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Lesson 3

We will use our outlines to complete our character analysis drafts.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, evidence, and visual elements to support and elaborate on coherent and logical narratives, explanations, and arguments?

  • Can I sequence and group sentences and paragraphs and use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, and evidence to establish coherent, logical, and well-developed explanations?

Texts

Core

  • Tradebook
    • Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, Penguin Random House, 1994

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Write

We will employ transitions between ideas in our drafts.

Transitions are used to connect ideas in your writing. They offer the reader a roadmap for where you are going in your essay.

There are many different ways to use transitional phrases:

  • to emphasize

  • to compare

  • to contrast

  • to show a sequence

  • to show cause and effect

  • to show conditions

Use the Connecting Ideas Reference Guide to pick at least five transitional phrases that you will use in your essay.

Activity 2: Write

We will determine which vocabulary words and which sentence styles we plan to use on our Culminating Task essays.

Step 1

Review your Vocabulary Journal. Identify significant words that you would like to use in your response to the Culminating Task.

Step 2

Review your Mentor Sentence Journal. Select at least one technique that you plan to use when drafting your response to the Culminating Task.

Activity 3: Write

We will write drafts of our character analysis essays.

Draft your Culminating Task essay. As you work on the draft, you might come up with new ideas. Refer to your outline and add or remove analysis and examples as you see fit. If you notice your analysis is going in a different direction than you expected, revisit your thesis and decide whether it needs to be changed or modified. Share your essay draft with your teacher to get feedback as you write or ask a classmate to review your writing and provide you with comments. Take a break and examine a classmate’s essay to see if it sparks any ideas and to give them helpful feedback.

For homework, prepare a hard copy of your essay.