5 E ModelInstructional Guide: Says Who?

Lesson 2: Explore

with Entry Event for PBL

Topic/Theme: Clear Language = Clear Thinking / Time: 60-70minutes
Common CoreState Standards
SL.9-10.1 …participate effectively in …collaborative discussion, …building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
SL.9-10.3Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence…identifying any fallacious reasoningor exaggerated or distorted evidence.
RI.8.8 Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; recognize when irrelevant evidenceis introduced.
RI.9-10.8Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.
Learner Objective(s)
By the end of the lesson, students will be able to …
  1. Organize and collaborate productively in a small learning community (SLC).
  2. Evaluate Orwell’s claim, identifying possible counterclaims.
  3. Evaluate Orwell’s argument to consider the validity of his claim, the relevance of his evidence, and the logic of his reasoning.
  4. Draw conclusions about the authors’ purposes in making specific choices of evidence and reasoning and readers’ response to those choices.

Essential Question(s) and Overview
  • How do people hide their real meaning in their words?
  • What makes a source trustworthy?

Engage(10 minutes)
Description
  1. Students continue in the flexible groups from yesterday. If you need to rearrange the groups, now is the time to do it. Starting today, students will be continually building the product for the Performance Task that assesses their learning this week.
  2. Post these categories large enough for back-row reading. Consider a tic-tac-toe board.
  • Me
  • My family
  • My friends
  • My school
  • Mygovernment
  • World Politics
  • Social media
  • Popular media (TV, movies, magazines, songs, etc).
  1. A little drama please! Open a curtain, play a trumpet fanfare, lift the box—to reveal this line this line from “Politics and the English Language:
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.”
Be sure to make it large enough for everyone to read and showy enough for dramatic effect. Engage!
  1. Ask the whole class what they think this means. Do NOT provide the answer. Just follow up with probing questions or “Anyone else notice anything?” After a brief discussion to prime the pump…
  2. Students create examples of times in each of these categories when this statement is true. Options: Small Group Collaboration OR Individual Think, then Group Share
NOTE: Students should be taught to figure out their own organizational pattern for ideas. Scaffold for struggling students after informal formative assessment by teacher:
TicTacToe handout.
  1. Class debrief: What did you discover? More true than not? When do YOU muddy your speech or your writing because you don’t really care or because you want shade the truth?
  2. Make the point: Today we will look at part of an article written right after World War II about how people hide the truth by making their writing and speaking “fuzzy”. I want you to remember your readings from yesterday as you work with this text. Remember how different “truths” got told by different writers on the same subject. By the end of today you should be able to… [have students read the Learning Objectives and/or CCSS OR preview Evaluation rubric with them].
Materials/ Equipment
Digital access and projection equipment for dramatic entrance of quote (music, presentation slide)
OR:
Physical materials (giant box, drawstring curtain, Door #1…) for dramatic entrance of quote
Large print quote and Large print categories
Large print Essential Question and Learning Objectives
Optional: TicTacToe handout / Prior to class
Prior to class
Beginning of lesson
1 min
2 min
3-4 min
3-4 min
Explore(10-15 minutes)
  1. Students review their Task for Today. They clarify with each other WHY they are doing this, HOW they are to do it, and WHAT the outcome should be. They divide up topics and determine topics.
  2. Students explore George Orwell’s concepts as they read the text searching for information that applies to their topic. (Part 1 of Task for Today)
Teachable Moment: Remind students to use skimming and scanning skills.
Formative Assessment: Teacher circulates throughout the room during this time, helping redirect students and/or noting which students are having trouble with their reading and data collection. This will be valuable information for later on.
Materials/ Equipment
Task for Today handout or digital document
Data Collection Form
Orwell excerpt, handout or digital copy for each student
Resources
Excerpt from “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell Suggested excerpt : Click here to enter text.
Explain(10-15 min)
Description
Students discuss their findings from their readings as they collaborate on Part 2 of Task for Today. Outcome will be a list of their own Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning to answer the Essential Question on the Task for Today handout.
Formative Assessment: Teacher circulates throughout the room during this time, helping redirect students and/or noting which students are having trouble combining the group’s information. This will be valuable information for later on.
Materials/ Resources
Data Collection Form
Extend(10-15 min)
Description
  1. Teacher makes a smooth transition of purpose to this part of the class. Just a sentence or two will do it.
OR
Teacher creates dramatic moment by having Principal interrupt the class.
  1. Students view or receive their Task from the principal.
Note: If the principal is unavailable to deliver this message, reword it and have the API, the SIT Chair, or the Media/Newspaper teacher deliver the message.
  1. Students work in small groups to decide the best way to go about this and create a brief Work Plan.
> Students should be taught to ask their own questions and figure out their own answers for this strategy step. (Scaffold for struggling students: Things to Think Aboutfor creating their Work Plan.)
> Groups should design their own Work Plan. Do not provide a template or graphic organizer. This is part of DOK Level 3 and Bloom’s Level “Create”.
Materials/ Equipment
1. Principal’s Message: Choose one option
> pre-recorded video of principal giving the Principal’s Message (need digital access and projection equipment)
>Written letter from principal on school letterhead
>Principal comes to each class and presents Message in person
Resources
Handouts and charts
Evaluate(5-10 min)
Description
  1. Students conduct individual evaluations of their effort and achievement of the Common Core Standards.
Options:
  1. Highest Bloom’s level: Constructed Response Argument
How: Post the CCSS for today’s lesson. Tell students to rate themselves (1-4, beginning to mastery) on both their effort and their achievement for EACH standards. For each “claim”, require that they describe something they did as “evidence” for their rating. Teachable moment: point out that mastery is not an A. It’s mastery. Unless they have done an exercise such as this before, they probably haven’t mastered the skill, although they may have “mastered” full effort.
Alternate Allow students to choose 2 or 3 of the standards on which to evaluate themselves for effort or achievement. They will probably avoid the one they feel least comfortable with.
  1. Quickest Time: Rating Chart
How: Students mark their effort and achievement levels on the chart.
To raise the thinking level: Students must provide an example from their experience today as evidence for the validity of the rating they “claimed.”
Assessment
Class Closure or Homework
Students evaluate themselves
Teacher collects evaluation and adds a comment of descriptive feedback based on his/her formative assessment as “guide on the side.”
Resources
Same as above
Materials/ Equipment
Same as above / Homework or classwork

