Informational Text and Author's Purpose

by Carol Brown Dodson

In the September issue of Adolescent Literacy In Perspective, we looked at the construction of questions for the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) and examined ways to help students understand their meaning. Performing well on the OGT, though, is not simply a matter of analyzing questions.

The academic content standards guide teachers in their work to teach students what they should know and be able to do. The Reading OGT assesses student performance on the benchmarks for grades 8-10. Let's look now at some of the standards and benchmarks that determine the questions that will be asked.

You're probably already aware that 65 percent of the points on the reading component of the Ohio Graduation Test are based on informational, persuasive, and technical text. An examination of the grades 8-10 benchmarks for this standard reveals that four of the five benchmarks for the informational text standard deal with the author's purpose for writing. Struggling and accomplished adolescent readers alike tend to have difficulty when faced with questions about an author's purpose for writing a text.

The first benchmark, Benchmark A, for grades 8-10 under Informational Text requires that students evaluate what an author does in constructing text. That is, students must determine the underlying structure of the text and then evaluate how features and characteristics of the particular text make the information meaningful to the reader.

Benchmark A: Evaluate how features and characteristics make information accessible and usable and how structures help authors achieve their purposes.

Few students, while reading persuasive or technical passages, think about the writer who carefully designed the passage to achieve a particular purpose. Yet it's the writer who intentionally manipulates text and various features and characteristics to promote a particular point of view or to inform the reader. Question 8 on the 2004 Spring Base Reading OGT assesses Benchmark A.

Students are directed to read an ad for a "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" seminar. (To read the entire advertisement, go to the Spring 2004 Reading Base Test on the Ohio Department of Education's website. The passage is found on pages 6-7 of the pdf document. Questions about the passage follow the passage.) After reading the passage, students are asked to respond to the following question:

In what way is the advertisement intended to appeal to a wide audience?

1. It refers to the most common mistakes people make.
2. It warns people not to act in ways they will later regret.
3. It mentions situations that most people have experienced.
4. It urges people not to take out their anger on the wrong people.

The correct choice is C, but to make that choice, students have to consider techniques used by authors to achieve a purpose, namely, appealing to a wide audience. It's also important for students to be aware that the author has intentionally talked about situations experienced by most of the readers so they will be swayed by the product being promoted.

Preparing students to answer such questions, however, involves much more than an analysis of the question itself. It involves teaching the benchmarks for the informational text standard. Benchmark A has already been given above. Here are the other four benchmarks for the standard:

Benchmark B. Identify examples of rhetorical devices and valid and invalid inferences, and explain how authors use these devices to achieve their purposes and reach their intended audiences.

Benchmark C. Analyze whether graphics supplement textual information and promote the author's purpose.

Benchmark D. Explain and analyze how an author appeals to an audience and develops an argument or viewpoint in text.

Benchmark E. Utilize multiple sources pertaining to a singular topic to critique the various ways authors develop their ideas (e.g., treatment, scope and organization). (Ohio Academic Content Standards for the English Language Arts)

Benchmarks A through D specifically address author's purpose. The last benchmark deals with the author's development of ideas--an area closely related to purpose.

An excellent source for teaching this standard is provided by the ORC promising practice lesson "How Media Shapes Perception." The lesson, aligned to grades 8-10 benchmarks, is designed to help students understand how the media shape intellectual and emotional responses to various events. Students also explore how experts view the media's impact on young minds. By gaining an understanding of media influence and techniques for wielding influence, students will be able to see more easily how an author appeals to an audience, develops an argument, and influences the reader.

An outstanding resource for dealing with author's use of structure for achieving a purpose (Benchmark A) is the ORC professional resource "Understanding Expository Text Structures." The resource includes examples of seven basic structures of expository text along with a list of questions and graphic organizers. The sample paragraphs illustrating text structure may be used to tie structure to author's purpose.

Two ORC resources are particularly effective for dealing with propaganda and rhetorical devices, both essential for teaching Benchmark B. "Propaganda" is an ORC content resource that provides extensive information about the historical and contemporary uses of propaganda in politics, advertising, wartime campaigns, and other public arenas. Propaganda techniques and logical fallacies are described in great detail. Many examples from political speeches, flyers, and tracts are also presented. This site includes a Propaganda Gallery of video clips featuring examples of wartime propaganda. The print materials and media clips offer many opportunities for students and teachers to examine uses of propaganda and its impact on public opinion.

"A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices" is an online handbook that contains definitions and examples of more than 60 traditional rhetorical devices. The handbook is especially useful for instructional planning, but it may also be used as a reference for students in grades 11 and 12. Both of the above content resources provide a wealth of information to enhance students' understanding of these difficult concepts.

An assessment item from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) asks students to respond to an article about author Gary Soto by writing a critical response about the writer's attitude toward his subject. The NAEP site also lets a visitor view the reading passage and access information regarding both performance on this item in general and performance on the item by various subgroups. In addition, the site provides a scoring guide and student responses for the item.

Carol Brown Dodson is the outreach specialist for the Ohio Resource Center. Dodson was an English language arts consultant for the Ohio Department of Education and is past president of OCTELA (Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts). Dodson, formerly a high school English teacher, department chair, and supervisor of English language arts in Columbus Public Schools, serves on the Ohio Graduation Test Reading Content Committee.

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