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What’s Your Purpose?

Comprehension Lessons »

Explain Tell students that they will work in pairs to write a paragraph and have their classmates guess their purpose. Discuss three basic purposes for writing (entertain, inform, explain).

Guided Practice/Practice On small slips of paper write entertain, inform, or persuade. Fold the slips and have each pair choose one randomly. Then assign a general subject students are familiar with, such as soccer or pets. Have partners write a paragraph about the chosen subject using the purpose they chose randomly. After writing, have students read aloud the paragraphs and have classmates guess the purposes. Discuss what evidence students used for their guesses.