices the author made in how the text was constructed such as:

• including or omitting information.
• word choices.
• the organizational structure of the text.

The student describes how these and other choices made by the author affect the overall content and effectiveness of the writing.

9. The student extensively analyzes multiple texts to discover the author’s viewpoint, attitude, and purpose.  An intimate understanding of how these are evident and used in the writings is critical in considering the similarities and differences among the texts.
   
   
10. After reading and analyzing multiple texts on the same topic, the student draws conclusions about the effect or effectiveness of the various topics.

• Why is one writing more effective than another? 
• What makes writing more effective? 
• Less effective?