Wake County Public Schools

ME: / MY FAMILY: / MY FRIENDS:
MY SCHOOL: / “The great enemy
of clear language
is
insincerity.” / MY GOVERNMENT:
WORLD POLITICS / SOCIAL MEDIA / POPULAR MEDIA (music, movies, TV…)

Wake County Public Schools

Principal’s Message to be delivered

via video, in person, or cut/pasted onto school letterhead.

Group Work Plan

  • What’s the problem we have to solve?

  • What does the principal expect to see from us? What should our final product be?

  • What does the principal expect us to do to get information for our product?

  • What format should our product be in?

  • What steps do we need to take? (list and arrange in order)Where should we start?

  • Who should be responsible for each different parts?

  • What other things do we need to consider?

Things to Think About

Wake County Public Schools

Task for Today

Clear Language = Clear Thinking

Why are we doing this?

Orwell lived and wrote during the years before, during, and after World War 2.

…SO…What happened in the world before, during, and after WW2 that concerned him?

Well, think Hitler. Think Stalin. Think Franco.

Who are these people, you say?

They were dictators with totalitarian governments. Somehow they got good people to do atrocious things (think: Holocaust) so that they (Hitler, Stalin, Franco, etc.) could have

supreme powers.

Can this happen today????

Do you ever think about what might happen in the

US if one of “those guys” managed to manipulate

“good” people’s thinking?

How are we doing this?

Short version:

Read the essay, decide on an answer, prove it, and write a group response.

10 minutesPart 1: Explore!

  1. Choose a Subject for Investigation (see next page)
  2. Read the excerpt from George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”
  3. Collect your data. Be ready to share this with your team.

15 minutesPart 2: Explain! Elaborate!

  1. Prepare together to answer the Essential Question
  2. Define Claim. Counterclaim, Evidence, Reasoning for each other.
  3. Share your data from the text.
  4. Decide on an answer to the Essential Question.
  5. Combine your information to list ideas for anargument response that answers the Essential Question. You will not write a full essay.

Here’s what should be in your response:

  • Create your own Claim > This will be your group’s answer to the Essential Question
  • Provide Evidence > Use 3 or 4 pieces of data from your group’s informationto give information from the text that helps to prove your Claim. Be specific.
  • Provide Reasoning > Follow each piece of evidence with a short explanation of WHY that evidence proves your Claim.

Subjects for Investigation

Each Team Member Chooses a Different One

Is the evidence relevant?

Is the evidence sufficient?

Is the reasoning logical?

Data Collection Form
Find text details and include them as your data.
Everyone:What is Orwell’s Claim*? Write the claim* in your own words.
You will have to put this together on your own. Orwell may not state it in so many words.
*Claim: the author’s assertion or main point that she wants you to believe.
Is the evidence* relevant*?
Yes or no?
*Evidence – details, examples, statistics that back up the Claim.
*Relevant – do they relate to the Claim the author is making? Do they actually help prove his point? / Examples/details that are relevant / Examples/details that are not really relevant
Is the evidence* sufficient*?
Yes or no?
*Evidence= details, examples, statistics that back up the Claim.
*Sufficient= Are there enough details, examples, statistics to prove the point the author is trying to make? / Too much or overdone? / Need more of?
Is the reasoning* logical?
Yes or no?
* Reasoning = explanation that says WHY this Evidence proves this Claim / What makes sense / What’s kind of sketchy or left out

How Did I Do?

Rate yourself on how well you did
in achieving the course standards for this day’s learning.
◊
Your rating is your Claim.
Provide one example as Evidence for each of your Claims.
◊
You will be scored on the evidence you provide, not on the rating you give yourself.
I participated effectively on my learning team by adding ideas onto other people’s ideas and making sure everyone understood my point of view. If people didn’t understand, I restated my ideas in ways that made sense to them.
  • Developing
/
  • Proficient
/
  • Accomplished
/
  • Distinguished
/ Evidence:
I tried my best to figure out George Orwell’s ideas. If I ran into a roadblock in my understanding, I did not give up. I asked someone else, or thought of a different way to approach the question.
  • Developing
/
  • Proficient
/
  • Accomplished
/
  • Distinguished
/ Evidence:
I can explain what a Claim is, what Evidence is, and what Reasoning is.
  • Developing
/
  • Proficient
/
  • Accomplished
/
  • Distinguished
/ Evidence:
I can explain whether an author’s Claim is valid by examining whether the Evidence is relevant and sufficient and whether the Reasoning clearly explains WHY the Evidence helps to prove the Claim.
  • Developing
/
  • Proficient
/
  • Accomplished
/
  • Distinguished
/ Evidence:
I can explain reasons that an author might choose to include sketchy Evidence and/or fuzzy Reasoning when s/he is writing an article about Obamacare or anything else. I can explain why an author might try to hide his/her real meaning in the words and examples s/he chooses.
  • Developing
/
  • Proficient
/
  • Accomplished
/
  • Distinguished
/ Evidence:
I can explain what makes a source trustworthy, and what makes a source untrustworthy.
  • Developing
/
  • Proficient
/
  • Accomplished
/
  • Distinguished
/ Evidence:

Wake County Public Schools