Nonfiction Analysis

Authors have a reason for writing. There is a purpose behind the text. The author will write in a specific point of view. The point of view and the author’s purpose go hand in hand with understanding the text.

Today's lesson objective is: students will be able to determine an author's point of view or purpose within a text, providing examples from the text.

Take a moment to think about this objective. What learning skills can you use to achieve this objective? We’ve been using analysis of the text to find central idea and define unfamiliar words. Maybe this analysis will be useful in determining the author’s point of view and purpose. What other skills would be helpful?

Open your digital notebook and describe your strategy and the learning …show more content…
One reason author’s write nonfiction is to present information to the reader, to inform and to explain. They do write to also entertain and persuade.

Here are some different types of nonfiction and the author’s purpose. There can be more than one type at times, but typically one type of nonfiction.

Types of Nonfiction Purpose
Argument or Persuasive to convince reader to think or act a certain way based on opinion supported by evidence
Expository or Informational to presents facts, discusses ideas, or explains a process
Narrative to tell a story based on real experience
Descriptive to give a visual description of information

We have learned that authors present information clearly and logically through different structures. The way the information structured is related to the author’s reason for writing.

Let’s look at a few examples of texts and find the purpose.

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which covers Franklin’s experiences growing up and becoming a famous political figure is a narrative. The purpose is to inform readers about …show more content…
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan is a nonfiction text. It tells a story of the journey of many during what was known as the Dust Bowl. As you read through the story of the dust storms that terrorized American’s high plains in the darkest of the Depression, you will read descriptions, such as in section 2, chapter 10 “Big Blows:”

The High Plains lay in ruins. From Kansas, through No man’s Land, up into Colorado, over in Union County, New Mexico, and south into Llano Estacada of Texas, the soil blew up from the ground or rained down from above.

These highlighted descriptive words put images in the reader’s head as they read. The author describes the occurrences with passion and understanding. He clearly writes with specific details.

After this description, he writes another passage:
He preferred defiance, scoffing at people who complained of the dust- “the softies, the tenderfeet, the crybabies,” he called them.
The highlighted words in this section show that it is written in the third-person point of

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