What Kind of Text?

Overview

In this first lesson of Reading Texts with Purpose, students investigate how writers and creators shape texts for particular purposes and audiences. They examine familiar and unfamiliar examples, then sort them by text type while justifying decisions with evidence from purpose, structure, language, layout, images, headings, sequencing, and use of evidence.

Learning intentions

Students will:

• identify the purpose and likely audience of a range of texts
• recognise features of narratives, information reports, persuasive texts, instructions, advertisements, websites, and multimodal texts
• use evidence from a text to explain and justify an interpretation
• discuss how content and design choices affect the reader

Success criteria

• I can suggest what a text is for and who it is aimed at.
• I can identify features that help me recognise a text type.
• I can explain my decision using specific evidence from the text.
• I can listen to another interpretation and respond thoughtfully.

Curriculum links

• English — making meaning from diverse texts through close reading, discussion, and interpretation
• English — responding thoughtfully to audience, purpose, language choices, layout, and visual features
• English — identifying and explaining how text structures and language features support meaning
• English — using evidence to justify interpretations and communicate ideas clearly

Lesson structure (45 minutes)

1. 0–5 min · Engage: What is this text for? Teacher opens the hook and text-example slides and displays three contrasting examples, such as a cereal advertisement, a short information paragraph about native birds, and a set of playground instructions. Ask: “How can you tell what each text is trying to do?” Students silently notice one feature, then share with a partner before contributing ideas. Record responses under the headings purpose, audience, and features.

2. 5–15 min · Model close reading. Teacher displays one unfamiliar multimodal text, such as a website page promoting a school garden, using the modelling slides. Think aloud: “The heading tells me the topic. The imperative verbs tell me what to do. The photograph and bright button suggest the creator wants readers to act.” Model completing the first row of the text detective sorting and evidence sheet: text type, likely purpose, audience, evidence, and level of confidence. Explicitly distinguish entertain, inform, persuade, and instruct, noting that some texts have more than one purpose. Students help identify one feature the teacher has not yet named.

3. 15–20 min · Prepare for collaborative sorting. Teacher explains that each pair will receive a mixed set of short text extracts and visual examples representing narratives, information reports, persuasive texts, instructions, advertisements, websites, and multimodal texts. Revisit the decision-making prompts on the sorting instructions and prompts and provide the Author Purpose Checklist as a reference. Students read the checklist, predict which features may help them, and form pairs with defined roles: reader/evidence finder and recorder/challenger. Explain that pairs may place a text between categories or select more than one purpose if they can justify the decision.

4. 20–35 min · Sort and justify. Teacher distributes the text detective sorting and evidence sheet and the prepared mixed text examples. Circulate, prompting with questions such as: “What is the creator asking the audience to think, feel, know, or do?” “Which words, headings, images, or layout support your claim?” and “What has been included or left out, and why might that matter?” Students read, discuss, and sort the examples into categories, recording at least one precise piece of evidence for each decision. They should also mark one uncertain example and write a second possible category or purpose. After approximately ten minutes, pairs swap one example with a nearby pair and test whether the evidence is convincing.

5. 35–42 min · Share interpretations. Teacher uses the sharing and discussion prompts to invite pairs to present one confident decision and one debatable decision. Require speakers to use the frame: “We placed this text as a ___ because ___; our evidence is ___.” The listening pair responds: “We agree because…” or “We interpreted it differently because…”. Students compare how the same topic could be presented as a report, advertisement, website, or persuasive text, and discuss how the audience might respond differently.

6. 42–45 min · Reflect and preview. Teacher displays the reflection and next-lesson prompt and asks students to complete the final box on the worksheet: “The most useful clue for identifying a text type is…” and “One question I still have is…”. Students share a response with a partner, then hand in their sheets. Preview that the next lesson will examine how structure and language features guide readers through a text.

Resources

• the complete text-purpose lesson deck
• the text detective sorting and evidence sheet
• the Author Purpose Checklist
• Seven to ten short, age-appropriate text examples, including printed extracts and screenshots
• Enlarged copies or projected versions of each example
• Category labels: narrative, information report, persuasive, instructions, advertisement, website, multimodal
• Highlighters, pencils, and sticky notes
• Board or digital display

Assessment

• Listen during pair talk for students naming purpose, audience, and specific textual or visual evidence rather than relying on labels alone.
• Check sorting sheets for accurate identification of features and explanations that link evidence to a decision.
• Use the final reflection to identify students who need further support distinguishing purpose, audience, and text type in Lesson 2.

Differentiation

• Support readers with shorter extracts, enlarged print, pre-highlighted headings or images, and the sentence frames “I think this is a ___ because…” and “The evidence is…”.
• Pair students strategically and allow oral recording of explanations before writing; explicitly teach unfamiliar vocabulary such as audience, purpose, evidence, layout, and imperative.
• Provide audio or teacher read-aloud versions of extracts for students with reading difficulties, and ensure visual examples have clear verbal descriptions for students who need them.
• Extend confident students by asking them to identify mixed purposes, rank the strongest evidence, or explain how changing one feature could alter the audience’s response.