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Alicia Hewitt

Argumentative Mini-Lesson
Writing Conclusions
7th Grade ELA
March 23, 2015

Topic: Writing Argumentative Conclusions


Grade: 7th
Standard: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.7.1.E
Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument
presented.
Goals & Objectives: Students should be able to write thorough conclusions to argumentative
essays that includes a restatement of the thesis and brief summary of the paper.
Review: PowerPoint that goes over what a conclusion is, aspects of a conclusion, what makes a
good conclusion, and this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L7aeO9fBzE
Materials: PowerPoint, argumentative essays, video, daybooks
Activity: After going over the PowerPoint, students will be grouped in four groups. Each group
will receive a different argument. After reading the argument out loud in their groups, each
student will write a concluding paragraph to complete the essay. Students in the group will share
their conclusions with each other and either pick a favorite or combine aspects of different
conclusions. Each group will share their conclusions with the class.
Formative: Individuals conclusions, class discussion
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Will allow teacher to see if the class grasps the concept of writing an effective
argumentative conclusion

Summative: At the end of the unit, students will write an argumentative essay about a topic they
care about. Conclusions of their essays should include all of the aspects of an argumentative
conclusion paragraph we talked about during the mini-lesson.
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Will allow teacher a formal and individual example of students work to determine if
they have achieved the goal of writing a strong conclusion to an argumentative essay.

Rationale: An argumentative essay is not complete without a conclusion. In this mini-lesson,


students will learn about writing an argumentative conclusion by watching a video, reading an
argument, and then writing their own conclusion to that argument. The video being shown as a
part of the lesson is both fun and informative. According to a study in the Teaching and Teacher
Education journal, videos in the classroom are only successful if they are embedded in context.
The article explains that use of the video depends on the specified learning goals of the teacher
(Seidel, Blomberg, & Renkl, 2013). For example, since I want my students to consider their prior
knowledge of argumentative writing as well as use the information learned in the video to apply
to their own writing, I have decided to use the video after the introduction but before the activity.

After writing their own conclusions, students in groups will share each of their conclusions. This
will provide students with more examples of conclusions via their classmates. The group will
together decide on a conclusion to share with the class which can be one persons or a
combination of multiple conclusions. Doing this allows students to evaluate what makes a strong
conclusion and combine multiple aspects of a conclusion to create one that all group members
believe is most effective. I have chosen to have the students work in groups to share their
conclusions because according to Gretchen Hovan (2012), writing groups in the middle school
classroom are an effective strategy to become more comfortable with revision and because group
members provide students with more ideas about their own writing. Since this class has been
working in similar groups throughout the semester, the students in the four groups are familiar
with each other and therefore should be able to have good, through discussions about their
conclusions and what makes a strong one.

References
Seidel, T., Blomberg, G., & Renkl, A. (2013). Instructional strategies for using video in teacher
education. Teaching & Teacher Education, 3456-65. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2013.03.004
Hovan, G. (2012). Writing for a built-in audience: Writing groups in the middle school
classroom. Voices from the Middle, 20(2), 49-53. Retrieved from http://0search.proquest.com.wncln.wncln.org/docview/1288617200?accountid=8337

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