Skip to Main Content

Lesson 6

We will analyze “Baseball for Life” and form claims. We will also develop supporting claims and use evidence from the text to support these claims. In our evidence, we will practice the use of rhetorical devices (i.e., ethos, logos, and pathos) to help support our claims. We will utilize the Organizing Evidence Tool to help organize our ideas for this activity.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I identify and evaluate the effects of literary devices and rhetoric in “Baseball for Life?”

  • Can I develop and clearly communicate meaningful and defensible claims that represent valid, evidence-based analysis?

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

Texts

Core

  • Unit Reader
    • “Baseball for Life,” Sara Corbett, The New York Times Company, 2006
  • Tradebook
    • Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger, Da Capo Press, 1990

Materials

Tools

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Write

We will apply the claim we developed on the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool and apply it to the Organizing Evidence Tool. We will identify evidence from the article that directly supports our central claim. We will then form supporting claims with supporting evidence from the text. We will focus on using rhetorical devices, including ethos, logos, and pathos, in our development.

Copy the central claim your group developed on the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool in the previous lesson to the Organizing Evidence Tool.

Independently, identify three pieces of evidence from "Baseball for Life" that supports this claim and write them down on the Organizing Evidence Tool.

Considering the central claim, the evidence, and the information on your Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool, identify supporting claims from the text and supporting evidence. Write down this on the Organizing Evidence Tool. As you do this, consider the types of rhetorical devices you have analyzed and apply this to your decisions. Explain this in the Analyze the Evidence section.

Activity 2: Read

We will use the information we gathered by completing the Organizing Evidence Tool to write a response to a writing prompt. We will go from forming and identifying claims and supporting evidence and forming claims using supporting evidence to writing about an author’s use of rhetoric to support a claim.

Using the information you gathered on the Organizing Evidence Tool, write a response in your Learning Log to the following question:

  1. According to "Baseball for Life," are young athletes being prepared for the real world?

Activity 3: Read

For homework, we will read chapter 15 of Friday Night Lights.

For homework, read and annotate Chapter 15 in Friday Night Lights, using the following question to guide your reading:

  1. How is Gary Edwards’s Algebra II grade a symbol for Bissinger’s purposes for writing Friday Night Lights?

Be sure to write down new or interesting words in your Vocabulary Journal.

Write down sentences that stand out to you as interesting or that represent a strong example of a particular concept you have learned in your Mentor Sentence Journal.