Stage 4 reading - Author perspective and bias
Learning focus
Students identify author perspective in texts and find evidence to understand author perspective.
Syllabus outcome
- EN4-2A: effectively uses a widening range of processes, skills, strategies and knowledge for responding to and composing texts in different media and technologies
National Literacy Learning Progression
Understanding texts
- UnT9: identifies how authors create a sense of playfulness (pun, alliteration) (comprehension); interprets point of view or perspective in a moderately complex text (comprehension)
- UnT10: evaluates the effectiveness of language forms and features used in moderately complex or some sophisticated texts (comprehension); evaluates the reasoning and evidence in a persuasive text (comprehension)
- UnT11: analyses the credibility and validity of primary and secondary sources (comprehension); evaluates the style of a text (comprehension); identifies contradictions and inconsistencies in texts (process)
NAPLAN item descriptors
The relevant NAPLAN item descriptors are included in the resource, available for download on this page.
Task outline
Full task descriptions are included in the resource, available for download on this page.
Task 1: Identifying author perspective
Students are introduced to factors contributing to author perspective, including tone, mood, theme and assumptions about the audience (two activities).
Task 2: Author purpose and audience
Students determine the purpose of a range of texts by looking at key features, including text structure, vocabulary and text layout elements. Students investigate the idea of audience assumption in more detail (four activities).
Task 3: Selling to audiences
Students design a product advertisement, focusing on vocabulary, sentence complexity and the selling ‘pitch’ that will best appeal to their audience (three activities).
Task 4: Tone
Students use a range of texts to find evidence to indicate the tone of an author (four activities).
Task 5: Identifying tone in text
Students composes short descriptions of an event to convey a particular tone. Students then identify tone in novel texts, how the tone changes throughout the text and discuss how authors controlling tone to support them to convey their message (four activities).
Task 6: Mood
Students create texts for an assigned tone and mood (five activities).
Task 7: Theme
Students develop a list of topics that are explored in a nominated text and write a responsive sentence about what the author thinks about the topic. Students read or view a range of short texts and identify the tone, mood and central theme (five activities).
Task 8: Bias
Students explore personal bias and the importance of acknowledging bias in texts. Students read a range of news articles and predict which ideas might be included and excluded in the text based on the headline. Students also review statistics and information in the article to identify the author’s perspective (five activities).
