author's purpose & analyzing an editorial - unit 11.3

Author’s Purpose and Position

What are our learning goals?

To understand and identify the different purposes of texts.

To review the distinction between non-fiction and fiction.

To understand how the author’s position affects the text.

What is author’s purpose? Did you know that

everything you read has a purpose?

When an author writes something (book, magazine, textbook, newspaper article), he/she chooses his/her words for a purpose.

What is the purpose? The author’s purpose

is the main reason that he/she has for writing the selection.

The author’s purpose will be to: Entertain Inform Persuade

E.g., Edgar Allan Poe, the “father of the detective story” wrote with the purpose of entertaining.

What is the author’s position?

When an author writes to persuade (or sometimes even to entertain or inform) he/she will have his/her own position on the subject.

The author’s position is an author’s opinion about the subject.

Lewis Carroll’s Self Photo

How do the author’s purpose & author’s position go together?

Author’s purpose and position go together.

The author will want you to see the topic from his/her point of view or through his/her eyes. This is the author’s position.

For some issues, you will be able to tell if the author is FOR or AGAINST something.

Famous writer/director M. Night Shyamalan

I know the purpose! When you are able to

recognize the author’s purpose, you will have a better understanding of the selection.

Also, the purpose will determine how you read a selection.

Can a selection have two purposes?

Some selections will have two purposes.

For example, if the article is about eating healthy, it will try to persuade you to eat your vegetables as well as, inform you about the different types of food groups.

Author’s Purpose: Inform

If the author’s purpose is to inform, you will learn something from the selection.

Information pieces sometime use one or more of the following: Facts Details/Instructions Places Events People

Author’s Purpose: Persuade If the author’s purpose is to

persuade, the author will want you to believe his/her position.

Persuasive pieces are usually non-fiction, biased, and based on opinion.

Although there may be facts, it contains the author’s opinions.

With persuasive pieces, the author’s will make his/her position clear (whether he/she is FOR or AGAINST it).

Author’s Purpose: Entertain

If the author’s purpose is to entertain, one goal may be to tell a story or to describe characters, places or events (real or imaginary).

Examples of entertaining texts include: scripts, poems, stories, jokes, or even comic strips.

Author’s Purpose Quiz Read the following passages

and answer the questions that follow.

Example: What is Lewis Carroll’s purpose by writing the novel Through the Looking-Glass?Well, duh - to entertain! All fiction is written for that purpose!

Determine the author’s purpose

Use the information on the bottle to determine the author’s purpose. A. To Inform B. To Entertain C. To Persuade

Can you identify the author’s purpose?

The correct answer is A, to inform.

The label contained information and instructions on how to use the medicine.


“His face appeared in the window. She knew he had been the cause of her waking at 3 a.m. Was she seeing things? Was his face real? She tried to lie still and decide what to do. Just then, the window shattered. She flew across the room to the hallway and straight into her mother’s room.”

Inform

Entertain

Persuade


The correct answer is to entertain.

The author tried to capture a suspenseful mood in the story.

The story is probably fiction. Well … maybe.


“It is recommended that parents read to their children everyday, starting as early as six months of age. When you read with your children, you are starting them off in life as a life-long reader and learner. It is never too late to pick up a book and read; people in their eighties have learned how to read and discovered the pleasure of reading. Turn off the television and read a book!”

You can tell the author wrote this passage to

A. Inform B. Entertain

C. Persuade


The correct answer is C, to persuade.

This is an emotional appeal to do the right thing: READ!

Also, the last sentence tells you encourages you to do something: “Turn off the television”

Identify the Author’s Purpose “Film writer and director

M. Night Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense which was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. (That’s the award for script writing!) His 2002 film Signs, in which he also acted, gained both critical and financial success.”

The author’s purpose was to A. Inform B. Entertain C. Persuade

… to inform the reader about M. Night’s filmography.

What are the steps to determining the author’s purpose and author’s position?1. Read the

selection carefully.

2. Determine if the selection is fiction or nonfiction.

What is Fiction again?

A fiction piece is from the author’s imagination and is not based on facts.

Fiction pieces can be novels, short stories, scripts, etc. The purpose of fiction is to entertain the reader.

What is Non-fiction?

Non-fiction pieces are based on facts and author’s opinions about a subject.

Non-fiction pieces could be biographies, articles from textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles.

The purpose of non-fiction writing is to inform and sometimes to persuade.

What was the purpose of this PowerPoint review? To persuade? To entertain? To inform? To inform!

