Author Purpose
Author purpose is the basic underlining reason an artist creates the work that they do. The artist could be a painter, a writer, or director and their work could be a sculpture, a poem, or a horror movie. The reason (purpose) that these artistic geniuses create the work that they do is to affect a particular group of people in a specific way. The audience could be parents living in an inner-city, elderly in a retirement community, high school students, or executives working on Wall Street. The affect that artists are looking for in their audience of choice is in direct relation to the topic of their work, whether their work is about the well-known logos we have in our culture (Yes! Nike Swoosh!), the Civil Rights Movement, a new hot stock that just hit the market, or the terrible side effects of BPA in baby bottles.
Purpose falls into one of four categories. Together, these possible purposes spell EPIE:
E: Entertainment. To simply bring a specific amusement to people. This amusement could be pleasurable (feel-good family movie), bitter-sweetness (romantic comedy), laughter (straight up comedy), terror (horror movie).
P: Persuade. Trying to get people to do something. A call to action. Save the rainforest for these reasons. We must recycle! Stop smoking. Donate to the SPCA.
I: Inform. Simply providing information. Not trying to get people to feel anything or do anything, simply disseminating information. The geography of the Grand Canyon, the armed robbery that occurred last night.
E: Enlighten. Trying to open the minds of others, to get them to contemplate an open-ended question or controversial topic. NOT trying to get them to do anything, except think. The kindness of strangers in Habitat for Humanity, humans are more connected than we think, how the internet has affected adolescent social lives
To stretch this all out into an example, a horror movie director is probably working on his latest horror movie with the purpose of…
Entertaining (terrifying) those over the age of 16
on the effects of a zombie apocalypse.
Obviously, if a director wanted to create the #1 horror movie of the year, their intended audience wouldn’t be six-year-olds. Their purpose wouldn’t be to educate or enlighten anyone. Entertainment would be their intended, primary purpose.
From this we can create the standard purpose formula:
Author Purpose = Purpose + Intended Audience + Content
Examples:
IliadAuthor Purpose = / Entertain weary travelers on the events of the Trojan War
Newspaper Article
Author Purpose = / Inform local readers of the events of last night’s town meeting
Quit Smoking Pamphlet Author Purpose = / Persuade smokers to quit smoking by illustrating the harmful effects of smoking and providing tips on how to quit smoking
9th Grade Social Issue Presentation
Author Purpose = / Enlighten a 9th grade class on the effects of various social issues.
9th Grade Pre-AP Mini Speech
TASK: Deliver a mini speech to your group.
TOPIC: The author purpose of ONE of the following:
The Scottsboro Trials Documentary
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Scottsboro Trials Documentary AND To Kill a Mockingbird
In addition, your speech must also include ALL of the following:
Full purpose (EPIE + Audience + Message)
Tools the author used to achieve their purpose (e.g. expert statements, audio recordings, pictures, characters, plot events, etc.)
Full explanation of how those tools helped achieve the author purpose (e.g. specific characters and the role they played in the plot, a specific quote from a particular expert)
FORMAT:
Seated at your desk
No, you may not write and then read aloud your entire speech
Yes, you may use notecards
You will be graded by those in your group
RUBRIC FOCUS:
Clarity of voice
Clarity of content
Scottsboro or To Kill a Mockingbirdor both
Full author purpose
Identification of author tools
Explanation of author tools
Time (3-5 minutes)
WHEN: Friday January 15th, 2016 in class