How do you identify why an author wrote a text and how their craft choices, like word choice, rhetorical appeals, and structure, serve that purpose?
Author's purpose and craft: identifying an author's purpose (to inform, persuade, explain, or describe) and point of view, and analyzing craft choices such as word choice, tone, rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), and rhetorical questions, and how each serves the purpose, on a TNReady English I or II informational passage.
How to analyze author's purpose and craft on a TNReady English I or II informational passage: identifying purpose and point of view, and the craft choices (word choice, tone, rhetorical appeals ethos/pathos/logos, rhetorical questions) and how each serves the purpose. The marks come from the why.
Reviewed by: AI editorial process; not yet individually human-reviewed
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What this skill is asking
Author's purpose is why a writer produced a text, and craft is the set of choices they made to achieve it. TNReady English I and II informational items ask you to identify the purpose (to inform, persuade, explain, or describe) and the author's point of view, and to analyze craft choices, word choice, tone, rhetorical appeals, and structure, and explain how each serves the purpose. The questions appear as multiple choice ("these word choices mainly serve to..."), hot text ("click the sentence that appeals to emotion"), and two-point responses about rhetorical appeals. The transferable skill is reading not just what an author says but why they say it that way, recognizing that every word choice and structural move is a tool aimed at an effect.
Purpose and point of view
Start by deciding what the author is trying to do.
Word choice is the quickest clue. Neutral, factual words signal an informative purpose; emotionally loaded words ("choked", "poisoned", "dying") signal persuasion. A text can blend purposes, but one usually dominates, and the dominant purpose is what the question wants. Identifying purpose also sets up the craft analysis: every craft choice is in service of that purpose.
Rhetorical appeals and craft
Tone, the author's attitude conveyed through word choice, is craft too: an urgent tone presses the reader, a measured tone builds trust. When a question asks about a craft choice, resist stopping at the label. The answer the EOC rewards explains the effect: this word, appeal, or structure makes the reader trust, feel, or accept the point, which advances the author's purpose.
Reading purpose and craft on a passage
Try this
Q1. What are the three classical rhetorical appeals, and what does each target? [Recall]
- Cue. Ethos targets credibility (trust in the author), pathos targets emotion (how the reader feels), and logos targets logic (data and reasoning). Persuasive writing usually blends them.
Q2. An author opens a piece on school funding with "Imagine a classroom of forty students and no textbooks." What appeal is this, and how does it serve the purpose? [Short explanation]
- Cue. It is pathos: a vivid image meant to make the reader feel concern. It serves a persuasive purpose by making an abstract funding problem feel real and urgent, priming the reader to accept the author's case for more funding.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of TDOE exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
TNReady English I (informational)1 marksAn author writing about a polluted river uses words like 'choked', 'poisoned', and 'dying'. These word choices mainly serve to: (1) inform the reader neutrally; (2) persuade the reader to feel alarm and support action; (3) entertain with a story; (4) describe the river's length.Show worked answer →
Answer: (2). "Choked", "poisoned", and "dying" are emotionally loaded words (an appeal to pathos). They reveal a persuasive purpose: the author wants the reader to feel alarmed and support cleaning up the river, not merely to learn neutral facts.
Why not the others: (1) neutral information would use plain words; (3) there is no story for entertainment; (4) the words convey feeling, not measurement. Word choice is a clue to purpose, so read the connotation.
TNReady English II (informational)2 marksAn author cites her twenty years as a nurse, then statistics on hospital staffing, then asks, 'How many more shifts must they work alone?' Identify the rhetorical appeals and explain how each serves her purpose. (2-point response.)Show worked answer →
The author uses ethos (her twenty years as a nurse establishes credibility), logos (the staffing statistics appeal to logic and evidence), and pathos (the rhetorical question stirs concern for overworked nurses). Together they serve a persuasive purpose: to convince readers that staffing must improve.
A strong answer names each appeal and ties it to the purpose: credibility makes the reader trust her, data makes the case rational, and the emotional question makes the reader care. Naming the appeals without explaining their function earns only part of the credit.
Related dot points
- Central ideas in informational texts: stating the central idea as a full sentence (not a topic), distinguishing it from supporting details and from the topic, identifying how the central idea develops across paragraphs, and writing an objective summary, on a TNReady English I or II informational passage.
How to find the central idea of a TNReady English I or II informational passage: stating it as a full sentence rather than a topic, telling it apart from supporting details, tracing how it develops across paragraphs, and writing an objective summary. The nonfiction cousin of theme.
- Analyzing argument and claims: identifying an author's claim, the reasons and evidence that support it, and any counterclaim, and evaluating whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence relevant and sufficient, including spotting common logical fallacies, on a TNReady English I or II argumentative passage.
How to analyze an argument on a TNReady English I or II passage: identifying the claim, reasons, evidence, and counterclaim, and evaluating whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence sufficient, including spotting fallacies. The reading skill that feeds the argumentative essay.
- Text structure and organization: recognizing common organizational patterns (chronological/sequence, cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, description), using signal words to identify them, and explaining how a structure or a paragraph contributes to the development of ideas, on a TNReady English I or II informational passage.
How to analyze text structure on a TNReady English I or II informational passage: recognizing organizational patterns (sequence, cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, description) via signal words, and explaining how the structure develops the author's ideas.
- Text evidence and inference: drawing logical inferences from what a text states and implies, citing the strongest textual evidence for a conclusion, and answering two-part evidence-based items where the second part asks for the line that supports the first, on a TNReady English I or II passage.
How to make inferences and cite evidence on a TNReady English I or II passage: drawing logical inferences anchored to the text, citing the strongest support, and handling two-part evidence items where Part B must support Part A. The skill that underlies almost every EOC reading question.
- Comparing and synthesizing paired texts: analyzing how two texts on the same topic treat it differently in claim, purpose, emphasis, evidence, or tone, identifying points of agreement and disagreement, and synthesizing an idea that draws on both, on a TNReady English I or II paired-passage set.
How to compare and synthesize paired texts on a TNReady English I or II set: analyzing how two texts on the same topic differ in claim, purpose, emphasis, evidence, or tone, finding agreement and disagreement, and synthesizing an idea drawn from both. Each text must keep its own evidence.
Sources & how we know this
- TCAP English Language Arts — TDOE (2025)
- Tennessee Academic Standards for English Language Arts — TDOE (2025)