Pre-activities

Students will need to have read and become familiar with the texts covered in the first two lessons, as well as the text they will write about. Students will also have completed interviews of a family member regarding a journey that s/he had taken or experienced.

Activities

Lesson One: Modeling

What: Today you will learn to read a passage of information for pieces of evidence. These pieces of evidence should work together to support an argument that you choose to make from the given information. This strategy is called Selecting Evidence to Support an Argument. Why: Students often try to form the argument of an essay before considering how much, if any, evidence they can find to support that argument. This strategy will save time because it reminds you to consider the evidence before forming the argument so that the argument will be easier to support. How: Place the transparency of Chief Seattles speech on the overhead projector. There are eight ideas within the passage that are highlighted in bold print; focus on these ideas after you have read the passage. Choose the five that are interconnected, and can therefore be used together to support the argument of the passage. For the three unrelated ideas, explain how they contradict or weaken the argument. After selecting evidence ask students to consider the following questions: o What argument can you make from the evidence? o How does each piece of evidence support that argument? o How do the pieces of evidence relate to and support each other? o What is the strongest evidence? the weakest?
As a class, articulate the connections among the pieces of evidence, and how each piece works to support the argument. Turn on overhead projector and refer to an overhead you have made of what you have just modeled, and allow students to quickly copy the process. We are going to repeat this strategy as a class, using passages from Douglasss Narrative. For each passage, use the three steps of the Selecting Evidence to Support an Argument strategy: select evidence, consider the 4 questions, and use the evidence you chose to support an argument.

Lesson Two: Guided Practice

What: Now we will practice the Selecting Evidence to Support an Argument strategy in small groups. Remember that the goal of this strategy is to select pieces of evidence from a text that can be used together to support an argument. These pieces of evidence must be interconnected, otherwise they will contradict and weaken the overall argument. Be sure to consider the 4

questions to identify these connections, which will be important for using the evidence to support an argument. Why: This activity sheet will allow you to practice the strategy with your classmates so that you can work together to learn to use it efficiently. Be sure to ask questions when you are confused and to actively participate because you will need to employ this strategy when writing your interview essay. How: Divide the students into groups of four (plan groups ahead of time to try and balance stronger and weaker writers; the idea is for the students to learn the strategy from one another at this point). When they are settled, pass out the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass handout (read before for this class). You will need to submit your answer in writing, as a group.
Review the steps of the strategy:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Select evidence from the passage that supports the writers argument. Do these pieces of evidence all say the same thing? Are any of them contradictory? Are they all interconnected? Can you easily support an argument from them?

At this point they should have practice with all three steps in the strategy: 1. select evidence, 2. consider the 4 questions, and 3. use evidence to support an argument.

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/3651