Best for
Reading groups, information-text study, science-literacy integration, or a comparison lesson on how purpose changes language choices.
English • Reading comprehension • Years 6-10 • Aotearoa science text
Author's Purpose: The Art of Informing
Use this handout to help ākonga recognise when a writer's main job is to explain, clarify, and build knowledge. The kea text keeps the reading grounded in Aotearoa and gives students something real to analyse instead of a generic textbook paragraph.
Free literacy scaffold, premium adaptation path
This handout is ready to print and use now. Te Wānanga is useful if you want the same structure rebuilt around another science article, local environmental report, or bilingual information text for your class.
- Swap in a local species, awa health report, or marae history text.
- Create a lower-reading-load version with glossed vocabulary and chunked questions.
- Save your adapted version into My Kete and extend it later in Creation Studio.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 20-30 minutes for the reading and response set, or longer if you compare purposes across multiple texts.
- Grouping: Strong as a paired reading task, especially if one student tracks facts and the other tracks language choices.
- Prep: Pre-teach omnivorous, adaptation, and conservation status if needed.
- Teaching move: Ask where a text stops merely listing facts and starts quietly shaping concern or admiration.
Resources already provided
- An Aotearoa information text about kea
- Purpose and language analysis prompts
- Response space for evidence-based explanations
- A follow-up comparison question about secondary effects
- Curriculum companion for planning and moderation
This is ready for use as a literacy handout or as a science-reading bridge. The reading and the analysis prompts already match.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to identify when a writer's main purpose is to inform.
- We are learning to explain how factual detail, technical language, and neutral tone support that purpose.
- We are learning to notice when an informational text can also influence a reader's feelings or attitudes.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can identify the main purpose of the text and support my answer with evidence.
- I can explain how the writer builds credibility and clarity.
- I can discuss whether the text has a secondary persuasive effect as well as an informing purpose.
Curriculum integration / Te Marautanga alignment
The companion page makes the English links explicit around information-text reading, vocabulary, tone, and building understanding from factual detail.
Why this matters in Aotearoa
Informational texts shape how students understand taonga species, conservation, and the places they belong to. Reading well means more than finding facts. It means noticing how writers choose details to build trust, clarity, and concern.
This text also gives a natural kaitiakitanga lens because students are learning through a real example of species protection in Aotearoa.
Read the informational text
Kea: the world's only alpine parrot
The kea (Nestor notabilis) is a large parrot found in the forest and alpine regions of Te Waipounamu, the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is well known for its intelligence, curiosity, and social behaviour. Adult kea usually measure around 48 centimetres long and have olive-green feathers with bright orange-red colour under their wings.
Unlike most parrots, kea are adapted to cold mountain conditions. They eat a varied diet that can include roots, berries, nectar, insects, and carrion. Their strong curved beak helps them dig, pull, investigate, and solve problems. Researchers have observed kea working together and solving complex tasks, which is one reason the species is often described as highly intelligent.
Kea are currently classified as nationally endangered. Threats include introduced predators such as stoats and possums, habitat pressures, and human impacts. Conservation work now includes predator control, monitoring, and education so communities can better understand why kea are a taonga worth protecting.
Analyse the informing purpose
- What is the writer mainly trying to do: inform, persuade, or entertain? Give one piece of evidence.
- Which details in the text help the reader trust the information?
- Why does the writer use the scientific name Nestor notabilis?
- Find one sentence that sounds neutral and factual. How can you tell?
- Does the final paragraph only inform, or does it also make the reader care more about kea? Explain.
Support and stretch
Support
- Underline facts, measurements, and key vocabulary.
- Use the sentence stem: “The writer is mainly informing because ...”
- Work with a partner to identify one neutral sentence and one sentence that could make a reader care more.
Stretch
- Rewrite one paragraph so it sounds more persuasive than informative.
- Compare this text with a conservation advertisement or poster.
- Explain how a science text can still influence values around kaitiakitanga.
Your turn: write an information paragraph
Choose another taonga species, local place, or environmental issue. Write an information paragraph that explains it clearly using factual detail, precise vocabulary, and a neutral tone.
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
English — Te Reo Pākehā
Level 3–4: Read and interpret a range of texts for meaning and purpose; identify author intent, text structure, and language choices; write clearly for specific audiences and purposes using appropriate conventions.
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Understand how texts construct knowledge and perspective; evaluate the credibility and purpose of different sources; communicate ideas and findings effectively in written and oral forms.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
In te ao Māori, language — reo — is a taonga: a treasure that carries culture, identity, and whakapapa across generations. The ability to speak clearly, to argue persuasively, to read critically, and to write with purpose are not simply academic skills — they are forms of mana in action. Māori oratory (whaikōrero) has always valued precision, evidence, and the ability to locate one's argument within a broader cultural and ancestral context. Students who develop strong literacy skills are developing the same capacities that made great orators powerful: the ability to be heard, understood, and taken seriously in any room they enter.
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to build core literacy skills — reading comprehension, writing craft, and oral language — grounded in the rich storytelling traditions of Aotearoa New Zealand and the literacy practices that empower rangatahi voice.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can apply the literacy skill or strategy featured in this resource with growing independence.
- ✅ Students can connect this resource's literacy focus to authentic texts, contexts, or purposes from their own world.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide sentence starters, word banks, or graphic organisers for entry-level access. Model think-alouds before independent tasks. Offer extension challenges that deepen analysis — for example, comparing the author's craft choices across two texts or writing an additional stanza or paragraph.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach key vocabulary before reading. Allow students to annotate in their home language first, then translate key ideas. Use shared reading and think-pair-share structures to lower the stakes for language production. Bilingual glossaries and visual text supports help bridge comprehension.
Inclusion: Chunk reading and writing tasks into manageable steps. Offer multimodal options — oral, visual, or digital — for students to demonstrate understanding. Neurodiverse learners benefit from clear task structures and explicit success criteria. Affirm diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds as assets, not deficits.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Literacy in Te Ao Māori encompasses tātai kōrero (the arrangement of speech), waiata, whakataukī, and the deep art of kōrero — storytelling as knowledge transmission. Encourage students to see their own family stories and community knowledge as valid literacy texts. Karakia opens and closes learning with intention. Tātai kōrero honours the voice.
Prior knowledge: Adaptable across year levels. No specialist prior knowledge required for entry-level engagement. Teachers may wish to pre-read the resource and anticipate vocabulary that needs pre-teaching.
Curriculum alignment
- Reading — Making Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to identify, form, and express ideas across a range of texts.
- Writing — Creating Meaning: Students will select and use sources of information, processes, and strategies to write in a range of text types for a variety of purposes and audiences.