7.9.C
The Standard
analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading · Author's purpose and craft: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify features such as headings, bold type, captions, images, charts, and sidebars. They explain how each choice directs attention, organizes information, clarifies meaning, or influences the reader.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students point to a specific feature and explain how it guides attention, organizes ideas, clarifies information, or supports persuasion. They use details from the page and can explain how removing or changing the feature would affect readers.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may name a feature without explaining its effect. They may call every image decorative or give vague answers such as, "It makes the text interesting." They may also confuse the author’s purpose with the text’s topic.
How to Assess It
- Give students a one-page article with a heading, caption, image, and bold words. Ask, "Choose one feature and explain what the author wants it to help readers notice, understand, or believe."
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed article, sticky notes, and markers to label each feature and write its intended effect on readers.
Ask students to write: "Which page feature most shapes your understanding, and what evidence supports your answer?"
Play a card match game where students pair feature cards, such as captions or bold type, with likely purposes and defend each match.
Compare two online news pages covering the same event, then identify how layout, images, and headlines shape each audience’s response.
Keep exploring
Related Standards
- 6.9.C
analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes;
- 5.10.C
analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes;
- 4.10.C
analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes;
- 8.9.C
analyze the author's use of print and graphic features to achieve specific purposes;
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