(And to entertain just a little.)

Not Really “the End” … Mwahahaha Hopefully you have been informed by this review and found yourself somewhat entertained as well…not to mention persuaded to look deep to find just what the author is trying to do.

How to analyze an editorial or controversial article

Scan the article. Do you believe what is written in the

article? Pull out the main arguments made by the writer, and quotes, statistics and facts

Identify clearly what the controversy is about briefly mentioning both pro and con.

What issue(s) is (are) addressed?


What is the main argument and/or conclusion?

• What evidence is put forward to support the argument(s) and/or conclusion(s)?

• What are the differing points of views related to the issue?

• What side of the issue is not represented?

• Why is it difficult to resolve this issue?


State the controversial topic ( pro versus con)

Summarize the article using standard journalists' questions (NOTES ONLY) -What, Why, Where, When, How

Summarize the article

A -ARGUMENT/THESIS 1. EVIDENCE (proof: facts, statistics)B -ARGUMENT/THESIS 1. EVIDENCE (proof: facts, statistics)C - ARGUMENTS/THESIS 1. EVIDENCE (proof: facts, statistics)

CONCLUSION

This article is PRO...NEUTRAL...CON (circle one)

Did the writer leave out important information? If so, what?

PUERTO RICO IN THE SPOTLIGHT AGAINBy Philipe Schoene Roura on February 4,

2016 “Just when I thought I was

out, they pull me back in,” the famous line by Al Pacino in the role of Michael Corleone of the Godfather trilogy would have been a fitting statement for U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), as he kicked off a hearing by the House Subcommittee on Indian, Insular & Alaska Native Affairs on Tuesday about establishing a federal fiscal control board for Puerto Rico.

Young was at the center of Puerto Rico’s status debate in 1998 when then-Gov. Pedro Rosselló was determined to hold a federally mandated status plebiscite, which passed by one vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, but fell short in the U.S. Senate. The Rosselló administration aggressively lobbied Congress, but managed only to obtain a perfunctory resolution supporting Puerto Rico’s right to host nonbinding advisory referendums. It was a Steve Harvey moment—“I’m sorry, but the winner really is….”

PUERTO RICO IN THE SPOTLIGHT AGAIN

Now Young is back in the Puerto Rico maelstrom, attempting to ascertain whether the island deserves to handle its own affairs or needs oversight imposed from afar. At this writing, Caribbean Business learned that the hearings’ witnesses included Anthony Williams, the former mayor of Washington, D.C., who was the city’s CFO when Congress established a fiscal control board for D.C. in the late 1990s; Carlos García, former Government Development Bank president during the Luis Fortuño administration; Simon Johnson, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and attorney Thomas Moers, partner at New York-based Kramer Levin, which represents two bondholder groups challenging the Debt Compliance & Recovery Act. Puerto Rico’s locally enacted bankruptcy law is before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hold a hearing this spring on the enforceability of the law.

If the Supremes decide on Puerto Rico’s behalf that the law is enforceable, it would provide the island with access to orderly debt restructuring for much of its $70 billion debt. In truth, a decision favoring the so-called criollo bankruptcy code would prompt a huge sigh of relief in the Republican House majority because there is an immovable fundamentalist faction in the lower chamber that would rather have us shouldering the burden than grant Puerto Rico relief. Just ask their constituents in Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.


The latest congressional hearing on the need to establish “a Puerto Rico Financial Stability and Economic Growth Authority,” marks the seventh time since 2015 that a congressional committee has publicly discussed issues related to the island’s fiscal and economic crisis. This is epic foot dragging in a body prone to moving at a glacial pace.

Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi is hopeful that Congress will file a measure to address Puerto Rico’s fiscal and economic woes following the Feb. 2 hearing. The island’s nonvoting member of Congress is adamant that federal oversight must be paired with access to a debt-restructuring regime. And Santa Claus lives in Plaza Las Américas. I am willing to bet that Puerto Rico will not receive a path to orderly relief in Congress—not during an election year and not in the House.


By the time this newspaper prints, Young will have chaired the hearings and members of Congress will be back on the campaign trail. With the exception of those who represent constituents in Hispanic American electoral bastions, few seeking re-election will focus on Puerto Rico’s woes. In the face of that reality, what is the likelihood that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will find a “responsible solution” to Puerto Rico’s crisis by the end of March?

http://cb.pr/puerto-rico-in-the-spotlight-again/

author's purpose & analyzing an editorial - unit 11.3

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