Writing: Purpose and Audience 7.1.1

Writing: Purpose and Audience

Lesson 7.1.1

Lesson Overview

Learners can:

• identify the purpose and audience

• identify and use abstract nouns

• orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters

“Love,” “curiosity,” “freedom,” “happiness,” and “friendship” are all abstract nouns. These nouns can’t be felt with the senses.

Abstract Nouns

Concrete nouns are all those nouns you can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch.

Nouns such as dog, pencil, sandwich, flag, and airport are concrete nouns.

Nouns

Discover

​Video on page 3 in edio

Categorize

Options (8)

truth

loyalty

pride

pain

book

music

smoke

clouds

Sort each noun into the abstract or concrete categories below.

Abstract Nouns

Concrete Nouns

An author's purpose is their reason for writing.

There are three main reasons, or purposes, for writing.

Writers write to:

• persuade - convince the audience to understand their opinion

• inform - give information about a topic

• entertain - capture the reader's interest and bring enjoyment

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Author's Purpose and Audience

Audience

It is just as important for writers to know who their audience will be as it is to know why they are writing.

An audience is a reader or a group of readers who read a particular piece of writing.

Knowing who the readers will be helps writers make the best choices involving the tone of their writing and what information can be included.

For example, a cookbook can be written for an audience or reader who is a beginner or one who is experienced. The cookbook for these two audiences can be written differently based on what each reader needs.

Writer's Notebook pages 26 and 27

If a narrator is an active participant in the story, then the story is told from the first-person point of view.

First Person

In this point of view, the narrator addresses the reader directly.
Used the least.

Second Person

If a narrator tells the story but is not an active participant in the story, then the story is told from the third person point of view.

Third Person

Match

Match the sentences with the correct narrator's point of view.

• 
  

  To make a fluffy cake, you must be sure not to over-mix it.

• 
  

  The noise woke me in the middle of the night when I was in a deep sleep.

• 
  

  
  

  The car screeched to a halt as the man yelled, “No!"

second-person narrator

first-person narrator

third-person narrator

• 
  

  second-person narrator

• first-person narrator

• 
  

  third-person narrator

Introducing the Characters and the Narrator

This story has a first-person narrator, Tasha. She is telling her perspective of taking her dog, Ginger, out for a walk.

From the words that she uses, her perspective of this activity is negative.

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Tasha's Perspective

This story also has a first-person narrator, Ginger, the dog. She is telling her perspective of being taken out for a walk by Tasha.

From the words that Ginger uses, her perspective of this activity is positive.

​

Ginger's Perspective

Gather your materials: pencil, Writing Activity Book, page 98.​

Think of a story and write it in a new perspective.

Your Turn