Help your Grade 3 students master author’s purpose the way RI.3.8 and RI.3.6 actually ask for it: find the author’s point and the reasons that support it, and tell the author’s view apart from their own. This complete unit teaches students to figure out why an author wrote and to back it up with reasons.

Students learn the three purposes with the PIE trick - persuade, inform, entertain - how to find the author’s main point, how to spot the reasons that support it, and how to tell the author’s view from their own. The keystone Point + Reason Statement builds the purpose, the point, and a supporting reason into one reusable sentence students can use with any text.

WHAT IS INCLUDED

• 52-slide Google Slides / PowerPoint deck, 10 lessons, with full speaker notes
• Worksheet 1: author’s purpose vocabulary, PIE sorting, name the purpose, quick check (2 pages)
• Worksheet 2: find the point, find the reasons (2 pages)
• Worksheet 3: independent purpose, point, and reason, Point + Reason Statement, self-check (2 pages)
• Exit ticket with an original unseen passage and a four-task assessment
• 4-point assessment rubric with teaching notes and differentiation guidance

CCSS STANDARDS

RI.3.8 - Describe the logical connection between particular sentences and paragraphs in a text, such as how reasons support a point
RI.3.6 - Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text

All passages are original - not recycled public-domain filler.