author's purpose strand teks talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Author's purpose and craft: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies author's craft purposefully in order to develop his or her own products and performances.
Mood is an atmosphere or feeling created by the writer in a literary work. Students should be able to recognize how authors create emotional environments in which the reader can engage with the topic. Students should consider how the use of certain words creates patterns of emotion in the writing which help the reader understand the overall feelings the author is hoping to draw from the reader.
Students are expected to examine tone, or the use of language in texts to determine how it expresses the author’s feelings toward the subject. Students should understand that authors may reveal their own attitudes toward their subjects through figurative and literal language. For example, in an article about retired professional athletes, students might recognize repeated, favorable references and comparisons to Greek gods and mythological victories. From this, students could reasonably conclude that the writer is expressing a tone of adoration for the athletes and their past successes.
Students are expected to examine how authors use words and phrases to create a style of writing that expresses the author’s distinct perspective on a subject. For an author’s voice to be recognizable, it should be consistent throughout the text. Having a strong voice in writing is comparable to being eloquent in speech; it requires using language in a way that seems natural, engaging, and authentic to the audience.

Research

Maine, F. (2013). How children talk together to make meaning from texts: A dialogic perspective on reading comprehension strategies. Literacy, 47(3), 150–156. doi:10.1111/lit.12010

Summary: The analysis of how text structure contributes to the author's purpose is examined from the reader's perspective instead of from the writer's. The findings of the study reveal that student talk allows students to question the reading and draw multiple interpretations of the author's intention. In the study, students used creative and hypothetical scenarios. The article includes a discussion on the benefits of creative dialogue and innovation.