Audience and Purpose

Overview

This 50-minute lesson is designed for Year 11 English students in New Zealand and is the 18th lesson in the unit "Textual Insights Unveiled." The focus is on understanding how audience and purpose influence the presentation of textual analysis, aligned closely with the New Zealand Curriculum and incorporating differentiation and dyslexia-friendly strategies.

WALT (We Are Learning To)

Understand how different audiences influence the way texts are presented.
Analyse how writers adjust language, structure, and content based on audience and purpose.
Apply this understanding to our own textual analysis writing.

Success Criteria

Identify different audiences and purposes for a range of texts.
Explain how audience and purpose shape language choices and textual features.
Adapt writing style and content to suit a specific audience and purpose.
Support analysis with evidence from texts and justify choices in writing.

Curriculum Links

The New Zealand Curriculum (English, Level 5, Year 11):

Reading and Viewing:
- Critical analysis – Develop skills to uncover perspectives and positions underpinning texts and understand the impact of audience and purpose on text creation.
- Students will consider who is most likely to engage with a text and why, and how language and visual elements influence meaning for different audiences.
Writing:
- Plan and write texts with an audience and purpose in mind, making deliberate choices in genre, register, and style.
Communication:
- Develop verbal and non-verbal communication skills that suit varied audiences and purposes .
Key Competencies:
- Thinking — critically analysing texts considering audience and purpose.
- Using language symbols and texts — making language choices appropriate to audience.
- Relating to others — understanding different audience perspectives.

Lesson Structure

Time	Activity	Details	Differentiation / Support
0-5 min	Starter: Audience and Purpose Brainstorm	Ask students to name different types of audiences (e.g., peers, parents, teachers) and purposes (to inform, persuade, entertain). Chart ideas.	Use visual mind-maps; scaffold with sentence stems, e.g., “This text is for ___ because...”
5-15 min	Model Text Analysis (Teacher-led)	Display a short text excerpt (could be a speech, an advertisement, or a persuasive paragraph). Discuss aloud how the writer’s word choices, tone, and structure reflect their intended audience and purpose. Model ‘thinking aloud’ strategy.	Provide dyslexia-friendly printout with clear fonts and spacing; highlight keywords; read aloud to class.
15-30 min	Guided Group Activity	In groups of 4-5, give each group a different short text (informative article, social media post, poem, or letter). Task: Identify audience, purpose, and specific language features tailored to that audience. Groups record key points on shared poster.	Mixed ability groups ensure peer support; provide guiding questions for ELL/dyslexic learners.
30-40 min	Class Sharing and Discussion	Groups share findings. Facilitate a discussion on how understanding audience and purpose changes text analysis and writing. Prompt: “How would this text be different if the audience changed?”	Use sentence starters to support contributions; give think-time; accept oral or written responses.
40-50 min	Individual Reflection Writing	Students write a short paragraph reflecting on how audience and purpose influence textual analysis and their own writing choices, using an example text from class.	Offer writing frames; dyslexia-friendly font templates; allow oral or video response for students who need it; extension: Write a draft paragraph adapting a text for a different audience.

Resources Needed

Projector/smartboard for displaying texts.
Printed dyslexia-friendly copies of texts (simple font, spacing, coloured overlays optional).
Poster paper and markers for group work.
Sentence stems and writing frames.
Example texts chosen for diversity of genres and audiences.

Differentiation Strategies

For diverse learners: Use mixed-ability grouping; provide scaffolds like guiding questions and sentence stems; allow varied modes of expression (oral, written, multimedia).
For dyslexic learners: Provide reading materials with dyslexia-friendly fonts and layouts; offer audio versions; use explicit modelling with think-alouds; allow extra time.
For extension (advanced students): Challenge them to rewrite a short text for a drastically different audience, explaining their language and structural choices.

Assessment

Formative assessment through group poster presentations and class discussion participation.
Individual reflection writing assessed with a rubric aligned with Level 5 English achievement criteria focusing on understanding audience and purpose and application to textual analysis.

Innovative Engagement Idea

Invite students to imagine they are “text creators” for different audiences by creating quick role-play scenarios where they must present the same message differently (e.g., explaining a book summary to a child vs. an adult). This promotes empathy and deepens understanding of audience impact.

This lesson plan weaves tightly into the New Zealand English Curriculum’s emphases on critical thinking, purposeful writing, and oral language strategies, reinforced by evidence-based strategies from Te Mātaiaho, offering teachers scaffolds and extensions to meet diverse learner needs while encouraging creativity and reflective thinking【4:0-8†Te Mataiaho English Single Page.pdf】 .

Teaching Instructions