Ice hockey and soccer are both team sports where players try to score in a net. Unlike soccer, hockey is played on ice, and players use sticks to move a puck. Soccer players, on the other hand, mostly use their feet to move a ball.
Grade 5 · English Language Arts · Unit 4 of 10
Purpose and Structure
Why and how authors write
What your child practises
Deciding whether a text informs, persuades or entertains, recognizing five common text structures and their signal words, and using text features like the glossary and index.
NWT Curriculum learning standard: Forms, functions and genres of text; text features; text structures (description, sequence, compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution)
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
How is this text organized?
- sequence
- cause and effect
- compare and contrast
- description
compare and contrast
Hint: Words like both, however, while and unlike show how two things are alike and different.
Question 2
Sort each text by the author's main purpose.
Sort into: 📘 Inform · 📢 Persuade · 🎭 Entertain
- 🗳️A poster asking you to vote for Sam
- 🌋A science book about volcanoes
- ⛄A funny poem about a snowman
- 🐶A comic about a dog who wants to be an astronaut
- 📰A news report about a new bike path
- ✉️A letter asking the city to build a park
📘 Inform: A science book about volcanoes, A news report about a new bike path · 📢 Persuade: A poster asking you to vote for Sam, A letter asking the city to build a park · 🎭 Entertain: A funny poem about a snowman, A comic about a dog who wants to be an astronaut
Hint: Inform = teach facts. Persuade = convince you. Entertain = tell a story or make you laugh.
Question 3
How is this text organized?
To make a paper airplane, start by folding a sheet of paper in half the long way. After that, fold the top corners down to the centre crease. Then fold each side down again to make the wings. Last, give it a gentle throw.
- cause and effect
- sequence
- compare and contrast
- description
sequence
Hint: Signal words like first, next, then and finally show steps or events in order.
Question 4
What is the author's main purpose?
Our town needs a new skate park. Kids need a safe place to be active, and the old tennis courts are hardly used. Please sign our petition!
- to inform
- to entertain
- to persuade
to persuade
Hint: Is the author trying to get you to think, buy or do something? Then the purpose is to persuade.
Question 5
Which text feature at the back of a book lists topics in ABC order with page numbers?
- index
- heading
- table of contents
- caption
index
Hint: The index helps you find every page where a topic is mentioned.
Question 6
How is this text organized?
When the town planted hundreds of trees along Main Street, the street became much shadier. Because it was cooler, more people started walking there in the summer. As a result, the shops on Main Street had more visitors.
- cause and effect
- sequence
- description
- compare and contrast
cause and effect
Hint: Words like because, so and as a result show why something happened and what happened next.