Argumentation: Breaking it down into its parts (1 of 2)
Lesson 4 of 6
Objective: SWBAT identify the claim and evaluate the effectiveness of evidence by reading an article and creating a graphic organizer demonstrating the structure of the text.
As students enter, they will complete the following task:
Think about how much money you need per week to live comfortably as a teenager. How much is it? Come to the board and write your answer.
While students are writing their answers on the white board, I am taking attendance and taking care of students who were on a field trip during the previous class.
Today students are reading an article about teenage jobs, particularly babysitting. Students will be evaluating an argument on how much to pay babysitters. This prompt helps students begin thinking about this subject.
Next, I ask students to imagine how they would ask their boss for a raise. I let them talk about their answers (SL.9-10.1) and write their thinking on the white board. I write it sporadically, with no organization.
After a couple of minutes, I ask students to look at our notes on the board and, with a partner, discuss ways to organize these thoughts. I ask two or three students to come to the board and create a graphic organizer that would make sense of the information. We discuss which ones would help organize the information the best.
I do this because students will be creating their own graphic organizer during student work time. Additionally, any time I can ask students to practice organizational life skills, I do it. Breaking information down and organizing it is a skill they will need forever.
I distribute the blog article, "What to Pay The Babysitter." This article came from Dave Stuart's Teaching The Core website. This Teaching the Core resource video explains how I use Mr. Stuart's valuable resources. Here is the pdf version of this blog: ArticleoftheWeek.
I instruct the students that while they read and annotate, I want them to focus on identifying the author's claim and evidence and evaluating that evidence for effectiveness (RI.9-10.8). Students struggle with the difference between reasons and evidence. Asking them to list evidence assures they are creating text based answers and providing actual evidence rather than just reasons they think of. I want them to identify particular parts of the text where the author's claims are developed and refined (RI.9-10.5). After they have the text read and annotated, I want them to create a graphic organizer which clearly identified the claim(s) and each piece of evidence (w.9-10.4).
I give students the class period to work on this. It is a complicated task so they might not finish. Toward the end of the class, I explain that tomorrow we will continue working with this text and writing our own argument. I ask them to finish the reading, annotating and graphic organizer overnight.