Help your Grade 8 students master author’s purpose the way RI.8.6 actually demands it: not just determining purpose and point of view, but analyzing how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints. This complete unit teaches students to find the author’s purpose and position, spot where the author raises the other side, and name exactly how the author answers it - refute, concede and counter, reframe, or qualify.

Where younger students distinguish a position from others, Grade 8 readers analyze how the author engages the opposition. The keystone Counterargument Response Statement brings the purpose, the acknowledged conflicting view, the response move, and its effect into one analytical sentence students can apply to any persuasive text.

WHAT IS INCLUDED

• 52-slide Google Slides / PowerPoint deck, 10 lessons, with full speaker notes
• Worksheet 1: author’s-purpose vocabulary, purpose sorting with PIE, acknowledged view versus author’s position, quick check (2 pages)
• Worksheet 2: identifying signal phrases, naming the response move (2 pages)
• Worksheet 3: independent analysis, Counterargument Response Statement, self-assessment (2 pages)
• Exit ticket with an original unseen persuasive passage and a four-task assessment
• 4-point assessment rubric with teaching notes and differentiation guidance

CCSS STANDARDS

RI.8.6 - Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author acknowledges and responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints

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