Dana McArthur-Maggard
CI 548
2 March 2011
Summary for “The Bishop’s Candlesticks” Fact/Opinion Lesson
SCHOOL This lesson was designed for a Read/Write Lab at Aloha high school (AHS) which is located in a residential community in an unincorporated part of Washington County between the cities of Beaverton and Hillsboro. At AHS there is a strong emphasis placed on ensuring students pass OAKS. The school has a high percentage of Hispanic students (28%); eleven out of the twenty-three students in Read/Write Lab are Hispanic. There are four students who are currently receiving services from the ESL department (two of whom are Level One ELLS), and approximately 25% of the students are non-native English speakers. Four of the students in the class are on IEPs.
GRADE 11th Grade
PURPOSE/RATIONALE READ/Write Lab is a course specifically created for juniors who did not pass OAKS Reading during their sophomore year. The class is designed to teach students the skills they need to pass the OAKS and/or a reading work sample in order to ensure that they fulfill the reading proficiency requirement for graduation. To achieve this goal, students must be able to distinguish between fact and opinion and understand the significance of the differences between the two. Armed with a deeper understanding of how to analyze texts, students will become more proficient readers and will therefore have a greater chance of passing their reading work samples and/or OAKS Reading. These skills will help them in their lives past high school as well, assisting them to think more critically about what they read, see, and hear.
GOAL To teach students to be able to
· Distinguish fact from opinion.
· Recognize the use of fact/opinion as a tool of persuasion.
· Be critical readers; questioning what they read and asking why the writer is writing.
CURRICULUM FRAMING QUESTIONS:
1. Essential questions:
o What is justice?
o What qualities make a good judge?
2. Unit questions:
o Is it a fact or an opinion?
o How do you know it is a fact/opinion?
o Why is it important to be able to tell fact from opinion?
o Compare _____ to ______. What are the similarities? What are the differences?
3. Lesson questions:
o Jean Valjean served 19 years in prison for stealing a loaf a bread. How does that make you feel? Do you think justice was served? Why or why not?
o Why do you think the author made Mme. Magloire say so many things the reader would dislike, and the Bishop say so many things we see as positive? (or Which character do you think the author wants us to like? Why does the author want us to like that character and not the other?)
o What kind of judge is the Bishop? Madame Magloire?
o Do you think the author wants you to agree with what the Bishop did? Do you agree with what the Bishop did? Why or why not?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
· Students will be able to successfully discern fact from opinion.
· Students will be able to explain how they discerned fact from opinion.
· Students will be able to see the importance of distinguishing fact from opinion.
· Students will understand how fact and opinion are used to persuade an audience.
CONTEXT OF LESSON This two-day lesson is part of a larger (seven class) unit focusing on analyzing a variety of texts through 1) comparing/ contrasting and 2) discerning fact from opinion. All of the lessons and readings center around the idea of justice and what qualities make a good judge; prior to these two days of lessons, the students already focused on comparing and contrasting (specifically comparing and contrasting different judges, and strictness versus mercy). These are the first lessons in the unit that deal with fact and opinion. At the end of the lesson, students are asked to use their knowledge of fact/opinion in comparing and contrasting the two primary characters, which brings the two key elements of the unit together and ties the lessons to the essential questions surrounding justice (by the same token—in the following lesson—students read an essay by Judge Judy in which the author uses her strong opinions to attempt to persuade the reader; Judge Judy’s opinions are also key in comparing her to the other “judges” the students have read about during the unit). Prior to this lesson, the students have also been acquainted with the unit vocabulary through various activities and completion of vocab squares.