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Lesson 3

We will peer review and revise support of our controlling idea in our Culminating Task essays.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I identify the claims, reasoning, and evidence used to develop an explanation about Wilkerson’s use of structure in The Warmth of Other Suns?

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

Texts

Core

  • Tradebook
    • The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson, Vintage Books, 2010

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Read – Discuss

We will engage in a peer review of our content, deconstructing our support paragraphs to help us strengthen and revise them.

Step 1

Trade drafts with a partner.

Deconstruct each of the support paragraphs, determining the function of each sentence. (You might have done this with a model in the previous lesson.) Then jot down some notes about how effective your partner’s controlling idea and support are. Also note how your partner can improve. Refer to the knowledge and skills list to help direct your feedback. Be ready to share your ideas with your partner.

Step 2

Take turns reviewing and discussing the results of the deconstruction activity and your feedback notes. Be sure to ask questions or ask for additional information as needed to understand the feedback and its implications for revision.

Share your ideas during a whole-class discussion to help develop your knowledge about supporting your ideas in your own essays.

Activity 2: Read – Discuss

We will analyze the model essay’s introduction, conclusion, and organization to help us finish our own drafts.

Working with your assigned group, complete the analysis of your assigned section of the model essay. Be ready to share your findings with the whole group.

Organization:

  1. How do the introduction and conclusion help with the overall organization?

  2. What words, phrases, or sentences help the reader make connections, move through the content, and understand how the pieces all fit together? What would happen if those were removed?

Introduction:

  1. What do you notice about how the introduction begins and how it ends?

  2. What do you notice about the purpose of each sentence, about the purpose of the main parts of the introduction, and about the purpose of the controlling idea?

Conclusion:

  1. What do you notice about how the conclusion begins and about how it ends?

  2. What do you notice about the purpose of each sentence and about the main parts of the conclusion?

Share your group’s findings with the whole class.

Activity 3: Write

We will begin drafting our conclusion and introduction and revising our support paragraphs.

Individually, begin planning and drafting your conclusion and introduction and revising your support paragraphs. Use your Note-Taking Tools and all preparatory notes. Consult with an elbow partner as needed to work through and discuss your ideas and approaches.

You might notice that you are drafting the introduction near the end of your writing process, and you might be wondering why. Though introductions are the first thing readers read, they are often the last section writers write. Your introduction introduces your work to your reader—and in order to introduce the work, the work has to exist. Can you introduce someone you do not know? By drafting out the rest of your essay, you now know it and are better positioned to introduce your paper.

Activity 4: Write

For homework, revise support paragraphs based on peer review feedback and draft your conclusion and introduction sections.

For homework, revise support paragraphs based on peer review feedback and draft your conclusion and introduction sections. Be ready to share in your peer review in the next lesson and receive feedback on the whole essay regarding coherence, unity, and organization.

Bring in one printed copy of your essay for the next lesson.